The Concentration Camps of the South African (Anglo-Boer) War, 1900–1902

Abstract

The concentration camps of the South African War or Anglo-Boer War, where Boer women and children, as well as many black families, were interned as a result of the British military sweeps to clear the veld, incited controversy from their inception. The high mortality, primarily from measles, caused much bitterness but the history of the camps has never been properly investigated. Instead, a mythology was created by emergent Afrikaner nationalists who deployed the women's testimonies, in particular, to establish a ‘paradigm of suffering’. Recently a number of historians have demonstrated the way in which commemoration of the concentration camps in South Africa has also been politicised. This article surveys the literature on the camps, highlighting some of the omissions.