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RECONSTRUCTING THE HOUSEHOLD: THE NORTHERN CAPE COLONY BEFORE AND AFTER THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2010

WAYNE DOOLING
WAYNE DOOLING
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Abstract

A major component of the South African War, the imperialist conflict that gave birth to modern South Africa, was the violence that occurred between white settlers and indigenous black populations. This article seeks to understand the particular nature of this violence in the northern districts of the Cape Colony. The war intruded into a region in which memories of conquest were alive, and where recently established settler authority was extremely fragile. Here, the war has to be seen as the final chapter in the closing of a nineteenth-century colonial frontier. The conflict was one between masters and servants in a region where capitalist relations of production had yet to take hold. Conflict continued in the years immediately after the war, and an essential task of the post-war state was to calm disgruntled black subjects.

Keywords

South Africacolonialwarviolencerace
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , November 2009 , pp. 399 - 416
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 There is no shortage of interpretations on the origins of the South African War, but, for two timeless statements, see Atmore, A. and Marks, S., ‘The imperial factor in South Africa in the nineteenth century: towards a reassessment’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 3 (1974), 105–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marks, S. and Trapido, S., ‘Lord Milner and the South African State’, History Workshop Journal, 8 (1979) 50–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a more recent statement on Britain's changing interests in nineteenth-century southern Africa, see B. Nasson, The South African War, 1899–1902 (London, 1999), 1–45.

2 See P. Warwick, Black People in the South African War (Cambridge, 1983); B. Nasson, Abraham Esau's War: A Black South African War in the Cape, 1899–1902 (Cambridge, 1991); J. Krikler, Revolution from Above, Rebellion from Below: The Agrarian Transvaal at the Turn of the Century (Oxford, 1993).

3 Nasson, Abraham Esau's War, 8.

4 National Archives of South Africa, Cape Town (hereafter CA), GH 35/129, Memorandum by Mr Fiddes, 18 Feb. 1901; National Archives, United Kingdom (hereafter NA), CO 48/543, Enclosure no. 2 to Despatch no. 32030, 18 Nov. 1899.

5 These terms cannot easily be translated into English, but the closest equivalents are ‘magistrate’ and ‘sheriff’ respectively.

6 The most moving account of Esau's life and death is to be found in Nasson, Abraham Esau's War, esp. 120–41; CA, GH 35/129, Evidence of Elizabeth Manel, 30 March 1901.

7 NA, 48/545, Enclosure to Despatch no. 4658 of 24 Jan. 1900, Civil Commissioner Calvinia to Secretary of Law Department, 20 Dec. 1899; NA, CO 48/543, W. Blenkins to A. Milner, 19 Oct. 1899.

8 NA, 48/543, Enclosure 52 to Despatch no. 35051, Resident Magistrate, Upington to Secretary of Law Department, 28 Nov. 1899.

9 P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald, In the Shadow of Death (London, 1904), p. 167.

10 Kritzinger and McDonald, Shadow, pp. 88, 166–7, emphasis added.

11 CA, AG 3525, Part II, case of Hendrik Johannes Janse van Rensburg, 27 Sep. 1902; CA, 1/CVA 1/1/1/1, Rex v Hendrik Johannes Janse van Rensburg [and] Daniel Johannes van Heerden, 13 Aug. 1902.

12 K. Schoeman, Die Wêreld van die Digter: 'n boek oor Sutherland en die Roggeveld ter ere van N. P. van Wyk Louw (Cape Town, 1986), 12.

13 A. Sparrman, A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope towards the Antarctic Polar Circle Round the World and to the Country of the Hottentots and Caffres from the Year 1772–1776 (Cape Town, 1975), II, 110.

