A tool for modernisation? The Boer concentration camps of the South African war 1900-1902

While not denying the tragedy of the high mortality of people in the concentration camps in the South African War of 1899–1902, this article suggests that, for Lord Milner and the British Colonial Office, the camps became a means of introducing the rural society of the Boers to the facilities of modern life. To some extent they became, in effect, part of Milner’s project for ‘civilising’ and assimilating the Boers into British colonial society. The high mortality rate was finally contained through the introduction of a modern public health system, including the use of statistics and the employment of qualified doctors and nurses. Young Boer women working in the camp hospitals as nurse aids were trained as ‘probationers’ and classes in infant and child care were offered to the Boer mothers. In addition, the need for adequate water supplies and effective sanitation meant that an infrastructure was established in the camps that familiarised the Boers with modern sanitary routines and left a legacy of more substantial services for the Transvaal and Orange Free State villages

A tool for modernisation? The Boer concentration camps of the South African War, 1900 - 1902

While not denying the tragedy of the high mortality of people in the concentration camps in the South African War of 1899 - 1902, this article suggests that, for Lord Milner and the British Colonial Office, the camps became a means of introducing the rural society of the Boers to the facilities of modern life. To some extent they became, in effect, part of Milner's project for 'civilising' and assimilating the Boers into British colonial society. The high mortality rate was finally contained through the introduction of a modern public health system, including the use of statistics and the employment of qualified doctors and nurses. Young Boer women working in the camp hospitals as nurse aids were trained as 'probationers' and classes in infant and child care were offered to the Boer mothers. In addition, the need for adequate water supplies and effective sanitation meant that an infrastructure was established in the camps that familiarised the Boers with modern sanitary routines and left a legacy of more substantial services for the Transvaal and Orange Free State villages.Author comment: My article was never intended to denigrate Afrikaners in any way. The republican Boers were caught up in an unjust war and they suffered dreadful losses as a result. However, I have argued elsewhere that many of the farm families, who had had little contact with modern preventive medicine, functioned within a different cultural world from the British who ran the camps. I have discussed this in much more detail in the following article: Van Heyningen E. Women and disease. The clash of medical cultures in the concentration camps of the South African War. In: Cuthbertson G, Grundlingh A, Suttie M-L, editors. Writing a wider war. Rethinking gender, race, and identity in the South African War, 1899 - 1902. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002; p. 186 - 212. A shorter version of the article has also been published in Van Heyningen E. British doctors versus Boer women: Clash of medical cultures. In: Pretorius F, editor. Scorched Earth. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 2001; p. 78 - 197. There is also an Afrikaans version of this book published under the title of Verskroeide aarde. The same ideas are discussed by Professor Pretorius and myself in the documentary Scorched Earth which has been aired several times recently on the History Channel of DSTV

Public health and society in Cape Town, 1880-1910

Bibliography: leaves 499-534.This thesis is a contribution to the social history of medicine and to urban history. It attempts to examine the impact of public health reform on Cape Town society between 1880 and 1910. Accepting the argument that the control of disease is one of the means by which a dominant establishment may assert its authority and impose its ideology in a society, it contends that ideas about the organisation of society were transmitted from metropolitan Britain to the Cape Colony partly through the implementation of public health reform but that such notions became modified in the process. It concludes that health reform was one means by which imperial control was maintained in South Africa and a segregated society was implemented. The "sanitation syndrome" was more than a metaphor. It was a powerful agency for change because it was deeply embedded in the consciousness of Victorian society and provided a scientific rationalisation for the separation of the races and the assertion of white, British, dominance. Topics include the creation of a medical profession at the Cape; the effect of health panics caused by the smallpox epidemic of 1882 and the plague epidemic of 1901 on social relations in the city; the impact of the closure of the cemeteries and the introduction of the Contagious Diseases Acts on different communities in the city; the creation of bureaucracies in local and central government; and mortality in the early twentieth century

The concentration camps of the South African War: A social history

Although the issue of the concentration camps of the South African War remains hugely significant to Afrikaners, there has been surprisingly little research on them. This course will provide a new look at the camps, by locating them in the context of the late nineteenth century colonial world and drawing on a range of archival sources. Since high mortality was the great tragedy of the camps, a major focus will be a fresh look at the deaths, their causes and the reasons for the decline in mortality. There were more black camps than white camps and their history has been as much a political toy as that of the white camps. The course will attempt to place the story of the black camp inmates into perspective. It will conclude by considering the legacy of the camps, from the erection of the Vrouemonument to post-apartheid reconciliation and the forging of a new Afrikaner identity. LECTURE TITLES 1. Was there ground glass in the sugar? Looking at the history of the camps 2. Meat, milk, measles and mortality: disease and death 3. Drunken British doctors and Boer probationers: the practice of medicine 4. ‘Hewers of wood and drawers of water’: the black camps in perspective 5. The legacy of the camps Recommended reading Spies, S.B. 1977. Methods of Barbarism? Roberts and Kitchener and Civilians in the Boer Republics January 1900–May 1902. Cape Town: Human & Rousseau. Van Heyningen, E.B. 2013. The Concentration Camps of the Anglo-Boer War: A Social History. Auckland Park: Jacana

The "small Greek cities" of the Cape Peninsula.

• Opsomming: Teen die einde van die negentiende eeu was dit duidelik dat dit noodsaaklik was om die talle klein munisipaliteite in die Kaapse Skiereiland te reorganiseer. Met dit in gedagte is die Kaapse Skiereiland-kommissie van 1902 aangestel om die toedrag van sake te ondersoek en aanbevelings te maak om die situasie te verbeter. In die meerderheidsverslag is aangedring op die vereniging van die meeste van hierdie dorpe in een liggaam, terwyl die minderheidsverslag twee kleiner korporasies voorgestel het. Ten spyte van die interafhanklikheid van die munisipaliteite ten opsigte van basiese dienste, is nie een van die voorstelle van die Kommissie aanvaar nie omdat die munisipaliteite verbete aan hulle selfbeskikkingsreg gekleef en alle verandering teengestaan het.• Summary: At the turn of the nineteenth century the numerous small municipalities of the Cape Peninsula were clearly in need of reorganisation. For this reason the Cape Peninsula Commission of 1902 was instituted to investigate the position and make recommendations for improvement. The majority report urged the amalgamation of most of the towns into a single body, while the minority report suggested two smaller corporations. Neither recommendation was adopted, however, for despite their dependence on one another for basic utilities the municipalities clung fiercely to their autonomy and resisted any change