What were the conditions like in

Concentration Camps used during

the South African War?
Source A: Minnie Hertzog was the wife of a Boer commander. She told her story to Emily
Hobhouse, and this was published in her report to the British commission and published for the
British public. Minnie Hertzog and her children were first moved to Port Elizabeth and Edenburg
camp with their children who were all sick with measles. Two doctors had examined the
children and declared them unfit to travel, but the British army forced the move.

Source B: The rations for desirables vs non desirables. Those desirables were wives and children
of ‘hansoppers’ or people who had switched sides, while the undesirables were wives and
children of Bittereinders. This was also published in Emily Hobhouse’s books on the South
African Concentration Camps. The difference between rations for the two groups is in the
amount of coffee, sugar and condensed milk allotted per person.
Source C: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who also wrote the Sherlock Holmes series) was a British
writer (Sherlock Holmes) and medical doctor who, thanks to his qualifications, was sent to
South Africa in 1900 to serve as a medic for the British troops during the Second Anglo Boer
War. In 1902, Doyle wrote a pamphlet on the war called The War in South Africa: Its Causes
and Conduct, which responded to all the charges levelled against the British for their conduct
during the war.

… Early in the year 1901 a painful impression was created in England by the report of
Miss Hobhouse…Her main contentions were that the diet was not sufficient, there was
little bedding, that water supply was short, that the sanitation was bad, that there was
overcrowding, and that there was an excessive death rate, especially among children…
… It must he confessed that the diet is a spare one, and that as supplies become more
plentiful it might well be increased. The allowance may, however, be supplemented by
purchase ... A slight difference was made at first between the diet of a family which had
surrendered and of that the head of which was still in arms against us. A logical
distinction may certainly be made, but in practice it was felt to be unchivalrous and
harsh, so it was speedily abandoned. As to the shortness of the water—supply, it is the
curse of all South Africa, which alternately suffers from having too much water and too
little…
…There seems to be a consensus of opinion from all the camps that the defects in
sanitation are due to the habits of the inmates, against which commanders and doctors
are perpetually fighting. ... The medical reports are filled with instances of the extreme
difficulty which has been experienced in enforcing discipline upon those who have been
accustomed to the absolute liberty of the lonely veldt.
On the question of overcrowding, the demand for tents in South Africa has been
excessive ... The evil has been remedied since the time of Miss Hobhouse’s report. It is
well known that the Boers in their normal life have no objection to crowded rooms, and
that the inmates of a farmhouse are accustomed to conditions which would be
unendurable to most.

Source D: Maud Graham was a Canadian teacher who taught Boer children during the South
African War. Joseph Chamberlain was bent on recruiting 40 top teachers to assist Britain in
educating Boer children living in the Transvaal and Orange River Colony concentration camps.
These teachers (and nurses) lived in the same rough tents and had the same rations as those
of the camp internees. She wrote of her experiences and published them in 1905 in a novel
titled A Canadian girl in South Africa: A teacher’s experiences in the South African War , 1899
– 1902. In her own words, the benefits that she and others brought to the Boer children meant
that “such people were never so well off in their lives as when in camp.”

… I had a better look at them as they trooped out, and the majority of them seemed to
me to be fat, healthy, ragged, dirty but quite happy-looking youngsters. Evidently, they
were fond of their teachers from the way that they clustered around them…
The children suffered dreadfully from chilblains [sores made from poor circulation
combined with the cold] and these veldt sores [a bacterial skin infection], similar to
boils, caused by bad blood and poor food. The poorer Dutch women hadn't the faintest
idea of cooking anything properly, even when they had good materials; the rich, hot
soup given the children by the camp, at recess, being the only nourishing food they had,
in many cases. The soup was of the best, and many a time we teachers took it in
preference to our own lunch sent down from our kitchen. The veldt sores were especially
hard to heal because of the
dust and dirt.…
Source E: Kas Maine was five years old during the South African War. He vividly recalls the
destruction unleashed on his family by the war. His father, Sekwale, was conscripted as an
agterryer for the Boer army, when the Bloemhof commando mobilised in October 1899.

… They took us away in wagons drawn by mules. We travelled the whole night. My
father's cattle were also driven too. Only one survived. Blom was its name, and it ran
away when we arrived at Schweizer Reneke. They also took fowls, they dropped us at
Vryburg, some were dropped at Taung, some at Mareetsane. They were separating the
Black people from the Boers. The British were not fighting the Blacks, they were
fighting the Boers; and so that they might not have the Blacks, they destroyed
everything. …We ate livestock which had died on the way. They left us in Vryburg. We
were crowded there at Vryburg, all the Blacks there were living on "Gars". We were
helped by the old dwellers of that location [with accommodation and food].

Source F: Peter Dickens wrote and researched this article for the Observation Post, a South
African Modern Military History blog. The article is titled - To fully reconcile The Boer War is to
fully understand the ‘Black’ Concentration Camps, written in 2017. It uses references and
extracts from the Military History Journal Vol 11 No 3/4 – October 1999 Black involvement in
the Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902 by Nosipho Nkuna, also references from Dr Garth
Benneyworth and ‘Erasure of black suffering in Anglo-Boer War’ By Ntando PZ Mbatha

… The ‘Black’ concentration camps were a different matter entirely. On the 21st
December 1900, Lord Kitchener made no bones about his new concentration camp
policy at the inaugural meeting of the Burgher Peace Committee held in Pretoria, where
he remarked that in addition to the Boer families, both ‘stock’ and ‘Blacks’ would also
be brought in. As said, Victorian sentiment was very racially guided, and where the
‘white’ concentration camps were at least given some semblance of tents for shelter,
food, aid workers, water rationing and some medical aid albeit entirely inadequate, the
‘Black’ concentration camps had very little of that.
… However no ‘tented’ constructs were provided in most instances and these Black
civilians were simply left on arid land to build whatever shelters they could scourge for.
They were also not given food rations on a system resembling anything near the system
provided ‘white’ camps, in the white camps the food rations were basically free of
charge, in the black camps they had to pay for it…
… This meant the camps were located by railway lines where the men could provide a
ready supply of local labour. Work was however paid, and it was via this economy that
the Black deportees could properly sustain themselves in the camps. In this respect to
better understand what these camps were, the concept of a ‘forced labour camp’ would
be a better definition…
… Water supplies were often contaminated by disease and any form of medical attention
was rare to non-existent. Abhorrent sub-human conditions meant that water-borne
diseases like dysentery, typhoid and diarrhoea spread with ease and the death rate
climbed drastically. The horrific conditions these deportees subjected to were
superseded only by even more abhorrent treatment, the same social diseases, exposure
and nutrition problems sprung up in these camps as they did in the ‘White’ Boer camps,
with the same horrific result.