14 G. M. Theal, History and Ethnography of Africa South of the Zambezi, vol. 3 (London, 1910), 214.

15 On the eighteenth-century northern frontier, see N. Penn, The Forgotten Frontier: Colonist & Khoisan on the Cape's Northern Frontier in the 18th Century (Cape Town, 2005); L. J. Mitchell, Belongings: Property, Family and Identity in Colonial South Africa, an Exploration of Frontiers, 1725–c.1830 (New York and Gutenberg-e, 2008).

16 J. S. Marais, The Cape Coloured People, 1652–1937 (Johannesburg, 1968; first published 1939), 28.

17 Cape Parliamentary Papers (hereafter CPP), A39-1863, Message no. 29, from Governor P. G. Wodehouse, 16 June 1863; M. Szalazy, The San and the Colonization of the Cape, 1770–1879: Conflict, Incorporation, Acculturation (Cologne, 1995), 31.

18 CPP, A39-1863, Anthing's report to Colonial Secretary, 21 April 1863.

19 L. F. Maingard, ‘Studies in Korana history, customs and language’, Bantu Studies, 6 (1932), 115.

20 Ross, R., ‘The !Kora wars’, Journal of African History, 16 (1975), 561CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 NA, CO 48/51, T. F. Wade to E. G. Stanley, 10 Dec. 1833.

22 Ibid.

23 CPP, G61-1879, Special Magistrate, Northern Border to Colonial Secretary, 11 Jan. 1869.

24 PPCP, A25-1869, T. Naylor to F. E. Balston, 3 June 1867.

25 CPP, A25-1869, J. B. Roode – Balston, 21 Oct. 1867.

26 Ross, ‘!Kora wars’, 571.

27 CPP, A54-1868, G. P. Steyn to J. Calder, 3 Aug. 1868.

28 T. Strauss, War Along the Orange (Cape Town, 1979), 40–2.

29 CPP, A25-1868, Message from Governor Wodehouse.

30 CPP, A74-1880, Thomas Upington, ‘Memorandum relating to the custody of Piet Rooy, David Diedericks and Carl Ruyters’, n.d.

31 CPP, G60-1888, Gordon Sprigg, 7 May 1888.

32 CPP, G61-1879, ‘Report on and papers connected with the affairs on the northern border of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope’, Statement by Attorney-General Thomas Upington, 2 July 1879.

33 D. P. Faure, My Life and Times (Cape Town, 1907), 69–77; ‘Affairs on the northern border’.

34 It is clear that by this time there was considerable confusion about the identities of those who resisted colonial expansion. Colonial authorities and white farmers increasingly labelled all those outside permanent service to white farmers as ‘Bushmen’.

35 CPP, G20-1881, ‘Blue book on native affairs’, Report of John H. Scott, Special Magistrate, Northern Border, 7 Jan. 1881; CA, NA 169 ‘Blue book on native affairs’, Report for the District Northern Border, Jan. 1883; PPCP, G12-1887, Report of John H. Scott, Special Magistrate, Northern Border, 7 Jan. 1887.

36 CA, NA 168, John H. Scott, ‘Report for “Blue book on native affairs”’, 1881; Report of John H. Scott, 7 Jan. 1881.

37 Report for the District Northern Border, Jan. 1883.

38 Theal, History and Ethnography, 125.

39 M. Szalazy, San, 21–3.

40 CA, CO 3153, L. G. Rawstorne to Colonial Secretary, 18 Dec. 1869.

41 CA, CO 3177, Resident Magistrate, Victoria West to Colonial Secretary, 22 Nov. 1870; CA, CO 3162, Resident Magistrate, Victoria West to Colonial Secretary, 11 Dec. 1869. Theal was clearly off the mark when he estimated that 150 people were brought into farm service following the war of 1867–68: G. M. Theal, History of South Africa since September 1795, vol. 5 (London, 1911), 98.

42 CPP, A30-1880, Special Commissioner, Northern Border to Secretary for Native Affairs, 13 May 1880; Broodryk, M., ‘Die Kaapse Noordgrensoorloë, 1868–1879’, Archives Yearbook of South African History, 55 (1992), 527Google Scholar.

