Violence and Work: Convict Labour and Settler Colonialism in the Cape–Namibia Border Region (c.1855–1903)

Abstract

This article focuses on convict labour in the Namibian–Cape border region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It situates this form of unfree labour within broader trans-colonial discussions on the ‘labour question’ and compulsion after the abolition of slavery. The article demonstrates that convict labour was a flexible and steadily available labour force, which officials used on both sides of the Orange river to manage, in part, the fluctuating labour demands of public and private employers. While local Cape officials utilised it to meet recurring labour deficits at short notice, their German counterparts followed the long-term objective of ‘educating’ Africans to work by means of compulsion. At the same time, colonisers on this shared frontier of the Cape Colony and German South West Africa lamented the weak deterrent effects of convict labour as this potentially undermined their claimed authority and control over convicts as well as over African labour more broadly, partly unsettled by convicts’ own actions. Ultimately, this article argues that officials conceived of violence as a key measure to counter these subversive tendencies but that it had equivocal consequences that further complicated the ‘labour question’ on the ground. By analysing the debates on and (violent) practices of enforcing convict labour, the article also opens a window on to the contentious formation of settler colonialism on the ground.

Keywords:

• convict labour
• labour question
• violence
• settler colonialism
• border region
• Namibia
• Cape Colony
• German South West Africa

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was made possible by the generous funding of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). I sincerely thank the International Research Center ‘IGK Work and Human Lifecycle in Global History’ (re:work) at Humboldt University of Berlin, and the team of the interdisciplinary joint research project ‘Space in Time’ (University of Namibia, University of Cape Town, University of Basel). Both gave me the opportunity to present earlier versions of this article (during the international summer academy ‘Unfree Labour Old and New’ in Addis Ababa and the international conference ‘Space in Time – Landscape Narratives and Land Management Changes in a Southern African Cross-Border Region’ in Oranjemund). Moreover, I am truly grateful for the invaluable feedback and comments from the anonymous reviewers and from William Blakemore Lyon, Bernard C. Moore, José Manuel de Prada-Samper, Stephanie Quinn and Julia Tischler.

Notes

1 I build on the definition of De Vito and Lichtenstein, for whom convict labour is ‘the work performed by individuals under penal and/or administrative control’ (my emphasis). See C.G. De Vito and A. Lichtenstein, ‘Writing a Global History of Convict Labour’, in A. Eckert (ed.), Global Histories of Work (Berlin, De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2016), p. 55. I further distinguish convict labour from hard labour, the criminal punishment by which convicts were forced to work.

2 F. Bernault, ‘The Politics of Enclosure in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa’, in F. Bernault (ed.), A History of Prison and Confinement in Africa, trans. J. Roitman (Portsmouth, Heinemann, 2003), p. 22. On convicts’ work as productive form of labour and means to (re)produce colonial hegemony, see also S. Hynd, ‘“… a Weapon of Immense Value”? Convict Labour in British Colonial Africa, c.1850–1950s’, in C.G. De Vito and A. Lichtenstein (eds), Global Convict Labour (Leiden, Brill, 2015), p. 251; N. Penn, ‘“Close and Merciful Watchfulness”: John Montagu’s Convict System in the Mid-Nineteenth Century Cape Colony’, Cultural and Social History, 5, 4 (2008), p. 477; S.A. Peté, ‘Penal Labour in Colonial Natal – The Fine Line Between Convicts and Labourers’, Fundamina, 14, 2 (2008), p. 67.

3 On the paradox of convict labour in that respect, see Bernault, ‘The Politics of Enclosure’, p. 22; Peté, ‘Penal Labour in Colonial Natal’, p. 68.

4 On the term ‘labour question’, see F. Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 1–2.

5 N. Penn, The Forgotten Frontier: Colonist and Khoisan on the Cape’s Northern Frontier in the 18th Century (Athens and Cape Town, Ohio University Press and Double Storey Books, 2005), pp. 157–236.

6 For an overview of this particular period in the region’s history, see M. Wallace with J. Kinahan, A History of Namibia: From the Beginning to 1990 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 115–54; W. Dooling, ‘Reconstructing the Household: The Northern Cape Colony Before and After the South African War’, Journal of African History, 50, 3 (2009), pp. 402–6.

