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Throwing Slaves Overboard to Drown and Other Dark Moments From History

Khalid Elhassan July 26, 2020 35 min

Plateau - Slave ship — Slave ship hold. History Channel

32. The British Concentration Camps

Armed Boers during the Second Boer War. The Telegraph

During the Second Boer War (1899 – 1902), the British had their hands full trying to subdue the Boers of the Orange Free State and of the Republic of Transvaal. The British initially assumed that a swift campaign would quickly put an end to the fighting, but their opponents proved tougher and more resilient than expected. Although greatly outnumbered, the Boers went on the offensive and achieved some remarkable early successes.

Before they knew it, the British had a full-scale war on their hands, that required the commitment of roughly 600,000 troops and auxiliaries to the fight. It also required the British to turn to a dark recent innovation to subdue the obstreperous Boers: the construction of concentration camps.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.