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‘HAVE YOU EVER CAPTURED ANYTHING FOR YOUR PARENTS?’ WAR, CAPTIVITY, AND SLAVERY ON THE PRECOLONIAL SOUTHERN AFRICAN HIGHVELD, C.1800–71

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2019

ETTORE MORELLI
ETTORE MORELLI*
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
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Abstract

The article analyses various cases of captivity in a region comprised within modern-day South Africa and Lesotho in the late precolonial period. Focusing on a single social institution, bohlanka, the article follows its traces scattered among the Batlhaping, the Basotho, the Barolong, the Bataung, and other smaller precolonial communities. Generally considered by scholars as a form of clientship based on cattle-loans, bohlanka is here redefined as originating from warfare and captivity, and later expanding to include the destitute. The fundamental elements of the institution — violence, natal alienation, and suspended death — lead to the conclusion that bohlanka constituted a local form of slavery that pre-dated colonial influences.

Keywords

South AfricaLesothoBotswanaPrecolonialSlaveryWarOral SourcesWomen
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 45 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

Parts of the article were presented at the ASAI Conference in Catania (2016), at the Cambridge ARF (2017), and the SAHS Conference in Johannesburg (2017). I am grateful for the useful feedback received in all these occurrences, and I would like to single out the great comments by Rachel King and Mark McGranaghan. Wayne Dooling, Pierluigi Valsecchi, and Paul Landau commented on earlier drafts. I thank them and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable help. Author's email: [email protected].

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63 Letter from Arbousset to Society, Morija, 3 December 1835, JME, 11 (1836), 140–2. The campaign was described also by Casalis and Gosselin. Letter from Casalis to Society, Motito, 20 May 1835, and Journal by Gosselin, 6 October 1834 to 30 May 1835, JME, 11 (1836), 23–5, 40.

64 Thompson, Survival, 6; A. Mabille, H. Dieterlen (eds.) and R. A. Paroz, Southern Sotho-English Dictionary (Morija, Lesotho, 2011), 402.

65 Damane, Sanders, Lithoko, 64–5.

66 Ellenberger and Macgregor, History of the Basuto, 129; J. C. Macgregor, Basuto Traditions. Being a Record of the Traditional History of the More Important Tribes Which Form the Basuto Nation of To-Day up to the Time of Their Being Absorbed, Compiled from Native Sources (Cape Town, 1905), 18.

67 Ellenberger and Macgregor, History of the Basuto, 123. Mentioned with other cases in Eldredge, A South African Kingdom, 134.

68 Macgregor, Basuto Traditions, 25.

69 Ellenberger and Macgregor, History of the Basuto, 129.

70 Slave descent is, at least in theory, compatible with a position of power. Patterson, Slavery, 314–7; Watson, ‘Slavery as an institution’, 6; P. Valsecchi, ‘Il big man è uno schiavo. Status personale e potere nella Costa d'Oro tra Sei e Ottocento’, in P. G. Solinas, La Dipendenza. Antropologia delle Relazioni di Dominio (Lecce, Italy, 2004), 15–40.

71 M. Kinsman, ‘“Hungry wolves”: The impact of violence on Rolong life, 1823–1836’, in Hamilton, The Mfecane Aftermath, 363–93; Etherington, Great Treks, 133–7.

72 Wits Historical Papers, Johannesburg, A 567, Symons Collection, Item 5, Letter, Mrs. Hodgson to her sisters, Banks of the Modder River, 7 May 1825, photocopy; Hodgson, T. L., The Journals of the Rev. T. L. Hodgson, Missionary to the Seleka-Rolong and the Griquas, 1821–1831 (Johannesburg, 1977), 150–1Google Scholar, 173; Broadbent, S., A Narrative of the First Introduction of Christianity Amongst the Barolong Tribe of Bechuanas, South Africa. With a Brief Summary of the Subsequent History of the Wesleyan Missions to the Same People (London, 1865), 97–8Google Scholar, 107–8.

73 Melvill's narrative in Thompson, G., Travels and Adventures in Southern Africa: Comprising a View of the Present State of the Colony, with Observations on the Progress and Prospects of the British Emigrants (London, 1827)Google Scholar, i, 309–11.

74 Macgregor, Basuto Traditions, 64.

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76 M. Damane, P. Sanders, ‘The Story of the Sotho – Part 2, by Tlali Moshoeshoe’, Edited and translated with an introduction and notes, in Mohlomi. Journal of Southern African Historical Studies, 6 (1990), 139–64, 146. According to the Mosotho historian Azariel Sekese, however, the campaign was led against the abaThembu, as it would be later in 1835. See A. T. Elias, A. M. Sekese's 29 Articles on the History of the Batlokoa Serially Published in the Leselinyana la Lesotho During 1892–1921, translated from Sesotho into English, B.A. Long Essay, National University of Lesotho (Roma, Lesotho, 1987), 19–20.

77 Ellenberger and Macgregor, History of the Basuto, 194–5.

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83 Western Cape Provincial Archives, Cape Town, (WCPA), A 302, 8: Joseph Millerd Orpen Papers, Historical Notes on Natives. Typescript of memorandum by Joseph Millerd Orpen, nd. [c.1900–10], on various subjects, 36 pp., first page missing; the reference is on page 10. Also referred to as Letlatsa. Orpen had met Letlatsa and recorded his version of the story when he was a colonial magistrate in Harrismith. On Orpen, see King, R., ‘“A loyal liking for fair play”: Joseph Millerd Orpen and knowledge production in the Cape Colony’, South African Historical Journal, 68:4 (2015), 410–32Google Scholar.

