The Anglo-Boer War: The British “Concentration Camps”

History 242 – March 26th, 2008

Emily A. Gatlin

The Age of Imperialism (1850-1914) marked an era of mass colonization across the

globe by western European countries. Imperialistic Great Britain sought African colonization

guided by the economically based ideological framework of the ―New Imperialism.‖ The

abundance of rare minerals within Africa attracted British imperialists. In the Orange Free State

and South African Republic, British settlers faced opposition from the pre-existing Dutch

inhabitants, the Boers, over the African treasures. In 1899, conflicts between the Boers and

British erupted; thus, beginning the Boer War. During the Boer War, the British created

segregated ―camps‖ to temporarily house captured Boers and Africans. By the end of the war,

20,000-40,000 women and children died in these ―refugees‖ camps while the remaining

survivors endured subhuman living conditions. According to the 1990s South African

Constitutional Court Judge, Albie Sachs, ―any history of a human rights culture had to take into

account the fate of the women and children in the concentration camps‖ (Nasson 2000, 155). It

is crucial to recognize the important precedent the Boer War set for the treatment of political

opponents and racist viewpoints. J.A. Marais, son of a Boer prisoner-of-war victim, stated to

Bill Nasson that ―the most valuable commemoration of the outbreak of the Boer War would be to

bring down history and spiritual law upon the memory of a ‗British Hitler‘ [British General Lord

Kitchener] in South Africa, guilty of ‗genocide‘ for his anti-guerrilla tactic of concentration

camps‖ (Nasson 2000, 151). According The British ―camps‖ would later inspire the

concentration camps employed by Hitler‘s Nazis. The Boer War‘s most significant historical

impact was setting the precedent for governments committing institutionalized crimes against

humanity.

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The ―New Imperialism‖ advocated social reform in order to create higher standards of

living for colonized peoples. This liberal ideology dominated the popular mentalities about

British superiority that allowed ―even the poorest of British travelers [to]…take pride in the fact

that they were considered…the moral guardians of the realm‖ (Hasian 2003). Therefore, the

British government charged forward with the quest to control the South African diamond and

rare mineral resources through colonization. However, the Dutch beat the British as the first

Europeans to want the South African diamond and mineral wealth. Therefore, popular leaders

like ―Joseph Chamberlain and Alfred Milner argued that the British troops were going to have to

intervene…because the Boers were not protecting the rights of the ―Uitlanders‖ [workers] that

traveled this region‖ (Hasian 2003). Soon, the British began the conflict known as the Boer War

against the Anglo-Dutch settlers already present in South Africa. The conflict over control of

South Africa ensued. At the beginning of the conflict, the British military leader, Lord Kitchener

employed the ―scorched-earth‖ policy as the dominant military strategy. The scorched-earth war

tactic employed by the British military displaced many Boers from their homes (Sachs 1973).

Lord Kitchener burned land and resources in the effort to defeat the Boers (De Pauw 1998, 194).

One British soldier provides a description of enacting the scorched-earth policy stating,

The men belonging to the farm are always away and only the women left. Of these there

are often three or four generations: grandmother, mother, and family of girls. The boys

over thirteen or fourteen are usually fighting with their papas. The people are

disconcertingly like English, especially the girls and children—fair and big and healthy-

looking. These folk we invite out onto the veldt or into the little garden in front, where

they huddle together in their cotton frocks and big sunbonnets, while our men set fire to

the house. Sometimes they entreat that it may be spared, and once or twice in an agony

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of rage, they have invoked curses on our heads. But this is quite the exception. As a rule

they make no sign, and simply look on and say nothing" (De Pauw 1998, 194).

Clearly, the brutality employed affected the soldiers participating in the harsh warfare tactic.

Although the public did not generally favor the viciousness militant strategy, they reluctantly

recognized its effectiveness (Hasian 2003, 156). However, now the military faced the

problematic situation of many war refugees like Boer women and children displaced from the

homes by the destructive practices. Eventually, the military leader, Lord Kitchener arrived at the

seemingly ―ideal‖ solution to keep away the Boer women and children from the battle zones.