7 On such a narrow conceptualisation of violence, see K. van Walraven and J. Abbink, ‘Rethinking Resistance in African History: An Introduction’, in J. Abbink, M. De Bruijn and K. van Walraven (eds), Rethinking Resistance: Revolt and Violence in African History (Leiden, Brill, 2003), pp. 17–18; H. Popitz, Phenomena of Power: Authority, Domination, and Violence, trans. G. Poggi (New York, Columbia University Press, 2017 [1992]), pp. 25–6.

8 Cohen outlines similar practices as hidden forms of protest of African workers: R. Cohen, ‘Resistance and Hidden Forms of Consciousness Amongst African Workers’, Review of African Political Economy, 7, 19 (1980), p. 12.

9 This term is borrowed from Hynd, who investigates convict labour ‘as a microcosm of the tensions and contradictions traversing colonial states and societies from an imperial to a local level’. See Hynd, ‘“… a Weapon of Immense Value”?’, pp. 250–51.

10 L. Veracini, ‘Introduction: Settler Colonialism as a Distinct Mode of Domination’, in E. Cavanagh and L. Veracini (eds), The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler Colonialism (Abingdon, Routledge, 2017), pp. 2–3. Other leading scholars in the field make similar claims: C. Elkins and S. Pedersen, ‘Introduction – Settler Colonialism: A Concept and Its Uses’, in C. Elkins and S. Pedersen (eds), Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century: Projects, Practices, Legacies (New York, Routledge, 2005), p. 2; P. Wolfe, ‘Structure and Event: Settler Colonialism, Time, and the Question of Genocide’, in A.D. Moses (ed.), Empire, Colony, Genocide: Conquest, Occupation, and Subaltern Resistance in World History (New York, Berghahn Books, 2010), p. 103.

11 Paradigmatic for this trend: De Vito and Lichtenstein (eds), Global Convict Labour; M. van der Linden and M. Rodríguez García (eds), On Coerced Labor: Work and Compulsion After Chattel Slavery (Leiden, Brill, 2016).

12 Penn, ‘“Close and Merciful Watchfulness”’, pp. 465–80.

13 C. Anderson, ‘Convicts, Carcerality and Cape Colony Connections in the 19th Century’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 42, 3 (2016), pp. 429–30. Concerning the contingent and ambiguous ways in which control over imprisoned subjects was negotiated locally, see L. Rizzo, ‘Policing the Image: The Breakwater Prison Albums, Cape Town, in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries’, Social History, 41, 3 (2016), pp. 285–303. On the use of convict labour on South Africa’s diamond mines, see W.H. Worger, ‘Convict Labour, Industrialists and the State in the US South and South Africa, 1870–1930’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 30, 1 (2004), pp. 63–86.

14 Peté, ‘Convict Labour in Colonial Natal’, pp. 68, 70, 82–3.

15 Tellingly, one of the very few studies addressing the issue of convict labour in Germany’s colonial empire focuses more directly on debates concerning the deportation of convicts from the metropole. M. Fitzpatrick, ‘New South Wales in Africa? The Convict Colonialism Debate in Imperial Germany’, Itinerario, 37, 1 (1995), pp. 59–72. On connections between South African labour compounds and GSWA’s concentration camps, see T. Dedering, ‘Compounds, Camps, Colonialism’, Journal of Namibian Studies, 12 (2012), pp. 29–46. On forced labour in GSWA’s concentration camps, see J-B. Gewald, ‘The Issue of Forced Labour in the Onjembo: German South West Africa 1904–1908’, Itinerario, 19, 1 (1995), pp. 97–104; J. Kreienbaum, A Sad Fiasco: Colonial Concentration Camps in Southern Africa, 1900–1908, trans. E. Janik (New York, Berghahn Books, 2019), pp. 173–8.

16 For a general introduction to GLH as research perspective, see A. Eckert and M. van der Linden, ‘New Perspectives on Workers and the History of Work: Global Labor History’, in S. Beckert and D. Sachsenmaier (eds), Global History, Globally: Research and Practice Around the World (London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), pp. 145–61.

17 De Vito and Lichtenstein, ‘Writing a Global History’, pp. 74, 82–4.

18 T. Dedering, ‘War and Mobility in the Borderlands of South Western Africa in the Early Twentieth Century’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 39, 2 (2006), p. 276; J. Adelman and S. Aron, ‘From Borderlands to Borders: Empires, Nation-States, and the Peoples in Between in North American History’, American Historical Review, 104, 3 (1999), pp. 815–16; C. Vaughan, ‘Violence and Regulation in the Darfur–Chad Borderland c.1909–56: Policing a Colonial Boundary’, Journal of African History, 54, 2 (2013), pp. 179–80.

