Recommendations please for history books written about the Boers from the Boer perspective (translated to English).

Hammer

A book I liked very much, which is written in a quite fairly way, attending all interests supported by every contendant that took place in that historical conflict, is THE BOER WAR by Thomas Pakenham (ISBN 0 - 380 - 72001 -9)

The boer´s culture and way of life is well treated and explained ...

I highly reccomend it !

A book written by Deneys Reitz called COMMANDO.

He kept a diary during the war and his book was prefaced by General Smuts under witch Deneys served during the raids in to the Cape Colony.

With almost no clothes and blankets and they had to endure the hars winters of the Free State high veld and Karoo.

Incredible story of a young man on COMMANDO.

Gerhard

The perspective was even-handed. Try "To The Bitter End" (A photographic History of the Boer War 1899-1902.)by Emanoel Lee.

There is also an Australian move from the 1980's called BREAKER MORANT about the British and their goings on during the war.

Another vote for Commando. Bought in JNB and it is great.

Also picked up a pictorial book on the war. I will check the title and author when I return home, it was great too.

The Boer perspective can be a little self-serving. I always thought the story about Piet Retief getting murdered by the blacks after they signed over ownership of a large area of land to his party was a little poetic. No doubt he was murdered, as were his followers, but the so-called treaty, which was recovered some days later by a follow-up party, conveniently still in dead Piet's leather pouch and signed by Dingaan, seemed like a fabrication to me. It's still in the Voortrekker monument and it's message is clear: we paid for this land with the blood of our forefathers, here's the treaty to prove it, so it's ours forever.

And then there is the Boer interpretation of the Old Testament. Goes something like this: the Boers, not the Jews, are God's chosen people, and He sent them to SA to bring God's word to the unbeliever (kaffir) blacks. SA was their promised land. However, he didn't send them to bring full equality and civilization to the blacks, actually his message was to use them as hewers of wood and drawers of water while getting them to read the bible supposedly (but they didn't really put a lot of emphasis on educating the blacks to read so I guess they let God down in that respect). They did execute the other part, about putting them to work and very effectively, but unfortunately without much finesse, so the Western world brought that to an end in the 90s.

Another claim is that if the English hadn't murdered their women and children in concentration camps during the Boer War, then the Afrikaners would today be in the majority demographically. In other words, their current plight as outcasts in their own land is largely the fault of the English. The other side claims that those who did die in the concentration camps died of disease (I think it was smallpox mainly, or measles?) and I am not sure the math works as the Boers claim. However, there is no doubt that the English did not exactly extend the best medical care to the internees, but there was no deliberate genocide either.

Anyway, read Michener's Covenant, it's pretty much the correct Boer mythology. That's a pretty light read.

And if you want to get some insight into some really wacky Boer stuff, read "The Seer (Siener)". Don't remember the author, maybe Van Rensburg, but it's a story about a Boer who had the power of prophesy during the early days, and he had lots of them including one that said the Boers would lose everything but then a man in a plain brown suit would rise up among them and lead them back to supremacy. So far, that hasn't happened yet, unless you believe Kortbroek is the guy! This book is a very heavy read because it's a clumsy translation from the original Dutch.

Another insight is "My Traitor's Heart" or something to that effect. A young Boer spends some time outside the country and then starts questioning his own beliefs and the system that his fellows had built.

For some non-political reading, "Jock of the Bushveld" gives some insights into life in the early days. Wonderful book, and it's supposedly all factual.

Finally, for the perspective of the blacks that got the short end of the stick then, and are still getting it today at the hands of the new elite, read Alan Paton's "Cry the Beloved Country".

Don't get me wrong, I love those guys, they are the salt of the earth and well-meaning for the most part, so I have a lot of sympathy for them, even if to a large extent they brought their current malaise upon themselves (and their countrymen).

Russ Gould wrote:

quote:

However, there is no doubt that the English did not exactly extend the best medical care to the internees, but there was no deliberate genocide either.

The English simply let them died of HUNGER!!!

That's how easy they did it and then obviously diseases followed and did the rest.