43 CPP, G61-1879, J. A. Van Niekerk to J. N. P. de Villiers, 2 Nov. 1878.

44 CA, CO 3377, Edward Jackson to de Villiers, 22 Feb. 1881.

45 CA, CO 3377, Robert Mitchell to de Villiers, 3 March 1881.

46 I owe this phrase and line of analysis to S. Newton-King, Masters and Servants on the Cape Eastern Frontier 1760–1803 (Cambridge, 1999), 116–49.

47 Ibid. 125, 129.

48 H. Lichtenstein, Travels in Southern Africa in the Years 1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806 (Cape Town, 1928), 124–5; Schoeman, Wêreld, 56.

49 G. M. Theal (ed.), Records of the Cape Colony (London, 1897–1905), XXXI, 23 (C. A. van der Merwe to O. M. Bergh, 13 Nov. 1812).

50 Ibid. 24–5 (C. A. van der Merwe to O. M. Bergh, 20 Nov. 1812).

51 Anthing's Report to Colonial Secretary, 21 April 1863.

52 See W. Dooling, Slavery, Emancipation and Colonial Rule in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg, 2007), 159–87.

53 For the hold of merchant capital on white agriculture in the south-western Cape, see ibid. 197–213.

54 G. H. L. Le May, British Supremacy in South Africa, 1899–1907 (Oxford, 1965), 51.

55 NA, CO 48/545, Enclosure to Despatch no. 190000, 16 June 1900, Memorandum of F. R. Tennant of Burghersdorp, 24 May 1900.

56 Anthing's report to Colonial Secretary, 21 April 1863.

57 Report of John H. Scott, 7 Jan. 1881.

58 CPP, A25-1868, Statement of P. D. Smidt, Resident Magistrate of Calvinia, 22 April 1868.

59 CA, CO 3232, D. Hook to Attorney-General, 11 Oct. 1873.

60 CA, 1/KEN 1/1/1/2, Gert Booysen v Opraap, 24 Dec. 1888, no. 53.

61 CA, 1/KEN 1/1/1/4, Queen v Oorlam, 13 Dec. 1894.

62 CPP, C2SC-1892, ‘Report of the Select Committee on the Labour Question’, evidence of Mr Le Roex, 3 Aug. 1892.

63 Report of John H. Scott, 7 Jan. 1881; Statement of P. D. Smidt, 22 April 1868.

64 CA, 1/KEN 1/1/1/2, Regina v Dina Johanna Adriana Laurens, 17 Oct. 1889.

65 CA, 1/KEN 1/1/1/2, Regina v Lena Dikhaar, 3 Sep. 1889.

66 CA, 1/KEN 1/1/1/4, Queen v Jantje Springbuck, 13 Dec. 1894.

67 Pamela Scully has argued that, for the post-emancipation south-western Cape, the ‘movement from domestic work for employers into domestic work for one's own household came to signify liberty from slavery, and an entry into womanhood for some freed women’: P. Scully, Liberating the Family? Gender and British Slave Emancipation in the Rural Western Cape, South Africa, 1823–1853 (Portsmouth, NH, 1997), 94.

68 Gert Booysen v Opraap.

69 ‘Report on the Labour Question’, evidence of Mr Le Roex.

70 CA, NA 168, John H. Scott to Secretary of Native Affairs, 28 Sep. 1883.

71 CA, 1/KEN 1/1/1/2, Floris Brand v Klaas Bosjeman, 24 July 1889, no. 32.

72 Ibid.

73 CA, 1/KEN 1/1/1/3, Regina v W. C. S. Husselman, Adam Aaron, Abraham Steenekamp, Hendrik Schalkwyk, 30 Sep. 1891.

74 Ibid.

75 CA, AG 2935, no. 14, Circuit Court case against Willem Casper Steenekamp Husselman, 25–26 Sep. 1891; CA, CSC 1/2/1/107, Case of Willem Steenekamp Husselman, Second Circuit Court held at Victoria West, 25–26 Sep. 1891; Regina vs W. C. S. Husselman, Adam Aaron, Abraham Steenekamp, Hendrik Schalkwyk.

