by Elizabeth van Heyningen (Jacana)
The history of the concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War was characterised by the suffering of Boer women and children, of whom 27 927 died (a disputed figure – lately the numbers have been revised considerably upwards).
This has been so deeply ingrained in the minds and consciousness of Afrikaners during the past 100-plus years that Boer descendants immediately perceive any attempt to look at this period objectively with great suspicion. But this was exactly what author Elizabeth van Heyningen set out to do.
She writes: “Now, with the demise of Afrikaner nationalism and the passing of more than a hundred years, it is time to recall them to memory and mourn the waste of lives.” She also says: “My purpose has been to try and offer fresh perspectives on the camps; ways of understanding them in the light of modern research.”
This is not a publication of opinions, but of impeccable research findings based on information, most of which has always been available but seldom scrutinised. For more than a century, opinion and accusation have co-mingled with fact, and this thorny subject has become so mythologised that it can be difficult to tease fact from fiction.
A second factor that has complicated the recording of Anglo-Boer War history is that there is little existing social history from that time.
This book fills such a gap, and may form the underpinnings of a new and fresh look at what happened during that painful period. We have heard a lot about the “tragedies” of that era – the children’s deaths, the Boers’ trials and tribulations – but we know almost nothing about the daily lives of the people in the concentration camps.
The reason why British authorities had to cope with and provide shelter and food for so many people from about mid-1900 to the end of 1903 (a year after the war was over) was because of the “sweeps” by the British military, a scorched-earth policy long de facto in place before being enforced by Lord Kitchener as part of his determination to prevent the fighting Boers from getting supplies from their people. The reason the camps were started was ostensibly “as protection for surrendered burghers and to imprison women and children to force the men to end the guerrilla war (sic)”.
This research started as the result of a grant by the Wellcome Foundation (for medical research). So it seems natural that the author focused on tracking available medical information, as well as attempting to find new sources that would shed light on the health and welfare of the inmates. This brings their daily lives into sharper perspective.
The author, a historian, writes with sharp insight into the medical practices of the time – of the medicines used and how the Boer women often distrusted the remedies prescribed by the doctors. They sometimes would rather use medicines from their own Huis Apotheek (a box with a large number of patent medicines accompanied by descriptions of what each was to be used for).
Although there was often talk of the use by Boer women of traditional medicines or practices that were often less than savoury, Van Heyningen does not give much credence to these stories.
The diseases that affected most people in the camps, both adult and children, were typhoid, measles, respiratory diseases, diarrhoea and dysentery – these caused the majority of fatalities. They are, of course, diseases in which the close proximity of people plays an important role – thus the rife spreading of them within the camps.
(It is important to note that more British soldiers died during the Anglo-Boer War of disease than of war wounds.)
This is an important addition to the entire body of received history regarding the Anglo-Boer War, and one in which results of the “barbaric” practice of waging war on innocent civilians – a phrase used by some British politicians – is brought into sharp relief and exposed with the diligence and objectivity of a trained researcher.
Despite being so long, and so “scientific”, it is not a difficult book to read. I found it enlightening and extremely valuable.