19 M. Legassick, Hidden Histories of Gordonia: Land Dispossession and Resistance in the Northern Cape, 1800–1990 (Johannesburg, Wits University Press, 2016), p. 160.

20 J. Frost, in Cape Parliamentary Papers (hereafter CPP), C.2–1892, ‘Report of the Select Committee on the Labour Question’, p. 43.

21 For an overview of the abolition of slavery and its consequences for labour relations, see M. van der Linden, ‘Introduction’, in M. van der Linden (ed.), Humanitarian Intervention and Changing Labor Relations: The Long-Term Consequences of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (Leiden, Brill, 2011), pp. 22–38.

22 W. Dooling, Slavery, Emancipation, and Colonial Rule in South Africa (Scottsville, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2007), pp. 116–17. On the latter aspect, see Penn, ‘“Close and Merciful Watchfulness”’, p. 471.

23 Penn, ‘“Close and Merciful Watchfulness”’, p. 471.

24 Ibid., pp. 465–6, 471–5.

25 ‘Native Labour and Native Policy’, The Cape Monthly Magazine, 10 (1875), p. 1.

26 Rizzo, ‘Policing the Image’, pp. 293–4; CPP, C.2–1892, ‘Report of the Select Committee on the Labour Question’, p. v.

27 Penn, ‘“Close and Merciful Watchfulness”’, p. 477.

28 By favouring productive convict labour to the expense of penal labour in a stricter sense, the Cape Colony went through a development similar to that in other parts of the British Empire. See Hynd, ‘“… a Weapon of Immense Value”’, p. 251.

29 On the latter aspect, see P. Ocobock, ‘Introduction: Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective’, in A.L. Beier and P. Ocobock (eds), Cast Out: Vagrancy and Homelessness in Global and Historical Perspective (Athens, Ohio University Press, 2008), p. 14; E. Elbourne, ‘Freedom at Issue: Vagrancy Legislation and the Meaning of Freedom in Britain and the Cape Colony, 1799 to 1842’, Slavery and Abolition, 15, 2 (1994), pp. 114–50.

30 O.J. Marais, in CPP, G.3–1894, ‘Labour Commission’, Vol. II, p. 327. Colonial officials, too, believed that the law as such was powerful but insufficiently enforced. CPP, C.2–1892, ‘Report of the Select Committee on the Labour Question’, p. 20; CPP, G.39–1893, ‘Labour Commission’, pp. 146, 184–5.

31 On the lease system, see CPP, G.2–1888, ‘Report of the Committee on Convicts and Gaols’, pp. xli–xliii; B. Fall and R.L. Roberts, ‘Forced Labour’, in S. Bellucci and A. Eckert (eds), General Labour History of Africa: Workers, Employers and Governments, 20th–21st Centuries (Woodbridge, James Currey, 2019), pp. 101–2.

32 CPP, G.2–1888, ‘Report of the Committee on Convicts and Gaols’, p. xlii.

33 CPP, G.39–1893, ‘Labour Commission’, pp. 455–6; CPP, G.3–1894, ‘Labour Commission’, Vol. II, pp. 103, 291, 386–7; CPP, G.3–1894, ‘Report of the Labour Commission’, Vol. III, p. 70.

34 Western Cape Archives and Records Service (hereafter WCAR), CO 6447, SLD (Secretary to the Law Department) to AG (Attorney General), 17 March 1891.

35 WCAR, CO 6447, ‘Gratis Convict Labour’, 3 June 1891. In order to counter the strong fluctuation of the labour supply, in 1889 the Cape government was granted powers to distribute prison labour free of charge, whenever and wherever necessary.

36 On the appeal of convict labour for colonisers compared to free labour, particularly concerning flexibility and costs, see Fall and Roberts, ‘Forced Labour’, pp. 101–2.

37 J.D.J. Visser, in CPP, G.39–1893, ‘Labour Commission’, p. 59.

38 F.H. Skead, in CPP, G.39–1893, ‘Labour Commission’, pp. 192–3.

39 WCAR, CO 6478, IP (Inspector of Prisons) to SLD, 8 March 1893.

40 On the ‘labour question’ and its central role in discussions on German colonial policy, see S. Conrad, ‘“Eingeborenenpolitik” in Kolonie und Metropole: “Erziehung zur Arbeit” in Ostafrika und Ostwestfalen’, in S. Conrad and J. Osterhammel (eds), Das Kaiserreich transnational: Deutschland in der Welt 1871–1914, 2nd ed. (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), pp. 109–10.