In order to try to keep the Anglo-Boer women and children away from the direct conflict,

Lord Kitchener devised the concept of camps to house the refugees or ―temporary structures‖

(Hasian 2003). This outlined plan ―entailed establishing concentration camps near railroad lines

for the civilians made homeless by his land clearance so that they could be easily supplied and

defended. Eventually there were about fifty of these camps with a total inmate population of

about 120,000‖ (De Pauw 1998, 195). These camps would provide comfortable

accommodations to the new Boer prisoners (De Pauw 1998). The British first set up camps for

those who ―surrendered voluntarily‖ in places like Pretoria and Bloemfontein whose location

kept them away from the Boer guerillas (Hasian 2003). By the end of the Boer War, there were

camps in India and Bermuda as well (Pretorius 2006, 31). Lord Kitchener explained that the

Boers required deportation because ―we should then only have the surrendering burghers left and

the country would be safe and available for white colonists‖ (Hasian 2003, 152). In these camps

at various locations, the British commander over the camp enforced strict discipline with

attitudes that ranged from ―courteous‖ to ―brutal‖ (Pretorius 2006, 32). The camp commander

controlled ―the feeding of prisoners, discipline, medical services, postal arrangements, and

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sanitary measures‖ (Pretorius 2006, 32). The new lifestyle posed major lifestyle shifts for the

Boer prisoners. The Boers owned farms in South Africa and in the camps, they experienced

―sudden confinement, the foreignness, the routine, the military discipline, and the idleness‖

(Pretorius 2006, 32). These camps and the high mortality rate, particularly of children endowed

a legacy of hatred in the Afrikaners toward the British (Higginson 2001). The sudden shift to

subordination allowed many prisoners to forge new ties with one another as they experienced the

same conditions (Pretorius 2006, 32).

Clearly, these temporary lodgings were far from benign. In Battle Cries and Lullabies:

Women in War From Prehistory to the Present, Linda Grant DePauw describes these

―temporary‖ camps stating:

Kitchener's soldiers applied the land clearance policy to them as well. By the end of the

war, more than fifty concentration camps for Africans housed an estimated eighty

thousand inmates, most of them women and children. The mortality rate in these camps

was also high, but no one ever investigated them and no reliable statistics exist. In her

book, The Brunt of War and Where it Fell, Emily Hobhouse stated that 13,315 Africans

died in the camps, but she never visited one, and her figures probably underestimate the

actual number (De Pauw 1998, 198).

One female leader of the South African Women and Children Fund, Emily Hobhouse soon

became the primary spokesperson regarding the Boers‘ inhumane treatment. She became the

prominent humanitarian activist to document the unjust treatment of the Boers by the British

(Hasian 2003). Like the majority of the public, she did not know about the use of concentration

camps for the Boer women and children in South Africa. In the December of 1900, Hobhouse

traveled to South Africa to deliver the SAWCF aid to the women and children. Completely

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aghast at the horrible conditions, Hobhouse wrote about the Bloemfontein camps stating, ―Boer

women and children were suffering from malnutrition, measles, bronchitis, dysentery, typhoid,

and other ailments‖ (Hasian 2003). After witnessing these atrocities present in South Africa,

Hobhouse returned to England in May to expose the British mistreatment of the Boers (De Pauw

1998, 198). She wished to show that the British interment of the Boers did not offer the

benevolent treatment that for the war refugees.

Before Emily Hobhouse published her observations, much of Great Britain remained

unaware of the atrocities occurring in South Africa. However, her publications soon sparked an

active cry to end the injustices occurring to the Boers, and predominantly feminist humanitarians

promoted governmental policy that improved the ―concentration camp‖ conditions (Hasian

2003). Immediately upon arriving back in Great Britain, Hobhouse published a document for the

Distress Committee. In this report, she described the inhumane living conditions in the Boer

refugee camps, detailing the lack of soap and water, inadequate sleeping accommodations,

proliferation of vermin and even a ―venomous puff adder‖ or African viper (De Pauw 1998,

197). An excerpt from Emily Hobhouse‘s submitted report expresses her strong call to

reformation of the military‘s policies stating,

I call this camp system wholesale cruelty. It can never be wiped out from the memories

of the people. It presses hardest on the children. . . . To keep these camps going is

murder for the children (De Pauw 1998, 197).