76 Circuit Court case against Willem Casper Steenekamp Husselman.

77 CA, NA 168, John H. Scott to Secretary for Native Affairs, 20 Dec. 1882; CA, NA 166, D. Hook to Secretary for Native Affairs, 29 Dec. 1874.

78 CPP, G8-1883, ‘Blue book on native affairs’, Report of John H. Scott, Special Magistrate, Northern Border.

79 Report of John H. Scott, 7 Jan. 1881.

80 Ibid.; Report for the District Northern Border, Jan. 1883.

81 CA NA 168, John H. Scott – Secretary for Native Affairs, 20 Dec. 1882.

82 G8-1883, Report of John H. Scott.

83 CA, AG 3449, Part II, Case against Casper Jan Hendrik Lukas Visagie, 2 April 1901.

84 CA, 1/CVA 1/1/2/2, Regina v Jacob Moolman, 18 Jan. 1901.

85 Krikler, Revolution.

86 Case against Casper Jan Hendrik Lukas Visagie.

87 CA, CSC 1/1/1/56, Case of Abrahm Gert Willem Louw, Criminal Session, Nov.–Dec. 1903, no. 39.

88 Ibid.

89 Cited in Nasson, Abraham Esau's War, 168.

90 CA, AG 3449, Part II, Case of Gerrit Jacobus Visagie and Izak Hendrik Visagie, Testimony of Leentje Snyman, 29 April 1901.

91 CA, AG 2931, Queen v Jacobus Hendrik Louw Visagie and Gert Jacobus Visagie, Jan. 1891.

92 Ibid., Resident Magistrate, Calvinia to Law Department, 2 Feb. 1891 and 4 March 1891.

93 CA, AG 3213, Rex v Samuel Witbooi, 12 Nov. 1906.

94 CA, AG 3134, Rex v Hendrik Albertus van Zyl Sr, Hendrik Albertus van Zyl Jr, Johannes Jacobus van Zyl, 23 Jan. 1903.

95 CA, AG 3134, Rex v Johannes Abraham Benjamin van Wyk, Sr, Johannes Abraham Benjamin van Wyk Jr, Willem Jacobus van Wyk, 14 Aug. 1903. This English rendition does not do justice to the violence of the language. Probably Van Wyk said, ‘Jy kan in die Engelse se gat kruip.’

96 CA, AG 3189, Rex v Jan Cloete, alias Jan Witbooi, 19 Oct. 1905.

97 CA, 1/CVA 1/1/1/1, King v Jan Jacob de Klerk, 22 April 1903.

98 CA, AG 3525, Part II, case of Hendrik Johannes van Rensburg, 27 Sept. 1902.

99 CA, AG 3449, Part I, Case of Jacobus Nicolaas Moolman, 3 Jan. 1902.

100 NA, CO 48/579, Military Intelligence Report by ‘A’, 18 Nov. 1904.

101 Case of Abraham Gert Willem Louw.

102 NA, CO 48/575, Despatch no. 5379, 15 Feb. 1904, View of Lynedoch Graham.

103 NA, CO 48/575, Smuts to W. Hely-Hutchinson, 4 Jan. 1904.

104 NA, CO 48/575, Despatch no. 5379, 15 Feb. 1904, View of Hely-Hutchinson.

105 CA, 1/CVA 1/1/2/4, Rex v Piet Carolus, 28 Dec. 1903, no. 310; CA, AG 3161, Rex v Piet Carolus, 28 Dec. 1903, no. 310; CA, AG 3161, Testimony of Martha Antonissen, 5 Oct. 1903.