41 A. Merensky, Wie erzieht man am besten den Neger zur Plantagen-Arbeit? (Berlin, Walther und Apolant, 1886), p. 4. Translation of this and all the other quotations originally in German by myself.

42 A. Eckert, ‘Abolitionist Rhetorics, Colonial Conquest, and the Slow Death of Slavery in Germany’s African Empire’, in van der Linden (ed.), Humanitarian Intervention and Changing Labor Relations, pp. 351–5; H. Pogge von Strandmann, Imperialismus vom Grünen Tisch: Deutsche Kolonialpolitik zwischen wirtschaftlicher Ausbeutung und ‘zivilisatoirschen’ Bemühungen (Berlin, Ch. Links Verlag, 2009), pp. 191–2.

43 See, for instance, A. Diesterweg, ‘Unsere ostafrikanischen Erwerbungen’, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung 2, 21 (1885), pp. 672–3; Conrad, ‘“Eingeborenenpolitik” in Kolonie und Metropole’, pp. 109–10.

44 P.J. Schröder, Gesetzgebung und ‘Arbeiterfrage’ in den Kolonien: Das Arbeitsrecht in den Schutzgebieten des Deutschen Reiches (Berlin, LIT Verlag, 2006), pp. 358, 361–4.

45 Ibid., pp. 359–61.

46 ‘Deutscher Kolonialverein’, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, 3, 4 (1886), p. 97.

47 A. Merensky, ‘Die Arbeits- und Arbeiterfrage in unseren deutschen Kolonien’, Die Zeit, 2, 13 (1902), pp. 393–7.

48 Pogge von Strandmann, Imperialismus vom Grünen Tisch, pp. 193–4.

49 R. Schlottau, Deutsche Kolonialrechtspflege: Strafrecht und Strafmacht in den deutschen Schutzgebieten 1884 bis 1914 (Frankfurt/Main, Peter Lang, 2007), p. 284.

50 J. Zollmann, Koloniale Herrschaft und ihre Grenzen: Die Kolonialpolizei in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1894–1915 (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2010), pp. 138–9.

51 ‘Strafrechtspflege in deutsch-afrikanischen Schutzgebieten’, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, 9, 36 (1896), p. 282.

52 On pastoralism’s lower demands of manual labour compared to other forms of production, see N.J. Jacobs, Environment, Power, and Injustice: A South African History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 43–5.

53 J-B. Gewald, ‘Untapped Sources: Slave Exports from Southern and Central Namibia up to c.1850’, in Carolyn Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History (Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg, Witwatersrand University Press and University of Natal Press, 1995), pp. 417–35.

54 Dooling reminds us that, in the course of the 19th century, Northern Cape frontier farmers launched commandos – particularly against San groups – for the purpose of acquiring African labour as they were unable to afford slaves to any significant extent. Dooling, ‘Reconstructing the Household’, p. 406.

55 W.C. Scully in CPP, A.7–1896, ‘Report of the Select Committee on Namaqualand Mission Lands and Reserves’, p. 17.

56 On the introduction of wage labour with the commencement of industrial copper mining and its effects on Namaqualand’s local population, see P. Carstens, In the Company of Diamonds: De Beers, Kleinzee, and the Control of a Town (Athens, Ohio University Press, 2001), pp. 10–11.

57 C.J. Kelso, ‘On the Edge of a Desert – A Namaqualand Story: 1800–1909: Climatic and Socio-Economic Drivers of Decline’ (PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 2010), p. 176.

58 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/1/8, CC (Civil Commissioner), Namaqualand, to ACCLPW (Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands and Public Works), 23 February 1883.

59 J.T. Eustace, CPP, G.3–1894, ‘Labour Commission’, Vol. II, p. 12. In order to compensate the local labour shortages, the mining companies, among other measures, fell back on African labour from Delagoa Bay, ‘Damara’ labourers from today’s Namibia and Gcaleka war captives from the Transkei.

60 Ibid.

61 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/1/11, CC, Namaqualand, to USNA (Under Secretary for Native Affairs), 11 December 1891.

