White Man’s War

This chapter examines the Boers’ involvement in, and labors during, the South African War. It first considers the Boer–black relations, citing the Boers’ racist attitude toward blacks before and during the South African War. It then looks at blacks in Boer service; black resistance to Boer hegemony fostered by Ethiopianism and manifested in the activities of armed gangs; and blacks’ service with the British troops, particularly Bergh’s Scouts. It also discusses the black concentration camps and concludes with an analysis of the claims that blacks murdered and mutilated whites, contextualized in the colonial mythology of black savagery and recontextualized in terms of a general descent into murderous brutality.