Thus, she strongly influenced the current governmental leaders to support reversal of Lord

Kitchener‘s policies. Emily Hobhouse also aided the strong politically liberal ―anti-imperialism‖

sentiment. For instance, ―two radical Parliament members C.P. Scott and John Ellis had used the

phrase "concentration camps" for the first time in English referring to the laagers in South

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Africa‖ (Everdell 1997, 121). Further public outcry continued as the British desired to retain

their moral honor and dignity (Hasian 2003). As stated by Edinburgh‘s Gore in 1901, ―the

honour of our country will contract a stain which we will not be to obliterate‖ without the

removal of the concentration camps (Hasian 2003, 156). Other political leaders joined in the

advocating of humane treatment to the Boers. For example, leader of the Liberal shadow-

cabinet, Henry Campbell-Bannerman called the British camp policies "methods of barbarism"

(Everdell 1997, 121). In addition to aiding to awareness and activism to end the Boer

concentration camps, Emily Hobhouse‘s publications caused widespread controversy.

Opponents against Hobhouse classified her as a ―hysterical‖ female that largely exacerbated

accounts about Boer camps (Hasian 2003, 150). By debunking Emily Hobhouse, the British

sought to restore the military‘s reputation to the public (Hasian 2003, 151). The lack of

patriotism to Great Britain demonstrated by Hobhouse‘s outcry for the Afrikaners also caused

many citizens to question her motives (Hasian 2003, 153). More controversy occurred as South

African accounts strongly opposed any account of mistreatment by the British (De Pauw 1998,

198).

A huge controversy remains about the validity of the Boer concentration camps as many

scholars argue that the term conjures incorrect images along with faulty memories shaped by the

modern events. In the article, ―Aftermaths: Post/Memory, Commemoration and the

Concentration Camps of the South African War 1899-1902,‖ Liz Stanley and Helen Dampier use

one description as an example of ―exaggeration‖ that stated

…people were unloaded into open cattle trucks and sent…to concentration camps… A

picture shocking in its stark detail and one that could have come out of Nazi Germany‘s

death camps…more than half a century…[before] the charnel houses of Belsen,

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Auschwitz, and Dachau…the images of pathetic, skeletal bodies still churn the

sensitivities (Stanley and Dampier 2005, 92).

This depiction clearly displays the influence of the Nazi Germany atrocities. Thus, Stanley and

Dampier further stress the extreme danger of the term ―concentration camp.‖ Using abstracts

from contemporary documents demonstrating the voluntary nature that the Boers entered the

camps. For example, an extract from Sir Alfred Milner, the High Commissioner, stated, ―several

applications have recently been received…asking permission to spend ‗their‘ holidays in these

camps‖ (Stanley and Dampier 2005, 93). In this context, the Boers voluntarily entered the camps

(Stanley and Dampier 2005). Similarly, the variation that occurred in treatment from the camp

commander often documented ―compassion‖ (Hasian 2003, 152). The mistreatment of the Boers

is undeniable; however, it does not at all equal the widespread destruction of the German

Holocaust (Stanley and Dampier 2005). Another problem that exists with the direct comparison

of the Boer concentration camps in the same context as the Nazi German death camps arises

from the fallacy of human memory. Stanley and Dampier stress in the article that ―memory or

rather what people choose to call memory, is in some sense transferred from one generation to

another in a complex way‖ (Stanley and Dampier 2005, 94). Therefore, the dominant cultural

exposures often obscure memory recollections of experienced events, particularly those

involving extreme emotional and traumatic stress (Stanley and Dampier 2005). The Boer War‘s

concentrations camps influenced those death camps in Nazi Germany‘s Holocaust, but it is

critical to see that they are not equal. Therefore, the ―concentration camp‖ term retains high

controversy according to some scholars.