You don't need books to be informed, rather read our daily papers and you will see what we have to cope with nowadays:

quote:

Robbers skin farmer's feet
12/04/2006 22:31 - (SA)

Robbers 'boil' couple's feet

Farmer's Achilles tendons slashed

Teen shot in farm attack

Farmer lucky to be alive

Cows slain in kraal bloodbath

Eduan Roos, Beeld

Vryheid - Robbers cut the soles off an elderly man's feet before forcing him and his wife to put their feet in a bath of boiling-hot water.

quote:

'My parents have become a statistic'
13/04/2006 08:07
A blood-splattered house greeted the shocked son of a Free State couple who were attacked on their farm - he wants photos taken "to show the public what's going on".

And that's how it has been since Piet Retief's time.

Follow this link daily and get the world to do something!!!

Deneys Reitz wrote a trilogy including Commando which makes for interesting reading.

Russ old fruit, your take is relatively simplistic although it has a couple of almost facts. Nothing is as simple as it seems, the black folk here were in fact sold down the river by the british, the boers perpetuated the indignity.
The Boer War by Packenham is a good read.

Jagter, I am not sure what point you are making. The original request was for history, but your response is to state what is happening now. Is your claim that all blacks are animals and therefore should be treated as such? "And that is how it has been since Piet Retief's time". Perhaps 'ol Piet had it right?
I am not trying to start a flaming war, just pointing out that an awful lot has been justified in the past on the grounds of racial inferiority. And, not just racial inferiority but racial purity. Witness the "eugenics" movement in the USA. We should be far enough removed from the events in South Africa, now, to get a historically accurate account of what happened in those days, but perhaps I am wrong. Of course, some still have a vested interest in a certain view of those events, so, perhaps a few more generations need to die before this happens.
Peter.

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Gould recommends, "Anyway, read Michener's Covenant, it's pretty much the correct Boer mythology. That's a pretty light read."

A light read, indeed. A very light read. Michener was a hard left liberal who suffered mightily from liberal guilt and an overreaching desire to remake history and his book "Covenant" is revisionism in its purest sense. Read it after you've read the Boer War histories by Pakenham, Farwell, Judd/Surridge, Rietz, and even Evans and then when you have time, have a good hearty laugh reading the Michener version of things.

For a military perspective from the Brit side read E.D. Swinton, The Defence of Duffer's Drift, originally printed in England in 1907 and reprinted in the 80s in the US. It is used for military training by various forces.

It is a good source for the tenor of the times in that war, including internment.

jim

quote:

Is your claim that all blacks are animals and therefore should be treated as such? "And that is how it has been since Piet Retief's time". Perhaps 'ol Piet had it right?

Peter, you brought the animal part in - if that's what you see, so be it!

quote:

We should be far enough removed from the events in South Africa, now, to get a historically accurate account of what happened in those days, but perhaps I am wrong.

Once again Peter, if you and the Western world plan to wait another 100 years to then see what has happened in 2006, then you will definitely be totally wrong and decades too late as well.
Your argeologists then will discover a second Sterkfontein and they will speculate that somewhere in the past there lived human beings in South Africa looking very similar to yourselves.

Read ALF's post again to help you understand our history and then start telling the world to do something about the savage killings and attacks white South Africans are facing NOW.

And that is the point I am making - the history repeats itself now - was British on Boer now it is just another enemy on the Boer people.

Jagter, I think you misinterpreted my comments. I am not out of sympathy at all with your situation over there. Africa is a mess from North to South. Witness Dafour, the whole of Sudan, and other genocidal activities. So, as near as I can tell, the whites are certainly not being singled out for special treatment! Africans seem to treat each other the same way! I know you think it is your home, but at some point one has to say: either I leave because the situation is untenable, or, I am going to take up arms and kill as many of them before they kill me. One thing is for sure, you will not get help from outside, unless you discover OIL in RSA. Then all bets are off! ALF said that the situation of the Boers and the indigenous population is exactly the same as that of the English settlers and the native American population. I think he is correct, but, that does not make the Boers any more "right". The West seems to think that they can "fix things". I am not sure they can. Conflicts on this scale are, I suspect, outside the scope of evn large scale interventions. You cannot change peoples minds that easily. But, back to the original question, I will certainly attempt to locate some of the books mentioned. One thing I did read somewhere and is that the Boers regarded bayonet attacks as "inhumane". AS this was a favorite tactic of the Brits, I am wondering if this was true or just an "urban legend".
Peter.

