Sol Plaatje and his contemporaries described the traumatic effects of the Natives Land Act 27 of ... more Sol Plaatje and his contemporaries described the traumatic effects of the Natives Land Act 27 of 1913: forced expulsions of Africans and their animals, followed by desperate livestock sales at slaughterhouse prices. In many places, previously secure sharecroppers on whiteowned farms became roaming exiles accompanied by their skeletal sheep and cattle, many of which starved along the road. Yet no single overarching narrative can capture the new law’s immediate effects, as the dynamics of changes were geographically idiographic. This Act is perhaps the most thoroughly studied piece of legislation in South Africa’s past, but the historical meta-narrative should be contested. The ‘land’ part of this Act has monopolised historiographical attention, while other aspects have been neglected. In this essay, I hope, therefore, to contribute another category to the analytical lens of class, race and gender through which the Act has been considered: species. Thus I focus on Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa as a key source, arguing that his repeated refrain that the Act was ‘cruel to animals’ was both a sincere response to its impact on African livestock and a deftly deployed act of political theatre scripted by Plaatje himself.
This paper explores new ways to write history that engages with the lives of animals. It offers a... more This paper explores new ways to write history that engages with the lives of animals. It offers a sample card of how social history can be enriched by focusing on history from an animal perspective – and equally, how the tools provided by social history reveals the historicity of animals. The case study is drawn from South African history and the focus is on horses. The paper firstly proposes that horses changed human history not only on the macro-level, but in the small, intimate arena of the bodily, following Febvre’s call for a sensory history. Secondly, this paper explores social history’s long-time concern with agency and with understanding socio-cultural experiences from the perspective of those who actually lived them – in this case, from an equine perspective. Thirdly, the paper asks how social history that takes animals seriously might be written and might offer a fresh dimension to our understanding, with examples from the most analysed event in southern African historiography, the South African War (1899–1902).
In 1914, there was a rebellion against the young Union government by some 11,000 Afrikaans-speaki... more In 1914, there was a rebellion against the young Union government by some 11,000 Afrikaans-speaking men. This social movement has primarily been understood as an Afrikaner Nationalist phenomenon. This article focuses on the gendered identity of the rebels in order to illuminate the Rebellion in a different light. In 1912, the introduction of the Defence Act threatened the identity of Boer men who had come to have their masculinity encoded and reinforced in the Republican commando system. The Defence Act was not a rarefied piece of legislation, but a law that touched people at the level of their religion, their language and their identity. Hardest hit was the Boer Republican self-conception of masculinity. The main focus of this article is on the period after 1912, when the Defence Act imposed modern training methods, uniforms, ranking system, disciplinary codes and promotional norms. In the build-up to World War I, Afrikaans-speaking males living on the periphery of the new locus of central state power began to turn to alternative authorities to express their grievances. In the western Transvaal and the northern Free State, farmers and bywoners who were alienated by the state's failure to alleviate the economic recession and increasingly anxious over issues of class and race, went into rebellion, with the hope of re-establishing a republic. Cultural images of commando may have corresponded little with the reality of warfare, but seductive imagery propagated by rebel leaders helped fuel the Republican nostalgia that centred on a particular understanding of Boer masculinity. The Defence Act was introduced into a context of anxiety over urbanisation, loss of control over black labour and social upheaval. Fear about the loss of manhood and its manipulation, was not the sole reason for rebellion: for some it was a prime cause, for others a final straw, a justification, or an articulation of otherwise inexpressible feelings. But the Act further distanced some Boer men from the new state and severed their already tenuous allegiance to the legislature. The 1914 Rebellion was the last battle for a threatened manhood in the complex of ideas and institutions that characterised industrialising society.