62 CPP, G.3–1894, ‘Report of the Labour Commission’, Vol. III, p. 328. This assessment was made by six farmers from Namaqualand in a joint statement to the Labour Commission.

63 CPP, G.39–1893, ‘Labour Commission’, pp. 148–50.

64 WCAR, CO 3674, RM (Resident Magistrate), Namaqualand, to UCS (Under Colonial Secretary), 6 June 1891; W.C. Scully in CPP, A.7–1896, ‘Report of the Select Committee on Namaqualand Mission Lands and Reserves’, p. 17.

65 D. Henrichsen, ‘“Damara” Labour Recruitment to the Cape Colony and Marginalisation and Hegemony in Late 19th Century Central Namibia’, Journal of Namibian Studies, 3 (2008), pp. 63–82; J. Silvester, ‘Assembling and Resembling: Herero History in Vaalgras, Southern Namibia’, in M. Bollig and J-B. Gewald (eds), People, Cattle and Land: Transformations of a Pastoral Society in Southwestern Africa (Köln, Köppe, 2009), pp. 473–95.

66 National Archives of Namibia (hereafter NAN), ZBU W.IV.a.3, Vol. 2, DG (District Governor), Keetmanshoop, to IGR (Imperial Governor), 11 September 1896; DG, Keetmanshoop, to C.H. Jackson, 1 March 1897; DG, Keetmanshoop, ‘Verordnung betreffend Anwerbung und Ausfuhr eingeborener Arbeiter im Südbezirk’, c.March 1897.

67 On the latter aspect, see, for instance, NAN, ZBU F.V.o.1, ‘Auszügliche Abschrift aus dem Antrage des Vereins für landwirtschaftliche Interessen des Südbezirks’ (undated, c.1903).

68 H. Petersen, ‘Eine deutsche Niederlassung am Oranienflusse’, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, 2, 12 (1889), p. 91.

69 Ibid.

70 E. Hermann, ‘Groß-Namaland’, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung, 3, 13 (1890), p. 157.

71 J. Zimmerer, Deutsche Herrschaft über Afrikaner: Staatlicher Machtanspruch und Wirklichkeit im kolonialen Namibia, 2nd ed. (Münster, LIT Verlag, 2002), pp. 28, 69–77.

72 NAN, BKE UA.23/1, H. Groeneveld to DO (District Office), Keetmanshoop, and Kaptein P. Fredericks, Bethanie, 1 September 1902; H. Groeneveld to IGT (Imperial Government), 16 October 1902.

73 NAN, BKE UA.23/1, P. Fredericks, Bethanie, to IDC (Imperial District Court), Keetmanshoop, 9 April 1902.

74 Zimmerer, Deutsche Herrschaft, p. 28.

75 NAN, ZBU W.III.b.1, IGR to DOs, 30 August 1900; Zimmerer, Deutsche Herrschaft, pp. 72–4.

76 NAN, ZBU W.III.b.1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGT, 17 December 1900.

77 On settlers’ general claim to the monopoly of violence in opposition to the colonial state, see M. Häußler, ‘“Collaboration” or Sabotage? The Settlers in German Southwest Africa between Colonial State and Indigenous Polities’, in T. Bührer et al. (eds), Cooperation and Empire: Local Realities of Global Processes (New York, Berghahn, 2017), pp. 180–83; Zollmann, Koloniale Herrschaft, pp. 18–19.

78 On the background of the founding of the district, see J.M. Smalberger, Aspects of the History of Copper Mining in Namaqualand 1846–1931 (Cape Town, C. Struik, 1975), pp. 70–72.

79 See the criminal records in the files of the attorney general (AG) and the magistrate of Namaqualand (1/SBK) at the Western Cape Archives. Such racial categorisation had been practised from the early 1880s at the latest. Henrichsen shows that, in written sources of the 19th century, the term ‘Damara’ referred to people who mostly spoke Khoekhoegowab and/or Otjiherero, today known as Damara and Ovaherero, respectively. Henrichsen, ‘“Damara” Labour Recruitment’, pp. 64, 68.

80 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/4, RM, Namaqualand, to UCS, 7 June 1883; WCAR, CO 6413, IP to HS (High Sheriff), 27 May 1889.

81 Usually, convicts undergoing sentences of hard labour of one year or longer, political prisoners, war captives and hardened criminals were deported to Cape Town via steamer or overland.

