Heritage Cases

Between June and November 1900 in the Free State alone more than 600 farms were burnt and destroyed by British troops (Judd & Surridge 2002:191). The idea of introducing concentration camps or ‘protective laagers’ began as a desire to protect ‘hands-uppers’, civilians who had taken the oath of neutrality, from retribution by Boer commandos. On the 9th of September 1900 Lord Roberts gave approval for camps to be established at Bloemfontein and Kroonstad and this led to the erection of a series of refugee camps, later termed concentration camps, designed to accommodate both those who had resigned from the war as neutrals, as well as those civilians who refused to pledge allegiance to the British crown (Kessler 2012:60-64). Other camps soon followed and at the height of the war the various camps contained as many as 160 000 people in all four colonies in South Africa (Judd & Surridge 2002:194). The Bethulie Camp, created out of necessity when an overflow of people from the Springfontein Camp needed to be accommodated, was the first camp to be established under civil administration, as opposed to the standard military run camps at the time. In 2008, at the Sixth World Archaeological Congress in Dublin (WAC-6), a session was held aimed at an interdisciplinary review of the growing interest in the field of the ‘archaeology of internment’. The phenomenon of human internment became prevalent towards the end of the 18th century and peaked during the 20th century, with horrific results and millions of deaths that came as a result of the internment of civilians and non-combatants in two World Wars. All parts of the world have at some point been touched by the internment of people beyond the scope of being purely criminal institutions. The difference between imprisonment and internment is ambiguous and aspects of the involvement of a legal process are the closest distinctive factor between common law and military or martial law. The act of internment constitutes the restriction of a person or group of persons’ liberty, confining them into a prison or a prison-like environment, restraining their movements and controlling their access to resources and communication. “These forced movements serve social, political, economic and military ends and are often organised around conceptions of racial, ethnic, political and social otherness” (Moshenska & Myers 2011:2). The modern history of ‘concentration camps’ has its origin in Cuba where the Spanish government made use of ‘reconcentration camps’ to quell a rebel uprising in the second part of the 19th century. The system, whereby civilians were incarcerated in camps and everyone outside these structures were labelled as ‘rebels’, was first tested from 1869 and by 1896 fully implemented by the Spanish. This model was copied by the Americans in the Philippines between 1899 and 1902 as well as the British forces in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War. The Anglo Boer War itself has seen more than 2500 books, more than 2000 journal articles, approximately 900 pamphlets and around 100 MA and PhDs (Kessler 2012:16),however archaeological investigations into sites of internment in South Africa are ‘ongoing’ and there have been no publications on this subject (Concentration Camps) as yet (Moshenska & Myers 2011:5; also personal communication with Willem Boshoff regarding archaeological work done at ‘Doornbult Farm’, Orange River Camp in the Northern Cape). The Bethulie Camp: “By October 1901, Russell Deare had gone. There is much evidence that he went out of his way to make things as harsh as possible for the prisoners” (Coetzer 2000:198). Elizabeth van Heyningen gives context to the ‘otherness’ of the Bethulie Camp in an article that highlights the uniqueness of the statistics. The death-rate peaks of October 1901 in Brandfort and Mafikeng were the highest of all camps. But this soon stabilised and was brought under control. In Bethulie, however, the overall death rate “had a higher total number of deaths and a prolonged period of elevated mortality. All three camps were about the same size, with an average monthly population of 3000, but Bethulie had a total of 1370 deaths, compared with a total of 1081 at Brandfort and a total of 1029 at Mafeking” (Van Heyningen 2010:3). Another alarming statistic highlighted by Van Heyningen (2010) is the ratio of adult to child deaths in Bethulie. Compared to all the other camps, Bethulie had the highest rate of adult mortality. In South Africa interest in Concentration Camps has been in line with international awareness. In October 2010, I was present at a Concentration Camp Conference that was held at the War Museum of the Boer Republics in Bloemfontein. It was attended by academics, representatives of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the Genealogical Society of South Africa, as well as delegates from heritage organisations such as SAHRA and AMAFA. In October 2011 a follow-up conference was held at Fort Schanskop in Pretoria by the Heritage Foundation (Erfenisstigting) where I did a presentation on my preliminary investigation on the Bethulie Camp. Presentations made throughout the sessions emphasised the need for structured research and especially reviewed publication of information around the camps. The incorporation of data for both white and black camps was called for and the loss of evidence about the fate of black people during the time of the war was identified as the biggest challenge to researchers, as well as the notion that the concentration camps and the Anglo-Boer War was a ‘white man’s war’ and not relevant to South Africans of colour. This proposed project will map the elements of the landscape that are related to the period of the Bethulie internment camps during the Anglo-Boer War. By studying the historic accounts I will identify a series of affected and relevant places that formed part of the landscape of the town of Bethulie from 1899 to 1902 and were connected to the system of internment. It should be noted that in the case of Bethulie the camp started in a different area to where it ended and that throughout the war the camp expanded and was redesigned under new management. Issues of water supply, structures built specifically for the camp, sanitation, infrastructure and logistics may be incorporated into this study. In doing a landscape assessment within an archaeological framework the information gathered can be structured into a list of priorities that will guide the researcher into areas of interest or concern. Most camps in South Africa have been swamped by development and therefore the camps that are still accessible to researchers should be recorded and entered into a central data base. The establishment of the British Concentration Camp Database (BCCD) by the University of Cape Town is an excellent example of a centralised data system that is accessible to people all around the world. The main camp area at Bethulie has been adversely affected by subsequent inhabitation, looting and the building of the Gariep Dam and archaeological investigation there may prove to be more problematic. It is therefore proposed that the archaeological research into the ‘first camp’ and related sites will add greatly to what is known historically about the Bethulie Camp. Once this process has been completed it will open up the possibility for subsequent work to be done at the main camp. It is interesting to note Lindsey Weiss’s (2011) view that the conceptual framework and manifestation of labour compounds on the Diamond Fields of especially Kimberley in the late 19th century pre-dating the South African War, and that of the wartime camps are ‘structurally identical’. Both forms of ‘wartime camps’ and ‘work-time’ camps bring home the understanding “of the seamlessness with which the more visible sovereign violence of the camp has long intersected with a more dispersed, biopolitical mode of state and market-sanctioned Violence” (Weiss 2011:21) This strengthens the realisation that the concentration camps during the South African war should not be seen in isolation, but within a wider socio-economic and political paradigm of colonial expansionism and exploitation of human and natural resources on a grand scale. Elizabeth van Heyningen states aptly that "Once the camps had closed they left no mark, disappearing almost entirely, and in many cases their exact location is no longer known. What was left is the cemeteries, as a bitter memory of the losses of war." (van Heyningen 2013:307). The areas of focus will include the following key-points: 1. The station buildings and surrounds. 2. The "Donkey Dam" - water source for the first camp 3. The area of the "first camp" 4. The "Adams Well" - water source for the second camp 5. The area of the second camp