In Thula Simpson (ed.), New Directions in SA Historiography (Manchester University Press), 2023
It is a strange new world: baboons and humans have swapped places. It is like a twenty-first-cent... more It is a strange new world: baboons and humans have swapped places. It is like a twenty-first-century remake of Macbeth, with the earth feverous, the humans feverish and the natural world out of kilter. Or perhaps it is more like some improbable Freaky Friday 'body swap' movie from the 1980s. Either way, in the Cape, on some streets the only pedestrians are baboons. Suddenly, in a reversal of fortune, the humans are locked down, caged in, forbidden to roam freely, and pursued by law enforcement for venturing across boundaries. This is because we write this book during unprecedented times: we are all watching the victorious progression of a microbe-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Perhaps a third, or even up to half, of the earth's eight billion people are in confinement or under curfew to help stop the rapid spread of this little bit of genetic code gone rogue. The final drafts of our chapters are written on a mandatory lockdown by the South African state in order to try to contain the disease in our own country by 'flattening the curve' of infection. The virus seems to have come to us from the animal kingdom, from a so-called 'wet market' in China. First reports suggested that the trade in wildlife triggered this virus spillover, with it jumping from animals to humans. Such leaps are likely when human exploitation and habitat destruction threaten wild animals, but in point of fact domesticated mammals (our companion animals and livestock) host most of the viruses likely to be passed to us. So humans are compelled to think afresh about zoonoses in this time of crisis. 1 We reconsider our relationships with the animals close to us physically (like pets, many of whom have been abandoned or killed by their owners as panic rises, and livestock, whose mass production in industrial agriculture poses massive environmental problems) and close to us physiologically (especially our close cousins, the primates). This latter concern-the 'primate as proxy' or the 'baboon as almost-human'-has a complicated history, as this chapter will contend.
Sol Plaatje and his contemporaries described the traumatic effects of the Natives Land Act 27 of ... more Sol Plaatje and his contemporaries described the traumatic effects of the Natives Land Act 27 of 1913: forced expulsions of Africans and their animals, followed by desperate livestock sales at slaughterhouse prices. In many places, previously secure sharecroppers on whiteowned farms became roaming exiles accompanied by their skeletal sheep and cattle, many of which starved along the road. Yet no single overarching narrative can capture the new law’s immediate effects, as the dynamics of changes were geographically idiographic. This Act is perhaps the most thoroughly studied piece of legislation in South Africa’s past, but the historical meta-narrative should be contested. The ‘land’ part of this Act has monopolised historiographical attention, while other aspects have been neglected. In this essay, I hope, therefore, to contribute another category to the analytical lens of class, race and gender through which the Act has been considered: species. Thus I focus on Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa as a key source, arguing that his repeated refrain that the Act was ‘cruel to animals’ was both a sincere response to its impact on African livestock and a deftly deployed act of political theatre scripted by Plaatje himself.
This paper explores new ways to write history that engages with the lives of animals. It offers a... more This paper explores new ways to write history that engages with the lives of animals. It offers a sample card of how social history can be enriched by focusing on history from an animal perspective – and equally, how the tools provided by social history reveals the historicity of animals. The case study is drawn from South African history and the focus is on horses. The paper firstly proposes that horses changed human history not only on the macro-level, but in the small, intimate arena of the bodily, following Febvre’s call for a sensory history. Secondly, this paper explores social history’s long-time concern with agency and with understanding socio-cultural experiences from the perspective of those who actually lived them – in this case, from an equine perspective. Thirdly, the paper asks how social history that takes animals seriously might be written and might offer a fresh dimension to our understanding, with examples from the most analysed event in southern African historiography, the South African War (1899–1902).
In 1914, there was a rebellion against the young Union government by some 11,000 Afrikaans-speaki... more In 1914, there was a rebellion against the young Union government by some 11,000 Afrikaans-speaking men. This social movement has primarily been understood as an Afrikaner Nationalist phenomenon. This article focuses on the gendered identity of the rebels in order to illuminate the Rebellion in a different light. In 1912, the introduction of the Defence Act threatened the identity of Boer men who had come to have their masculinity encoded and reinforced in the Republican commando system. The Defence Act was not a rarefied piece of legislation, but a law that touched people at the level of their religion, their language and their identity. Hardest hit was the Boer Republican self-conception of masculinity. The main focus of this article is on the period after 1912, when the Defence Act imposed modern training methods, uniforms, ranking system, disciplinary codes and promotional norms. In the build-up to World War I, Afrikaans-speaking males living on the periphery of the new locus of central state power began to turn to alternative authorities to express their grievances. In the western Transvaal and the northern Free State, farmers and bywoners who were alienated by the state's failure to alleviate the economic recession and increasingly anxious over issues of class and race, went into rebellion, with the hope of re-establishing a republic. Cultural images of commando may have corresponded little with the reality of warfare, but seductive imagery propagated by rebel leaders helped fuel the Republican nostalgia that centred on a particular understanding of Boer masculinity. The Defence Act was introduced into a context of anxiety over urbanisation, loss of control over black labour and social upheaval. Fear about the loss of manhood and its manipulation, was not the sole reason for rebellion: for some it was a prime cause, for others a final straw, a justification, or an articulation of otherwise inexpressible feelings. But the Act further distanced some Boer men from the new state and severed their already tenuous allegiance to the legislature. The 1914 Rebellion was the last battle for a threatened manhood in the complex of ideas and institutions that characterised industrialising society.