82 On racial segregation in penal and infirmary institutions of the Cape Colony themselves, from the 1860s and 1870s onwards, see H. Deacon, ‘Racial Segregation and Medical Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Cape Town’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 22, 2 (1996), pp. 287–308.

83 Concerning the effects of the local population’s increasing reliance on agriculture on their reduced ability to react to climatic stress, see Kelso, ‘On the Edge of a Desert’, p. 168.

84 Details on convicts’ tasks can be inferred from the reports and correspondence by the magistracy on the subject as well as from criminal records. See for instance WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/6, Act. RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 12 January 1893; WCAR, CO 6446, RM, Namaqualand, to IP, 15 January 1890; WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/9, Queen vs. W. Wentzell, 5 May 1894; WCAR, AG 118, ‘Inquiry into the Escape of Prisoner Jonas Damara from the Hard Labour Party on the 25th Nov. 1884’, 29 November 1884.

85 WCAR, CO 6625, RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 6 October 1891; WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/6, Queen vs Piet Zwartbooy et al., 29 February 1892; WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/6, Queen vs Jan Quarra alias Africander, 25 November 1892.

86 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/6, Act. RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 12 January 1893.

87 WCAR, CO 6446, RM, Namaqualand, to IP, 2 February 1891.

88 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/6, Act. RM, Namaqualand, ‘Report Upon the Modes of Providing Employment’, 12 February 1891.

89 See WCAR, CO 6659, Gaoler, Springbokfontein, to RM, Namaqualand, 3 July 1893; WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/6, Queen vs Piet Zwartbooy et al., 29 February 1892.

90 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/4, RM, Namaqualand, to UCS, 15 March 1884.

91 Ibid.

92 CPP, G.2–1888, ‘Committee on Convicts and Goals’, p. xxviii. The statistic excluded the Transkeian Territories.

93 ‘On Dit’, The Lantern, 4 September 1886, p. 5.

94 WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/6, Queen vs Piet Zwartbooy et al., 29 February 1892; WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/6, Queen vs Jan Quarra alias Africander, 25 November 1892. Unfortunately, the records in question give no indications on what grounds the difference in prices came about.

95 These figures can be inferred from criminal cases in which infringements of master–servant laws were tried, for instance following labourers leaving service. See WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/6–1/1/10 and 1/1/17 (no data available for the years 1896 and 1897).

96 WCAR, CO 6659, Gaoler, Springbokfontein, to RM, Namaqualand, 3 July 1893.

97 WCAR, CO 6446, RM, Namaqualand, to IP, 15 January 1890.

98 WCAR, CO 6446, RM, Namaqualand, to IP, 2 February 1891.

99 WCAR, CO 6625, RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 16 January 1890.

100 Ibid.

101 WCAR, CO 6446, IP to RM, Namaqualand, 24 January 1891; WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/6, RM, Namaqualand, to IP, 2 February 1891.

102 Act No. 23–1888, ‘Act to Consolidate and Amend the Law Relating to Convict Stations and Prisons’, in Statutes of the Cape of Good Hope, Passed by the Seventh Parliament, During the Sessions 1884–1888 (Cape Town, W.A. Richards and Sons, 1889), p. 528.

103 WCAR, CO 6479, Cape of Good Hope, Government Notice, ‘Prison Regulations’, undated (c.1892).

104 Act No. 23–1888, ‘Act to Consolidate and Amend the Law Relating to Convict Stations and Prisons’, pp. 528–9, 533.

105 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/6, RM, Namaqualand, to IP, 2 February 1891; WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/7, RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 1 February 1894.

106 WCAR, 1/SBK 5/2/6, RM, Namaqualand, ‘Instructions to Constables in Charge of Hard Labour Gangs, Towards Preventing Escapes of Prisoners’, 28 March 1891; WCAR, CO 6611, RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 15 April 1890.

107 With regard to the latter, see WCAR, 1/SBK 1/1/9, Queen vs W. Wentzell, 5 May 1894; concerning the lack of skills: WCAR, CO 6625, RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 4 November 1891.

108 WCAR, CO 6625, RM, Namaqualand, to SLD, 4 November 1891.

109 WCAR, CO 6711, RM, Namaqualand, to UCS, 5 October 1896.

110 WCAR, CO 2296, RM, Namaqualand, to UCS, 5 July 1899; WCAR, CO 2095, RM, Namaqualand, to UCS, 12 November 1900.

111 Van Niekerk later lamented this in a letter to the editor published in the newspaper Ons Land. J. Van Niekerk, ‘Onze Gevangenen’, Ons Land, 20 June 1893. A translation of the letter can be found in: WCAR, CO 6659.

