This paper develops an explicitly materialist analysis of the ‘rentier chieftaincy’ by drawing on Marx's theory of modern landed property. It argues that the colonial formation of ‘tribal’ land relations may be understood in relation to the subjugation of African labour to colonial capital, which in turn unintentionally created a potential barrier against investment on tribal land, and hence the conditions for the chiefly appropriation of ground rent. However, the extent to which chiefs could exercise an effective land monopoly in relation to capital was at the same time conditional upon the extent of their proprietorial control in relation to both the subject population and the central state. The politically conditional nature of this chiefly monopoly is captured in the formulation ‘tribal‐landed property’, which is illustrated and developed through a case study of the changing economic relationship between the Bafokeng chieftaincy and mining capital on the South African platinum belt. It is concluded that this may have wider application in the context of accelerating investment over ‘communal’ land and intensifying struggles for its exclusive control, since these are potentially also struggles over the distribution of the surplus value produced by land‐based capitals.