"Follow this link daily and get the world to do something!!!"

Get the world to do something? Not likely. While the plight of "farm attack" victims over the last ten years (or less) meets the criteria for genocide by no less than amnesty international, the fact that the victims are (for the most part) afluent whites and the perpetrators (again, for the most part) are disadvantaged non-whites makes this a "no story" by international standards. Unfortunate, very unfortunate.
The acts of the past generations were regretable. That cannot be debated. That is not justification for "evening the score" though! Sure, give the blacks land and property (by fair means) but to disadvantage another segment of the population as punishment for past generations is no less atrocious than those prior acts it seeks to punish. While race may be THE factor here it is not the issue. The issue is human rights and fairness FOR ALL. International pressure in the 80's and 90's (especially by the U.S.) sought to change the situation in South Africa immediately while essentially the same issues took a hundred years in the staes! Change, especially such drastic change takes time. This is one of those issues that can be debated forever with no difinitive solution. Fairness cannot be determined by race - any race. Sorry guys, this is one of those things I should have qept quiet on but cannot. I wish the past could be left behind and everyone just move forward.

"Can't we all just get along" - Rodney King during the L.A. riots following his attacker's trial.

Even though this a Boering topic, I will pitch in and say that the best thing my former colony ever did to the Brits was kick their limey asses out, post haste.

Unfortunately, the Boers were unable to do that, in no small part owing to their small numbers and the savagely inhuman tactics of the British, who were the true creators of concentration camps, long before Hitler and his Nazis ever thought of them, and learned to use them with horrific effect.

Interesting that the collective guilt of the Brits has very nearly emasculated the will of the entire nation these days. Not a bad thing, when you think about it.

My reaction about the castrated Brits is much the same as the Jewish American World War II veteran's reaction to the spectre of a unified Germany, in the old cold war days. When he was asked what he thought about the possibility of unification, he said that he was against it. He noted that two smaller, less populous and weaker Germanies were better than one big unified Germany, and that three or four little kraut fiefdoms (along the lines of the division of Berlin under the French, Russians, British and Americans right after WWII) would be even better still!

Another land that suffered and still suffers under the British boot heel is Ireland, which has fought British hegemony for more than a thousand years, but unfortunately is too geographically convenient to England ever to have succeeded in completely throwing off the yoke of British rule.

Sorry for the rant, but Anglophile I most certainly am not. The Brits do make nice best quality double rifles though!

quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:
Even though this a Boering topic

That went 7.8 on the pun scale. Not bad for a Lexington boy.

Hey Lexma, are you still angry about Bunker Hill?

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Account of one battle from a website www.britishbattles.
The Boer War was a serious jolt for the British Army. At the outbreak of the war British tactics were appropriate for the use of single shot firearms, fired in volleys controlled by company and battalion officers; the troops fighting in close order. The need for tight formations had been emphasised time and again in colonial fighting. In the Zulu and Sudan Wars overwhelming enemy numbers armed principally with stabbing weapons were easily kept at a distance by such tactics; but, as at Isandlwana, would overrun a loosely formed force. These tactics had to be entirely rethought in battle against the Boers armed with modern weapons.

In the months before hostilities the Boer commandant general, General Joubert, bought 30,000 Mauser magazine rifles and a number of modern field guns and automatic weapons from the German armaments manufacturer Krupp and the French firm Creusot. The commandoes, without formal discipline, welded into a fighting force through a strong sense of community and dislike for the British. Field Cornets led burghers by personal influence not through any military code. The Boers did not adopt military formation in battle, instinctively fighting from whatever cover there might be. The preponderance were countrymen, running their farms from the back of a pony with a rifle in one hand. These rural Boers brought a life time of marksmanship to the war, an important edge, further exploited by Joubert’s consignment of magazine rifles. Viljoen is said to have coined the aphorism “Through God and the Mauserâ€. With strong fieldcraft skills and high mobility the Boers were natural mounted infantry. The urban burghers and foreign volunteers readily adopted the fighting methods of the rest of the army.

Other than in the regular uniformed Staats Artillery and police units, the Boers wore their every day civilian clothes on campaign.

After the first month the Boers lost their numerical superiority, spending the rest of the formal war on the defensive against British forces that regularly outnumbered them.

