by Simoné Cloete
by Simoné Cloete
Trigger Warning: This project contains themes and images which some might find distressing. It contains images of concentration camps, buildings set alight, starvation, and children who have died.
Svetlana Alexievich
The 2nd Anglo Boer War or South African War of 1899 – 1902 created the horrific, yet favourable circumstance for the establishment of the world’s first concentration camps. Similar ‘reconcentration’ of civilian populations had taken place in Cuba under the Spanish in 1895 – 98, however the British were the first to construct camps in an organised manner for the specific purpose of removing civilian women and children.
The road to War was a complicated escalation of tensions during the second half of the nineteenth century. Southern Africa consisted of the British Cape Colony and Natal and two northern Boer Republics; The Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
The road to War was a complicated escalation of tensions during the second half of the nineteenth century. Southern Africa consisted of the British Cape Colony and Natal and two northern Boer Republics; The Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
Before the war began, international opinion was against Britain’s handling of the Boer republic issue. France, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Russia held strong anti-British feeling which was intensified with the great disparity between the military strength of the British Empire and the Boer republics.
Concentration camps were established in the British colonies of the Cape and Natal, as well as in the Boer Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal.
Two women and two children in a tent in the Norvalspont Camp
We will never forget the days of August and September 1901, and October, November and December — those months when we were more dead than living. O, we still see the many corpses buried each morning and afternoon — and all the children ….
The Bittereinders or Bitter enders fought resolutely till the end. The Peace of Vereeniging was signed on May 31st, 1902. A long, drawn-out war had finally come to an end.
The 2nd Anglo Boer War was the first war to be properly photographed which offered many insights into the war’s impact on civilians which had been impossible before. By examining the photographs alongside the satirical prints, we were able to establish that both forms of media had the ability to affect change politically as well as on a humanitarian level.