In Thula Simpson (ed.), New Directions in SA Historiography (Manchester University Press), 2023
It is a strange new world: baboons and humans have swapped places. It is like a twenty-first-cent... more It is a strange new world: baboons and humans have swapped places. It is like a twenty-first-century remake of Macbeth, with the earth feverous, the humans feverish and the natural world out of kilter. Or perhaps it is more like some improbable Freaky Friday 'body swap' movie from the 1980s. Either way, in the Cape, on some streets the only pedestrians are baboons. Suddenly, in a reversal of fortune, the humans are locked down, caged in, forbidden to roam freely, and pursued by law enforcement for venturing across boundaries. This is because we write this book during unprecedented times: we are all watching the victorious progression of a microbe-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Perhaps a third, or even up to half, of the earth's eight billion people are in confinement or under curfew to help stop the rapid spread of this little bit of genetic code gone rogue. The final drafts of our chapters are written on a mandatory lockdown by the South African state in order to try to contain the disease in our own country by 'flattening the curve' of infection. The virus seems to have come to us from the animal kingdom, from a so-called 'wet market' in China. First reports suggested that the trade in wildlife triggered this virus spillover, with it jumping from animals to humans. Such leaps are likely when human exploitation and habitat destruction threaten wild animals, but in point of fact domesticated mammals (our companion animals and livestock) host most of the viruses likely to be passed to us. So humans are compelled to think afresh about zoonoses in this time of crisis. 1 We reconsider our relationships with the animals close to us physically (like pets, many of whom have been abandoned or killed by their owners as panic rises, and livestock, whose mass production in industrial agriculture poses massive environmental problems) and close to us physiologically (especially our close cousins, the primates). This latter concern-the 'primate as proxy' or the 'baboon as almost-human'-has a complicated history, as this chapter will contend.
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Papers by Sandra Swart
sales at slaughterhouse prices. In many places, previously secure sharecroppers on whiteowned farms became roaming exiles accompanied by their skeletal sheep and cattle, many of
which starved along the road. Yet no single overarching narrative can capture the new law’s immediate effects, as the dynamics of changes were geographically idiographic. This Act is perhaps the most thoroughly studied piece of legislation in South Africa’s past, but the historical meta-narrative should be contested. The ‘land’ part of this Act has monopolised
historiographical attention, while other aspects have been neglected. In this essay, I hope, therefore, to contribute another category to the analytical lens of class, race and gender
through which the Act has been considered: species. Thus I focus on Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa as a key source, arguing that his repeated refrain that the Act was ‘cruel to animals’ was both a sincere response to its impact on African livestock and a deftly deployed act of political theatre scripted by Plaatje himself.
history reveals the historicity of animals. The case study is drawn from South African history and the focus is on horses. The paper firstly proposes that horses changed
human history not only on the macro-level, but in the small, intimate arena of the bodily, following Febvre’s call for a sensory history. Secondly, this paper explores social history’s long-time concern with agency and with understanding socio-cultural experiences from the perspective of those who actually lived them – in this case, from an equine perspective. Thirdly, the paper asks how social history that takes animals
seriously might be written and might offer a fresh dimension to our understanding, with examples from the most analysed event in southern African historiography, the
South African War (1899–1902).
