Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T06:45:00.105Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Firearms in Southern Africa: A survey1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Shula Marks  and
Anthony Atmore
Shula Marks
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Anthony Atmore
Affiliation:
Centre of International and Area Studies, University of London
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The relationships of the peoples of southern Africa after the establishment and expansion of the white settlement in the mid-seventeenth century can be seen in terms of both conflict and interdependence, both resistance and collaboration. The conflict often split over into warfare, not only between black and white, but also within both groups. As time passed, firearms came to be used by ever-widening circles of the combatants, often as much the result of the increased collaboration and interdependence between peoples as of the increased conflict. As Inez Sutton has pointed out, ‘in contrast to most of the rest of [sub-Saharan] Africa, the presence of a settler population ensured that the supply of arms was the most modern rather than the most obsolete’, and on the whole non-whites were acutely aware of changes in the manufacture of firearms in the nineteenth century.

Type
Papers on Firearms in Sub-Saharan Africa, II
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October 1971 , pp. 517 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 Sutton, I., ‘Trade, Firearms and the Rise of the Griqua States C. 1800–1840’, unpublished seminar paper, University of Dar Es Salaam, 1970. We are grateful to Mrs Sutton for allowing us to make use of this paper.Google Scholar

3 See below, pp. 531–3.

4 For the use of this term and an elaboration of the responses of the Khoisan to the Dutch, see S. Marks, ‘Khoisan Resistance to the Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries’, forthcoming.

5 Moodie, D., The Record or a series of official papers relating to the condition.… of the native tribes of South Africa (Amsterdam and Cape Town, 1960), Journal 29 05 1659 and 22 06 1659, and Van Riebeeck to Chamber of Seventeen 26 03. 1660.Google Scholar

6 The Record, Journal, 1 05 1659.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. Van Riebeeck to Chamber of Seventeen, 16 Feb. 1660 and 4 May 1660, and to Batavia 7 July 1659.

8 Ibid. Journal 25 Mar. 1673.

9 V.C.8 (Verbatim copies; Cape Archives), 329, 344, Journal 24 Sept. 1677 and 12 Oct. 1677.

10 Jeifreys, M. K. (ed.) Kaapse Plakkaatboek I (Cape Town, 1944), 242–3, 24 09. 1677/ 15 10 1677.Google Scholar

11 Leibrandt Manuscript Precis of Cape Archives, L.M. II. Gov. to landdrost, 3 July, 1690.

12 See S. Marks ‘Khoisan Resistance’….

13 C31. Council of Policy, Resolutions, Cape Archives 163–203, Report of J. Cruywagen of Commando against ‘Bosjesman-Hottentotten’, 28 May 1739.

14 van der Merwe, P. J.Die Noordwaartse Beweging van die Boere voor die Groot Trek (1770–1842) (The Hague, 1937) cc. I and II.Google Scholar

15 C.O. 107 no. 58898. Lanyon, O. to Barry, , 28 05 1878, cited in I. Sutton ‘Trade, Firearms and the Rise of the Griqua States’.Google Scholar

16 See Atmore, , Chirenje and Mudenge, ‘Firearms in South Central Africa’ below, pp. 545–56.Google Scholar

17 Cory Library (Grahamstown) MSS. 1110, J. Ayliff: ‘Traditions concerning the Shakan Wars’.

18 Jonker was the son of Jager Afrikaner, a Khoi farm servant who had fled with a number of armed followers beyond the confines of the colony after killing his white master. He set up a cattle-raiding band of Khoisan resisters in ‘Bushmanland’, but in 1815 was converted to Christianity and was ultimately pardoned by the British Governor of the Cape. He is said to have acquired some of his guns while in government service against the ‘Bushmen’.

19 Vedder, H., South West Africa in Early Times (Cass, 1966), 177, 180–2, 210–11, 260–70.Google Scholar

20 Vedder, H., South West Africa, e.g. 252.Google Scholar

21 Ibid. 230–1.

22 Palgrave, W. C.: His Mission to Damaraland and Great Namaqualand in 1876 (Cape Town, 1877), 22.Google Scholar

23 Vedder, H., South West Africa, 466–7.Google Scholar

24 Die Dagboek van Hendrik Witbooi (Vari Riebeeck Society, 1929), I35–6,Google Scholar cited by Wellington, J. H., South West Africa and its Human Issues (Oxford, 1967), 178.Google Scholar