84 Letter from Arbousset to Society, Morija, 8 November 1853, JME, 29 (1854), 165.

85 Anonymous, ‘Account of Sikonyela’, Friend of the Sovereignty, 10 December 1853, also published in Theal, Basutoland Records, Volume 2, 82–5. This was reported also by Casalis, letter to Society, Thaba Bosiu, 4 November 1853, JME, 29 (1854), 41–2.

86 In addition, Thompson did not make any reference to the attack on the amaXhosa in 1836. Thompson, Survival, 82–3, 165–6.

87 Letter from Arbousset to Society, Morija, 12 January 1849, JME, 24 (1849), 191–4; Letter from Arbousset to Society, Morija, 8 November 1853, JME, 29 (1854), 170.

88 WCPA, A 302, 8: Joseph Millerd Orpen Papers, Historical Notes on Natives, ‘Reminiscences of H. Stevens Resident of Herschel District of 36 years standing’, 2. This could explain why Moorosi was reported to be in the 1870s the ‘nominal chief’ of the San of the Upper Orange valley; see John, J. Wright, Mazel, A. (eds.), Tracks in a Mountain Range: Exploring the History of the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg (Johannesburg, 2007), 94–5Google Scholar; Vinnicombe, P., People of the Eland: Rock Paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a Reflection of their Life and Thought (Pietermaritzburg, 1976), 87–103Google Scholar.

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90 Damane, Sanders, Lithoko, 130–1.

91 Lagden, G., The Basutos: The Mountaineers & Their Country, Being a Narrative of Events Relating to the Tribe From Its Formation Early In the Nineteenth Century To the Present Day (London 1909)Google Scholar, ii, 355–6.

92 Casalis, Les Bassoutos, 235.

93 Letter from Daumas to Society, Mekuatleng, January 1854, JME, 29 (1854), 175.

94 Meillassoux, Anthropologie de l'Esclavage, 110–4; C. C. Robertson and M. A. Klein (eds.), Women and Slavery in Africa (Portsmouth, 1997), 3–28.

95 Delius, ‘Recapturing captives’, 8.

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97 SOAS Library, Mf 6181, Ellenberger, Histoire des BaSotho, 39–40.

98 Macgregor, Basuto Traditions, 60.

99 Patterson, Slavery, 9–14, 77–101.

100 Letter from Arbousset to Society, Morija, 3 December 1835, JME, 11 (1836), 140–2.

101 V. Ellenberger, La fin, 243–49; Vinnicombe, People of the Eland, 87–103; Wright, Mazel, Tracks in a Mountain Range, 94–5; Vinnicombe, P., ‘Basotho oral knowledge: The last Bushman inhabitant of the Mashai district, Lesotho’, in Mitchell, P. and Smiths, B. (eds.), The Eland's People: New Perspectives in the Rock Art of the Maloti-Drakensberg Bushmen, (Johannesburg, 2010), 165–91Google Scholar; Mitchell, P., ‘Making history at Sehonghong: Soai and the last Bushman occupants of his shelter’, Southern African Humanities, 22 (2010), 149–70Google Scholar.

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103 Damane and Sanders, Lithoko, 59–61.

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105 V. Ellenberger, La Fin, 255–7.

106 Mitchell, ‘Making history at Sehonghong’, 156.

107 Damane and Sanders, Lithoko, 197, 208; Mangoaela, Z. D., Lithoko Tsa Marena a Basotho, (Morija, Lesotho, 2011 [orig. pub. 1921]), 123, 129Google Scholar.

108 Mabille, Dieterlen, Paroz, Southern Sotho-English Dictionary, 393.

109 Damane and Sanders, Lithoko, 182–6; Mangoaela, Lithoko, 114–7.

110 Kunene, Heroic Poetry of the Basotho, 131–5; Damane and Sanders, Lithoko, 39–43.

111 Damane and Sanders, Lithoko, 68n2.

112 Ibid. 130–1.

113 Schapera, I., Praise-Poems of Tswana Chiefs (Oxford, 1965), 50Google Scholar.

114 Royal Geographical Society Archives, London, Ronald Stretton Webb Papers, Box 15, ‘Bakubung Lihoja. English Version of Fred Serame Ramakabane's original Sotho mss. Done by Abraham Aaron Moletsane in 1960…1961’, 145–6; F. Porte, ‘Les Réminescences d'un Missionnaire du Basutoland (suite), Missions de la Congrègation des Oblats de Marie Immaculée, 34, 135 (Septembre 1896), 269–357, 311–3; M. A. A. Moletsane, An Account of the Autobiographical Memoir (Paarl, South Africa 1967) 2; Epprecht, This Matter of Women, 19, 23; Mabille, Dieterlen, Paroz, Southern Sotho-English Dictionary, 60, 304, 328.

115 ‘A queen, after she became a widow, usually entertains a crowd of female servants; she marries her servants, she would tell you every day: Ke nyetse mometsana (“I've just married a girl”), that is to say that she has just acquired a girl.’ Porte, ‘Les Réminescences’, 311. This nameless description was very likely based on ‘MaMosa, because the missionary Porte worked mainly in Molapo's district of Leribe. This practice is also described by Perrot, Les Sotho et les Missionnaires Européens, 109–10.

116 Mangoaela, Lithoko, 116. Unfortunately, the connection between bohlanka, polygamy, and marriage cannot be properly examined in this paper, and will be analysed in another work.

117 V. Ellenberger, La Fin, 258.

118 Ibid. 255–7.

119 The French original is ‘s'apprivoisèrent’. V. Ellenberger, La Fin, 257.

120 Dooling, ‘Reconstructing the household’, 407; Meillassoux, Anthropologie de l'Esclavage, 109.

121 V. Ellenberger, La Fin, 256. Author's translation from the original French.

122 Ibid.

123 Ibid.