Afrikaner Nationalist phenomenon. This article focuses on the gendered identity of the rebels in order to illuminate the Rebellion in a different light. In 1912, the introduction of
the Defence Act threatened the identity of Boer men who had come to have their masculinity encoded and reinforced in the Republican commando system. The Defence Act was not a
rarefied piece of legislation, but a law that touched people at the level of their religion, their language and their identity. Hardest hit was the Boer Republican self-conception of
masculinity. The main focus of this article is on the period after 1912, when the Defence Act imposed modern training methods, uniforms, ranking system, disciplinary codes and promotional norms. In the build-up to World War I, Afrikaans-speaking males living on the periphery of the new locus of central state power began to turn to alternative authorities to express their grievances. In the western Transvaal and the northern Free State, farmers and bywoners who were alienated by the state's failure to alleviate the economic recession and increasingly anxious over issues of class and race, went into rebellion, with the hope of re-establishing a republic. Cultural images of commando may have corresponded little with the reality of warfare, but seductive imagery propagated by rebel leaders helped fuel the Republican nostalgia that centred on a particular understanding of Boer masculinity.
The Defence Act was introduced into a context of anxiety over urbanisation, loss of control over black labour and social upheaval. Fear about the loss of manhood and its manipulation, was not the sole reason for rebellion: for some it was a prime cause, for others a final straw, a justification, or an articulation of otherwise inexpressible feelings. But the Act
further distanced some Boer men from the new state and severed their already tenuous allegiance to the legislature. The 1914 Rebellion was the last battle for a threatened manhood in the complex of ideas and institutions that characterised industrialising society.
Books by Sandra Swart
sales at slaughterhouse prices. In many places, previously secure sharecroppers on whiteowned farms became roaming exiles accompanied by their skeletal sheep and cattle, many of
which starved along the road. Yet no single overarching narrative can capture the new law’s immediate effects, as the dynamics of changes were geographically idiographic. This Act is perhaps the most thoroughly studied piece of legislation in South Africa’s past, but the historical meta-narrative should be contested. The ‘land’ part of this Act has monopolised
historiographical attention, while other aspects have been neglected. In this essay, I hope, therefore, to contribute another category to the analytical lens of class, race and gender
through which the Act has been considered: species. Thus I focus on Sol Plaatje’s Native Life in South Africa as a key source, arguing that his repeated refrain that the Act was ‘cruel to animals’ was both a sincere response to its impact on African livestock and a deftly deployed act of political theatre scripted by Plaatje himself.
history reveals the historicity of animals. The case study is drawn from South African history and the focus is on horses. The paper firstly proposes that horses changed
human history not only on the macro-level, but in the small, intimate arena of the bodily, following Febvre’s call for a sensory history. Secondly, this paper explores social history’s long-time concern with agency and with understanding socio-cultural experiences from the perspective of those who actually lived them – in this case, from an equine perspective. Thirdly, the paper asks how social history that takes animals
seriously might be written and might offer a fresh dimension to our understanding, with examples from the most analysed event in southern African historiography, the
South African War (1899–1902).
Afrikaner Nationalist phenomenon. This article focuses on the gendered identity of the rebels in order to illuminate the Rebellion in a different light. In 1912, the introduction of
the Defence Act threatened the identity of Boer men who had come to have their masculinity encoded and reinforced in the Republican commando system. The Defence Act was not a
rarefied piece of legislation, but a law that touched people at the level of their religion, their language and their identity. Hardest hit was the Boer Republican self-conception of
masculinity. The main focus of this article is on the period after 1912, when the Defence Act imposed modern training methods, uniforms, ranking system, disciplinary codes and promotional norms. In the build-up to World War I, Afrikaans-speaking males living on the periphery of the new locus of central state power began to turn to alternative authorities to express their grievances. In the western Transvaal and the northern Free State, farmers and bywoners who were alienated by the state's failure to alleviate the economic recession and increasingly anxious over issues of class and race, went into rebellion, with the hope of re-establishing a republic. Cultural images of commando may have corresponded little with the reality of warfare, but seductive imagery propagated by rebel leaders helped fuel the Republican nostalgia that centred on a particular understanding of Boer masculinity.
The Defence Act was introduced into a context of anxiety over urbanisation, loss of control over black labour and social upheaval. Fear about the loss of manhood and its manipulation, was not the sole reason for rebellion: for some it was a prime cause, for others a final straw, a justification, or an articulation of otherwise inexpressible feelings. But the Act
further distanced some Boer men from the new state and severed their already tenuous allegiance to the legislature. The 1914 Rebellion was the last battle for a threatened manhood in the complex of ideas and institutions that characterised industrialising society.