British tactics, little changed from the Crimea, used at Modder River, Magersfontein, Colenso and Spion Kop were incapable of winning battles against entrenched troops armed with modern magazine rifles. Every British commander made the same mistake; Buller; Methuen, Roberts and Kitchener. When General Kelly-Kenny attempted to winkle Cronje’s commandoes out of their riverside entrenchments at Paardeburg using his artillery, Kitchener intervened and insisted on a battle of infantry assaults; with the same disastrous consequences as Colenso, Modder River, Magersfontein and Spion Kop.

Some of the most successful British troops were the non-regular regiments; the City Imperial Volunteers, the South Africans, Canadians, Australians and New Zealanders, who more easily broke from the habit of traditional European warfare, using their horses for transport rather than the charge, advancing by fire and manouevre in loose formations and making use of cover, rather than the formal advance into a storm of Mauser bullets.

Horribly biased, of course!
Peter.

Biased, Peter, but that's how I read the history books too!!!!!!!!!

Of course, I'm a Texan, and we had our litle spats with Mexico and the US too.

LLS

Below is page one of The Great Boer War by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Given that it was written by an Englishman who saw most of the war, it is significant in it's rendition of what happened.

THE GREAT BOER WAR
Chapter 1
The Boer Nations

Take a community of Dutchmen of the type of those who defended themselves for fifty years against all the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up home and fortune and left their country forever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The product must obviously be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen upon earth. Take this formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts, in circumstances under which no weakling could survive, place them so that they acquire exceptional skill with weapons and in horsemanship, give them a country which is eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman and the rider. Then, finally, put a fine temper upon their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine all these qualities and all these impulses in one individual, and you have the modern Boer - the most formidable antagonist who ever crossed the path of Imperial Britain. Our military history has largely consisted in our conflicts with France, but Napoleon and all his veterans have never treated us so roughly as these hard-bitten farmers with their ancient theology and their inconveniently modern rifles.

From: THE GREAT BOER WAR by A. CONAN DOYLE - 1901

quote:

Originally posted by 500nitro:
Deneys Reitz wrote a trilogy including Commando which makes for interesting reading.

Russ old fruit, your take is relatively simplistic although it has a couple of almost facts. Nothing is as simple as it seems, the black folk here were in fact sold down the river by the british, the boers perpetuated the indignity.
The Boer War by Packenham is a good read.

I'm not very old and I'm not a fruit. And could you tell me which of my facts are "almost"?

Also, would you explain your claim about the British selling the blacks down the river? I thought it was the 1946 elections that put the wheels of apartheid into motion: job reservation, the group areas act, the homelands policy, petty apartheid etc etc ...Only SA citizens got to vote in that election and the majority voted for the (Afrikaner) Nationalist Party, whose raison detre was to uplift the Afrikaner people and to deal with the "Swart Gevaar" (Black Danger). So I fail to see how the British, who by that time had given up their claims on SA, were responsible for the social, economic, and political mess that ensued.

And ALF, is it your opinion or the opinion of any noted historian that "The direct action of this event (the concentration camps) ultimately lead to the birth of not only Afrikaner Nationalism but also Black Nationalism. This gave rise to what we as South Africans now know as "the Struggle" (The Afrikaner national Party on the one side vs the ANC which came to be in 1912." Are you saying that the ANC fought Afrikaner rule because the Brits interned their forefathers in the Boer War? It seems more logical to me that the implementation of the apartheid ideology by Hendrik Verwoerd, and then the "velvet fist" policies of JB Vorster was a far greater catalyst for subsequent uprising.

Maybe you didn't mean it but it seems that you (and some other posters) are blaming the British for a lot of stuff that happened long after they handed over the reins.

Alf, "My God, My Land, My Volk" wasn't a very inclusive rallying cry. That was the problem with the Afrikaners....too insular and myopic, too much ideology and not enough pragmatism (to wit, the homelands and the multi-chamber parliament), too much church and not enough charity. In my opinion, and it's just that, SA could have been a more prosperous version of Brazil had the players played their cards right. But your parents and grandparents, through their ideology, and mine through their apathy, allowed that to slip through their hands. Now the mineral money is largely spent, the populace is uneducated, sick and hungry, and the place is run by another bunch of idealogues with a new (but surprisingly parellel to that of the Nats) and it's not the fault of the British.