25 Wellington, J. H., South West Afrwa and its Human issues, 206, 210–11.Google Scholar

26 Out of a total population of c. 60,000–80,000, there were only some i 6,000 Herero survivors; the Nama lost between 35 and 50 per cent of their people. Bley, H., South West Africa under German Rule (London, 1971), 150–1. This was probably the most catastrophic single war fought against an African people in colonial times, not only because of the casualties of the war itself, but also because of German policy during and immediately after the war.Google Scholar

27 For a penetrating analysis of the ineffectiveness of the Commando system in the late eighteenth century see Marais, J. S.,Maynier and the First Boer Republic (Cape Town, 1944).Google Scholar

28 Ibid. 105–8.

29 British Parliamentary Papers, Select Committee on Kaffir Tribes, 316.

30 Ibid. 318.

31 Ibid. 219.

32 Ibid. 75, Fairbairn was talking of the war which broke out in 1850 and lasted until 1853.

33 Cory MSS. 15, 545: Thackwray, J. to Ayliff, J., 3 12.1849,Google ScholarPort lizabeth Mercury, 15 05 1852,Google Scholar‘Trade in Guns’, Cape Frontier Times, 2 03. 1851.Google Scholar C.O. 48/353: Committee on Frontier Defence, Evid. Bowker, T. H., 11 08. 1854. C.O. 48/360: House of Assembly (Cape) Hearings, 855, 36, 41. Evid. R. Godlonton. C.S.D. II: Cape of Good Hope Votes and Proceedings, 1854. Testimony, Wm. Stanton, Jr., 21, no. 11. These citations as well as our conclusions have been drawn from a short unpublished paper and notes, especially prepared by Mr Richard Moyer, who is currently engaged in research on the history of the Mfengu in the nineteenth century, and we wish to thank him.Google Scholar

34 Goodfellow, C. F., Great Britain and the South African Confederation (1870–1881) (Cape Town, 1966), 113.Google Scholar

35 See Atmore, Chirenje and Mudenge below, and Goodfellow, C. F., Confederation, 45, 153, 155.Google Scholar

36 Various laws restricting the supply of arms and ammunition and providing for the registration of guns had been passed in Natal from 1859 onwards. The last of these was Act no. x of 1906 which made the permission of the Secretary for Native Affairs necessary before Africans could have guns. Chiefs with registered guns were allowed 2 lb. gunpowder and 200 rounds of ammunition, while ordinary Africans were permitted 1―2 lb. and 50 rounds. See Marks, S., Reluctant Rebellion (Oxford, 1970), 186.Google Scholar

37 Morris, D. R., The Washing of the Spears, 216.Google Scholar

38 Morris, D. R., The Washing of the Spears 218, 272, 306–8;Google Scholar

39 Marks, S., Reluctant Rebellion, 113.Google Scholar

40 The exceptions are the Ndebele who became less successful from the 1860s and 1870s once the Shona and Tswana acquired firearms. See Atmore, Chirenje and Mudenge below.

41 Below, pp. 557–70 and 545–56 respectively.

42 Wheeler, D., ‘Gungunhana’ in Bennett, N. R., Leadership in Eastern Africa (Boston, 1968), 184, 191, 195–6, 207–8.Google Scholar

43 We are extremely grateful to Philip Bonner for a short unpublished paper on Firearms in Swaziland, which we have drawn on heavily in this section. All the references cited have been supplied by Mr Bonner.

44 Preller, G. S., Dagboek van Louis Trichardt (Bloemfontein, 1917), 359;Google ScholarMiller, A., MSS. ‘History of Swaziland’ (Killie Campbell Library, Durban), 11; W. Wood, ‘Statements concerning Dingane’.Google Scholar

45 Bonner, P., ‘Firearms in Swaziland’, 2–3.Google Scholar

46 Ibid. 5. Bonner also shows how Mswati tried to keep firearms a royal monopoly, lest they be used in rebellion against him.

47 Mönig, H. O., The Pedi (Pretoria, 1967), 25–7.Google ScholarSmith, K. W., ‘The fall of the Bapedi of the North-Eastern Transvaal’, J. Afr. Hist. x, no. 2 (1969), 237–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Beach, D., ‘The Rising in South-Western Mashonaland, 1896–7’, University of London, Ph.D. thesis, 1971.Google Scholar

49 Below, pp. 571–77.

50 An obvious starting point would be such publications as the Royal United Institute Journal for the nature of British armaments, and the Journal of Hut, of Firearms in South Africa, Africana Notes and News and Tylden's, G.The Armed Forces of South Africa (Johannesburg, 1954) for the colonial forces.Google Scholar

51 Here the sources are vast.

52 See Bonner, P., ‘African Participation in the South African War’, unpublished M.A., London, 1966.Google Scholar