112 WCAR, CO 6659, Gaoler, Springbokfontein, to RM, Namaqualand, 3 July 1893.

113 Van Niekerk, ‘Onze Gevangenen’.

114 Again, this is suggested by the categorisation of some convicts in the criminal records of the attorney general (AG) and Namaqualand’s magistrate (1/SBK) as ‘Damara’, or ‘Hottentots’ who were born in ‘Great Namaqualand’.

115 Hynd has pointed to such practices with regard to 19th-century legal and penal systems in British Africa. See Hynd, ‘“… a Weapon of Immense Value”?’, p. 256.

116 NAN, ZBU F.I.c.1, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGR, 8 February 1896. On the chancellor’s order specifying the criminal jurisdiction and disciplinary power over ‘natives’ and its implementation in GSWA, see J. Zimmerling, Die Entwicklung der Strafrechtspflege für Afrikaner in Deutsch-Südwestafrika 1884–1914: Eine historisch-juristische Untersuchung (Bochum, Universitätsverlag Dr. N. Brockmeyer, 1995), pp. 47–8.

117 NAN, ZBU F.V.a.2, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGO (Imperial Government Office), 29 January 1897.

118 NAN, ZBU F.I.c.1, Vol. 1, ‘Instruktionen betreffend die Strafgerichtsbarkeit und Disziplinierungsgewalt der Kaiserlichen Distriktschefs und Stationsleiter gegenüber Eingeborenen’, 30 October 1896 (my emphasis).

119 NAN, ZBU F.V.k.19, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGO, 6 May 1897.

120 NAN, ZBU F.I.c.1, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGR, 8 February 1896.

121 NAN, ZBU F.I.c.1, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGR, 25 October 1896.

122 NAN, BKE B.II.15.a, Vol. 2, SC (Station Chief), Warmbad, Annual Report, 30 May 1897.

123 NAN, BKE B.II.66.g, Vol. 1, LPA (Local Police Authorities), Keetmanshoop, to DG, Keetmanshoop, 1 September 1896; NAN, BKE B.II.66.o, Vol. 1, statement by D. Africaner, 29 September 1901; NAN, ZBU F.V.h.2, Vol. 1, statement by T. Böklis, Warmbad, 21 March 1903.

124 NAN, BKE B.II.45.b, Vol. 1, IGO to DO, Keetmanshoop, 31 December 1897; NAN, BKE B.II.45.b, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGO, 27 February 1898.

125 NAN, BKE B.II.48, contract between DO, Keetmanshoop, and C. Eyth, 1 January 1897; contract between W. Grundmann and DO, Keetmanshoop, 24 July 1897; contract between DO, Keetmanshoop, and O. Metzke, 27 April 1899; contract between DO, Keetmanshoop, and C. Wrage, 27 June 1899.

126 NAN, BKE SPS.181, C. Eyth to DG, Keetmanshoop, 22 May 1897; NAN, BKE B.II.48, contract between DO, Keetmanshoop, and O. Metzke, 27 April 1899.

127 See the ‘native’ court files and the overview lists on criminal punishments for ‘natives’ occasionally attached to annual reports, both in the records of the district office of Keetmanshoop (NAN, BKE SPS; BKE B.II.15.a–g).

128 The rinderpest in the south of Namibia is still a desideratum in need of further research, but Wallace suggests that its effects for the population in the south were similar to those in the central parts of the country, including the loss of cattle. Wallace, A History of Namibia, p. 145. This would explain the significant number of stock thefts during the epizootic. Between mid 1895 and mid 1896, 110 cases were documented, dropping to 72 for the mid 1897–mid 1898 period and again to 38 between mid 1898 and mid 1899. See NAN, BKE B.II.15.d, DC (District Chief), Warmbad, Annual Report 1899/1900, 3 May 1900.

129 For example, the numbers given in footnote 128 point to a fluctuation of the number of convict labourers in the wake of the rinderpest.

130 NAN, BKE B.II.66.o, Vol. 1, SC, Warmbad, to DO, Keetmanshoop, 1 October 1897.

131 Again, see NAN, BKE B.II.45.b, Vol. 1, IGO, to DO, Keetmanshoop, 31 December 1897; NAN, BKE B.II.45.b, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGO, 27 February 1898.

