The Use of Camps in Colonial Warfare

Abstract

This article provides a comparative historical overview of the use of camps in colonial warfare. It investigates two phases in the evolution of camps: the first generation of camps that emerged around 1900 in Cuba, the Philippines, South Africa and German Southwest Africa and post-Second World War camps in the wars of decolonisation in Malaya, Kenya and Algeria. It posits that the history of camps in colonial warfare is characterised by an evolution from camps as institutions aimed at the punishment of those who supported an insurgency or rebellion towards a function that focused on the ‘rehabilitation’ of the inmates, even though this often involved torture. However, the article also outlines differences between camps in the comparative perspective and argues that the political circumstances of conflicts in the colonies, most importantly the existence of settlers and the potential for economic exploitation, played a role regarding the concrete functions and roles of camps.

Notes

[1] Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism.

[2] Smith and Stucki, ‘Colonial Development of Concentration Camps’; and Hull, Absolute Destruction.

[3] Zimmerer, Von Windhuk nach Auschwitz?; and Madley, ‘From Africa to Auschwitz’. For an analysis of the global (rather than merely German) transfer of the institution of the camp, see Mühlhahn, ‘The Concentration Camp in Global Historical Perspective’. For a critique of the transfer hypothesis, see Gerwarth and Malinowski, ‘Hannah Arendt's Ghosts’.

[4] Scheipers, Unlawful Combatants. The notion of ‘camps’ is used here in its broadest meaning and includes all forms of relocation sites, ranging from internment camps to ‘new villages’.

[5] The term ‘civilian’ is used in inverted commas because its contemporary meaning differed from today's legal understanding of the term. The category of ‘civilians’ as a protected category of persons in war was introduced only in the 1949 Geneva Convention IV. Even after 1949, in colonial warfare ‘civilians’ did not exist strictly speaking, as colonial wars were not international wars or, rather, this was precisely what colonial powers disputed.

[6] Stucki, ‘Aufbruch ins Zeitalter der Lager?’, 22ff.

[7] Kramer, ‘Editorial’, 36.

[8] Stucki, ‘Aufbruch ins Zeitalter der Lager’, 26.

[9] Ibid.; Hyslop, ‘Invention of the Concentration Camp’, 270.

[10] Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 196.

[11] Ibid., 207ff.

[12] Ibid., 215.

[13] Ibid., 209ff.; Garcia, ‘Urban Guajiros’, 219ff.

[14] Tone, War and Genocide in Cuba, 207.

[15] Cf. Porch, Counterinsurgency, 62.

[16] Linn, The Philippine War, 323; and May, ‘Was the Philippine American War a “Total War”?’.

[17] Linn, The Philippine War, 200.

[18] Lieber, ‘General Orders No. 100’ [Lieber Code], printed in Hartigan, Lieber's Code, 71.

[19] Linn, The Philippine War, 211ff.

[20] Ibid., 303.

[21] Ibid., 312ff.

[22] Judd and Surridge, Boer War, 194.

[23] Kitchener quoted in Roberts, ‘Detainees: Misfits in Peace and War’, 264.

[24] Kitchener quoted in ibid.

[25] Smith and Stucki, ‘Colonial Development of Concentration Camps’, 427.

[26] Cf. Keith and Surridge, Boer War, 196; Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 98ff.; and Hull, Absolute Destruction, 70ff.

[27] Pakenham, Boer War, 515; and Judd and Surridge, Boer War, 194; but see Smith and Stucki who argue that ‘incremental reforms in the camps were already under way at the time of the Fawcett Commission's report’: Smith and Stucki, ‘Colonial Development of Concentration Camps', 429.

[28] For a detailed discussion of the historiography of the battle of Waterberg, see Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 88ff.; Hull, Absolute Destruction, 33ff.

[29] Hull, ‘Prisoners in Colonial Warfare’, 163ff.

[30] Hull, Absolute Destruction, 70.

[31] Kuß, Deutsches Militär, 100.