Another controversy involving the Boer concentration camps by the British involves the

dismissal of the African prisoners and racist treatment during the Boer War. Lord Kitchener

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expresses racist sentiment by describing the Boers as ―uncivilized Afrikaner savages with only a

thin white veneer‖ (Hasian 2003, 152). Furthermore, the Boer War journalists‘ descriptions of

the ― tall, hefty Boer farmers [that] faced British enlisted men who were under five feet tall and

weighing less than seven stone two pounds (100 pounds)‖ induced a call for national efficiency,

manliness and the need for British adolescents to keep their racial tools clean‖ (Watts 1997,

145). This expressed the dominating social Darwinist ideas in Great Britain. Thus, the Boer

War aided in the establishment of racism contingent upon the color of skin in South Africa. This

dismissed racial aspect highly influenced the formation of modern South Africa. According to

Bill Nasson, the ―Anglo-Boer War laid the foundations for the South African Union in 1910 and

the form[ed] the Anglo-Afrikaner white segregationist state‖ (Nasson 2000, 149). Therefore, the

influence of white supremacy remains evident within South Africa today (Nasson 2000). Lastly,

the other key controversy regarding race exists within the dismissal of the African prisoners in

the Boer War of 1899-1902. It is important to see the African presence below the surface

(Stanley and Dampier 2005, 99). Although the graves do not display the deaths of Africans, one

explanation lies in the placement of ―English‖ names (Stanley and Dampier 2005, 101). Other

explanations regarding the undocumented African presence stems from those born of mixed

racial relations between the South Africans and Boer settlers (Stanley and Dampier 2005, 102).

To support these claims, archaeological evidence concurs with the African presence in the

prisoner camps. For instance, the reported archaeological find by J. Dreyer at Brandfort contains

a cemetery associated with the African concentration camp at Nooitgedacht (Dreyer 2001).

Therefore, it is crucial to see the presence of Africans within the concentration camps.

The Imperialistic driven Anglo-Boer War contained key precedents for future wars

between nations. Everyone knows about the Nazi death camps that annihilated millions of Jews

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and other ―inferior‖ races. However, the preceding concentration camps that the British military

used for the Boer refugees set an important precedent that influenced the later Nazi death camps.

Clearly, the dangerous ideas of imprisonment and unjust treatment produce monumental

consequences. Therefore, in order to help prevent the atrocities committed, it is important to

remember the contribution of the Boer War in 1899-1902. The Boer War exhibited not only the

dangers of imperialistic strategies, but also the perils of ideas. The Social Darwinist concepts of

racial superiority played integral roles to the treatment of the Africans in the segregated camps.

These camps remain largely ignored to this day. Lastly, the Boer prisoners themselves are

testaments to the devastating effects of mentalities that allow these crimes against humanity.

Therefore, it is highly vital to remember the 26,000 deaths of the women and children in the

Boer camps. Through the remembering of these victims, their deaths are no longer simply

statistics, but human lives that represent victims sacrificed now to stand for the lasting legacy of

the British war crimes against humanity.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

De Pauw, Linda Grant. Battle Cries and Lullabies: Women in War From Prehistory to the
Present. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.

Dreyer, J. "Archaeology and the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902): A Report on the Discovery of
the Black Refugee Camp and Cemetary at Brandfort, Free State." South African Journal
of Ethnography 24, no. 4 (2001): 131-137.

Everdell, William R. The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-century . Chicago,
Illinois : University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Hasian, Marouf. "The "Hysterical" Emily Hobhouse and Boer War Concentration Camp
Controversy." Western Journal of Communication, 2003: 138-163.

Higginson, John. "Hell in Small Places." Journal of Social History (Carnegie Mellon University
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Judd, Dennis, and Keith Surridge. The Boer War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Nash, David. "The Boer War." History Today , June 1999: 42-49.

Nasson, Bill. "Commemorating the Anglo-Boer War in Post-Apartheid South Africa." Radical
History Review 78 (2000): 149-165.

Pretorius, Fransjohan. "Boer Prisoner of War Art." History Today, March 2006: 31-37.

Sachs, Albie. Justice in South Africa. Berkeley , California : Berkeley University of California
Press , 1973.

Stanley, Liz, and Helen Dampier. "Aftermaths: Post/Memory, Commemoration and the
Concentration Camps of the South African War 1899-1902." European Review of
History (Taylor and Frands Group Ltd.) 12, no. 1 (March 2005): 91-119.

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