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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 May 2019
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.
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: 619226@soas.ac.uk.
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47 Somerville, Narrative, Appendix 1, Letter written by Petrus Borchardus Borcherds to his father Rev. Meent Borcherds [nd], 230.
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62 Either Casalis, Arbousset, or the editors of the missionary periodical commented: ‘The demon of battles has seized the soul of the king of the Bassoutos.’ nd. JME, 11 (1836), 18.
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.
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65 Damane, Sanders, Lithoko, 64–5.
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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.
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77 Ellenberger and Macgregor, History of the Basuto, 194–5.
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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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111 Damane and Sanders, Lithoko, 68n2.
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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.