[32] Hull, ‘Prisoners in Colonial Warfare’, 162. Hull argues that forced labour in the framework of colonial institutions was exterminatory, while those prisoners who worked in private settings were treated better, as private ‘employers’ had a greater interest in preserving their workforce.

[33] Bennett, ‘“A Very Salutary Effect”’.

[34] On the difficulties of periodisation, see also Karl Hack's contribution in this special issue.

[35] Hack, ‘Detention, Deportation, Resettlement’.

[36] Ibid., 438.

[37] Hack, ‘“Iron Claws on Malaya”’, 102.

[38] Hack, ‘Everyone Lived in Fear’, 684ff.

[39] Hack, ‘“Iron Claws on Malaya’”, 117.

[40] Hack, ‘Everyone Lived in Fear’, 685.

[41] Ibid., 690.

[42] Bayly and Harper, Forgotten Wars, 494.

[43] Bennett, ‘“A Very Salutary Effect”’, 441.

[44] Hack, ‘Everyone Lived in Fear’, 688; Hack, ‘Detention, Deportation, Resettlement’.

[45] Bayly and Harper, Forgotten Wars, 483.

[46] Bonner, Executive Measures, Terrorism and National Security, 150ff.

[47] Hack, ‘Everyone Lived in Fear’, 693.

[48] Elkins, Britain's Gulag; the title of the original publication was Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya.

[49] Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 43ff.

[50] Branch, Defeating Mau Mau, 38.

[51] Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 111ff. A more rudimentary colour code system had already been introduced in 1951 in Malaya. Cf. Hack, ‘Detention, Deportation, Resettlement’.

[52] Anderson, ‘British Abuse and Torture’, 707ff.

[53] Ibid., 711.

[54] Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, 172ff.

[55] Ibid., 224.

[56] Anderson, Histories of the Hanged, 295.

[57] Ibid., 317; Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, 224. A very limited programme of forced labour for high-level detainees was introduced in Malaya in 1951. Hack, ‘Detention, Deportation, Resettlement’.

[58] Bennett, Fighting the Mau Mau, 61.

[59] Branche, ‘The French in Algeria’, 175.

[60] Evans, Algeria, 250ff.; and cf. Davis, ‘Restaging mise en valeur’.

[61] Branche, ‘The French in Algeria’, 175ff.

[62] Ibid., 179.

[63] Branche, ‘The French Military in its Last Colonial War’, 178.

[64] Scheipers, Unlawful Combatants. Hyslop presents a somewhat similar argument when he claims that ‘new cultures of military professionalism were crucial to the emergence of the concentration camp in this period'. However, the professionalization of European armed forces that Hyslop outlines mostly happened at the beginning of the nineteenth century; and he does not explain the time lag that occurred between the age European military reform and the emergence of camps in colonial warfare. Hyslop, ‘Invention of the Concentration Camp’, 254.

[65] García, ‘Urban Guajiros’, 215.

[66] Conditions in the ‘black' camps in the Boer War were bleaker than in the ‘white’ Boer camps, for instance. Smith and Stucki, ‘Colonial Development of Concentration Camps’, 429.

[67] Quoted in Pakenham, Boer War, 50

[68] Popple, ‘From “Brother Boer” to “Dirty Boer”'.

[69] García, ‘Urban Guajiros’, 215.

[70] Scheipers, Unlawful Combatants; see also Klose, Human Rights in the Shadow of Colonial Violence.

[71] Porch, Counterinsurgency.

[72] Cf. Wolfe, ‘Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native'; Hull, ‘Prisoners in Colonial Warfare’, 163; and Elkins, Britain's Gulag, 3.

[73] Foucault, Discipline and Punish.

[74] Scheipers, Unlawful Combatants.

[75] I am grateful to one of my students, Dylan Marshall, for extensive discussion on this point.

[76] Plaw, ‘Counting the Dead’,150.

[77] Cavallaro, Sonnenberg and Knuckey, Living under Drones.