132 NAN, GKE 338, G.43/97, statement by G. Strahl, 11 February 1897.

133 NAN, BKE B.II.48, contract between DO, Keetmanshoop, and O. Metzke, 27 April 1899.

134 R. Hindorf, Der landwirtschaftliche Werth und die Besiedelungsfähigkeit Deutsch-Südwestafrikas, 3rd ed. (Berlin, Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn, 1902 [1895]), p. 33.

135 20 Mk. were equivalent to c.£1, and 30 Mk equivalent to c.£1 10s.

136 NAN, ZBU F.I.c.1, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGR, 8 February 1896.

137 NAN, BKE B.II.66.g, Vol.1, LPA, Keetmanshoop, to DG, Keetmanshoop, 1 September 1896.

138 J. Schayer, A. Pienaar and W. Christian, in J-B. Gewald and J. Silvester, Words Cannot Be Found. German Colonial Rule in Namibia: An Annotated Reprint of the 1918 Blue Book (Leiden, Brill, 2003), pp. 159–61. On the value of the Blue Book as historical source despite its epistemological shortcomings, see J-B. Gewald and J. Silvester, ‘Footsteps and Tears: An Introduction to the Construction and Context of the 1918 “Blue Book”’, in Gewald and Silvester, Words Cannot Be Found, p. xv; M. Biwa, ‘“Weaving the Past With Threads of Memory”: Narratives and Commemorations of the Colonial War in Southern Namibia’ (PhD thesis, University of the Western Cape, 2012), pp. 18–19. For a critical discussion of the Blue Book, see R. Kössler, ‘Review: Sjambok or Cane? Reading the Blue Book’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 30, 3 (2004), pp. 703–8.

139 J. Schayer, in Gewald and Silvester, Words Cannot Be Found, pp. 159–60.

140 NAN, ZBU F.I.c.1, Vol. 1, ‘Instruktionen’, 30 October 1896.

141 NAN, ZBU F.I.c.1, Vol. 1, DG, Keetmanshoop, to IGR, 25 October 1896.

142 J. Schayer and A. Pienaar, in Gewald and Silvester, Words Cannot Be Found, pp. 159–60.

143 NAN, BKE B.II.15.a, Vol. 2, SC, Warmbad, Annual Report, 30 May 1897.

144 J. Schayer, A. Pienaar and W. Christian, in Gewald and Silvester, Words Cannot Be Found, pp. 159–61.

145 J. Schayer, in Gewald and Silvester, Words Cannot Be Found, p. 160.

146 NAN, BKE B.II.66.g, Vol. 1, SC, Warmbad, to DG, Keetmanshoop, 26 October 1896.

147 NAN, BKE B.II.66.g, Vol. 1, SC, Warmbad, to DG, Keetmanshoop, 17 November 1896.

148 See the cases tried against Gessert in August 1899 in NAN, GKE 353, 4535.28/12. They also established that Gessert treated workers in his employ violently.

149 The original of Gessert’s article can be found in German Federal Archives (hereafter BArch), R 1001/5116, A. Herfurth to CD-FO (Colonial Division of the Foreign Office), 30 June 1903. A censored version was later published, excluding the part on the high mortality rates of African prisoners at Bethanie. See BArch, R 1001/5116, DCD-FO (Director, CD-FO) to IGR, Windhoek, 22 July 1903; F. Gessert, ‘Die Sucht nach grossen Zahlen’, Koloniale Zeitschrift, 4, 14 (1903), pp. 257–9. None the less, officials and the public both on the spot and in the metropole were aware of the high death toll in Bethanie’s prison because of malnourishment and insufficient clothing, overcrowding and torture. See NAN, ZBU F.V.h.1, DC, Bethanie, ‘Bericht über die Sterblichkeitsziffer im Gefängnis von Bethanien (3 Anlagen)’, 13 October 1903; ‘Furchtbare Enthüllungen aus Südwestafrika’, Vorwärts, 3 September 1903.

150 Zollmann, Koloniale Herrschaft, p. 19.

151 NAN, BKE B.II.48, contract between DO, Keetmanshoop, and C. Eyth, 1 January 1897; NAN, BKE SPS.181, C. Eyth to DG, Keetmanshoop, 22 May 1897.