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The War at Home: Women and families in the Anglo-Boer War
During the Anglo-Boer War, the conflict between the British and the Boers spilled over from the battlefield to the farmsteads of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. The internment of women and children in concentration camps was part of a total war waged by the British Empire not only against the republican forces, but also civilians.
Perilous conditions and overcrowding in many camps led to thousands of deaths and untold suffering. The trauma this caused unleashed intense emotions among Afrikaners, which were destined to cast a long shadow into the future.
In the year in which the Women's Monument in Bloemfontein celebrates its centenary, The War at Home explores the causes and the character of the tragic wartime experiences that the monument was established to commemorate.
Perilous conditions and overcrowding in many camps led to thousands of deaths and untold suffering. The trauma this caused unleashed intense emotions among Afrikaners, which were destined to cast a long shadow into the future.
In the year in which the Women's Monument in Bloemfontein celebrates its centenary, The War at Home explores the causes and the character of the tragic wartime experiences that the monument was established to commemorate.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
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January 15, 2014
A collection of essays and historic photographs that offers a fresh perspective on how women and children were affected by hostilities during the Anglo-Boer (South African) War. Deeply moving, shocking and enlightening, this is an important book, and gives insight into oft-forgotten history that has, in so many ways, shaped the national psyche.
Particularly harrowing are the rare accounts of women and children being raped as an act of war - by both British soldiers and their black supporters and retainers (combatants and non-combatants). Also deeply disturbing is the scope of Kitchener's scorched earth policy - and the realization that 40 towns and 30,000 farms and smallholdings (including homesteads, crops, cattle and equipment) were destroyed during the last two years of the war.
In terms of the concentration camps, the book deals with white, black and mixed camps (ancestral family of mine were interned in the mixed camp at Kimberley).
The mortality rate in these camps, especially amongst children, was very high. Nearly 28,000 white people and between 14,000 and 20,000 black people died over a two-year period. At the time, the population of the two Boer republics was about 1.8 million (source: Wikipedia), with approximately 600,000 being white and 1.2 million being black. This means that approximately 4.6% of the white population and 1.6% of the black population of the two republics died in the camps. In contemporary terms - and based on national population figures - that would equate to 2.4 million and 832,000 people respectively, which puts these figures into stark perspective.
A real eye-opener for me was the fact that early black nationalists - from so-called native congresses that would later become the foundation of the ANC - 'aligned their loyalty and hopes to the imperial cause in the war'! (More about this in the book.) Given ANC rhetoric about imperialism and colonialism today, I was amazed to read about this hidden history. And if Afrikaner republicans went through a genocide that was not only unleashed by a colonial power but supported by black nationalists, that would explain a lot about later events in South Africa.
All of which goes to show that there's more to our collective history than we know, and that it's important for us all to investigate it further in order to understand the challenges of the present better.
Particularly harrowing are the rare accounts of women and children being raped as an act of war - by both British soldiers and their black supporters and retainers (combatants and non-combatants). Also deeply disturbing is the scope of Kitchener's scorched earth policy - and the realization that 40 towns and 30,000 farms and smallholdings (including homesteads, crops, cattle and equipment) were destroyed during the last two years of the war.
In terms of the concentration camps, the book deals with white, black and mixed camps (ancestral family of mine were interned in the mixed camp at Kimberley).
The mortality rate in these camps, especially amongst children, was very high. Nearly 28,000 white people and between 14,000 and 20,000 black people died over a two-year period. At the time, the population of the two Boer republics was about 1.8 million (source: Wikipedia), with approximately 600,000 being white and 1.2 million being black. This means that approximately 4.6% of the white population and 1.6% of the black population of the two republics died in the camps. In contemporary terms - and based on national population figures - that would equate to 2.4 million and 832,000 people respectively, which puts these figures into stark perspective.
A real eye-opener for me was the fact that early black nationalists - from so-called native congresses that would later become the foundation of the ANC - 'aligned their loyalty and hopes to the imperial cause in the war'! (More about this in the book.) Given ANC rhetoric about imperialism and colonialism today, I was amazed to read about this hidden history. And if Afrikaner republicans went through a genocide that was not only unleashed by a colonial power but supported by black nationalists, that would explain a lot about later events in South Africa.
All of which goes to show that there's more to our collective history than we know, and that it's important for us all to investigate it further in order to understand the challenges of the present better.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review