For the record, I was there Alf. Had a black "meid" (nanny) and garden "boy" just like you. Attended whites only schools just like you. Sang "Die Stem" even though it was clearly an Afrikaner anthem and not a South African anthem. Attended a 99% white university, during the Soweto riots. Carried an FN FAL and wore the brown uniform, as an officer I might add. Attended the NG Kerk as well as the Church of the Province. Lived in Pretoria as well as Johannesburg. Worked in the mines and on the farm. In other words, I am not basing my opinions on books. I saw the whole thing unfold in slow motion. So slow it was hard to discern that it was moving. But looking back, it happened rather fast. Unfortunately, for my generation, things were too far along to do much about the inevitable.

Regarding Michener, I rather thought that his version of SA history was very sympathetic to the Boer cause and true to their mythology, not that it was factually correct. If he were a leftist liberal as you say, his novel would surely have cast the Boers as the bad guys. Not sure I get your point. Yes, it's a novel, and it's not all factual, but it's the easiest (and most entertaining) version of SA history that I have read. And while it was a long time ago, I recall thinking at the time that it was rather sympathetic to the Boer cause. That's what this thread was about...what books give the Boer side of the story? I say again, Michener's Covenant gives it about as well as anything.

.

quote:

Originally posted by ALF:
Russ Gould

Blame the British ? I did that? When and How?

Maybe you didn't intend it but that's the way I read it. (And you wouldn't be the only one, on or off this thread).

"The direct action of this event (the concentration camps) ultimately lead to the birth of not only Afrikaner Nationalism but also Black Nationalism. This gave rise to what we as South Africans now know as "the Struggle" ( The Afrikaner national Party on the one side vs the ANC which came to be in 1912)"

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That's a piece of history I did not know. It seems that it was indeed the British defeat of the Zulus (prior to the Boer War), the conduct of the Govts of the Boer Republics, and as you say the failure of the subsequent British Colonial Rulers who took over the Boer Republics (there were no blacks in the Cape and the Malay and other slaves had long been freed by the British administrators in that Colony) to meet black aspirations that gave rise to the ANC as you stated. I still don't think that situation was the cause of the "Struggle" of the late 20th century. It was the Afrikaner Nationalist party and their policies that motivated the ANC to begin the process of overthrow and also those policies that gave the other countries of the world reason to support the ANC's cause.

I have some dim recollection that the Smuts government, prior to 46, was following a policy of appeasement toward the ANC and that there was some form of political representation for blacks in the works. Maybe I am wrong there.

So I am curious Alf, and I know this is heresy, am I the only person who thinks Dingaan's signature on Retief's treaty was a forgery, done after the fact?

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You guys know far more than I do about that period of history, but one interesting piece of info I got from the "Day of the Dead Moon" recordings by (if I remember correctly) one of the Rattray brothers is that the Zulu habit of disembowelling their victims was actually a sign of respect and was intended to set their spirit free for the journey to the next life.

It's a long time since I heard the tapes but I seem to remember that they also used to impale those they believed to be wizards..... usually the senior officers.

(FWIW)The same series of tapes suggests the real reason the Zulu's retreated from the battle of Rourke's Drift was that there was a full eclipse on that day and consequently it was considered a bad day to fight a battle..... whether these snippets are actually true I have no idea...... and now back to your very interesting discussion!.........

Alf, your history is a bit skeef!

The massacres at Weenen and Bloukrans happened on 16th and 17th Feb 1838. Dick King went to warn the trekkers at Weenen but he was on foot, and he arrived too late.

His famous ride was in June 1842 from Durban to Grahamstown. The purpose of that mission was to fetch reinforcements to relieve the Inniskillings besieged by the Boers in Port Natal.

As for the rest of this thread....I don't think the Brits intended a policy of genocide. Their logistical support lacked the capacity to feed, clothe and doctor both the army and their Boer captives. And if the enemy are busy ambushing wagon trains and blowing up railway lines then who gets what's left of what gets through? The army of course. Captives always suck hind tit is such conflicts.

Had the scorched earth policy not been prosecuted, the war might have dragged on another 2 years. For those unfamiliar with that, it involved a systematic removal of the boer support system, burning farms and crops and internment of the families of the Boers who were on commando.

Victorian hearts and minds, if you will.