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Anglo Boere Oorlog/Boer War (1899-1902) BLOEMFONTEIN Kamp/Camp

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Botha, Bothma, de Beer, de Klerk and 16 others
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Profiles

  •
    Frederik Wilhelm van Bergen, b4c3 (1898 - 1910)
    Anglo Boere Oorlog STERFKENNIS
  • Adrianus van Bergen, b4c2 (1895 - d.)
    DOOP Anglo Boere Oorlog
  • Anna Cecilia van Bergen, b4c1 (1893 - 1974)
    Baptism . Anglo Boere Oorlog 1st marriage with Jacobus Andries Wijnand du Plessis . 2nd marriage with David Schalk Maartens .
  • Maria Magdalena Elizabeth van Bergen / Maree (1873 - 1966)
    STERFKENNIS Anglo Boere Oorlog 2de HUWELIK DEPOT VAB SOURCE HG TYPE LEER VOLUME_NO 4/2/1/1/304 SYSTEM 01 REFERENCE 91/1925 PART 1 DESCRIPTION CIVIL RECORDS. TRIALS AND APPLICATIONS. MARIA MAGD...
  • Douwlina Gertina Botha (1864 - 1928)
    Death Notice: VAB MHG 21284 (1928) Personal Details Name : Mrs Dolina Gertina Botha Born in camp ? No Died in camp ? No Gender : female Race : white Marital status : married Nationality : Fr...

Bloemfontein

  • Location:Orange River Colony
  • Date open:01/03/1901
  • Date closed:03/01/1903
  • Rations:15/2/1901: For native refugees: Natives over 12 years of age: Daily: 1½ lbs either mealies, K/corn, unsifted meal or mealie meal; ¼ oz salt; Weekly: 1 lb fresh or tinned meat; ½ coffee; 2 oz sugar - all but the corn to cost 4½d per ration.
  • Notes:6/12/1902: Camp to be closed about 20 December; remaining refugees sent to Springfontein and Brandfort

Bloemfontein was the first significant camp to be established and it was not typical of most camps. It was one of the largest, larger in fact than the town of Bloemfontein, which had a recorded population of 3,379 in 1890. Because it was used as a holding camp, it had a constantly changing population. Water supply and health were a never-ending struggle since the British army made heavy demands on the limited supply of water and the soldiers had brought a severe typhoid epidemic into the town. Above all, it never had a really competent superintendent. Nevertheless, it was by no means the worst camp in the system and it was under the direct eye of the central camp administration. Refugees began to trickle into Bloemfontein even before the British took the town in March 1900 but the camp was formally established about 22 September 1900. It was a bleak place, some two miles outside the town, ‘dumped down on the southern slope of a kopje right out on the bare brown veld’. There was no shelter of any kind so that the hot sun beat down on the tents. In June 1901 Inspector Daller commented that the old site continued to look disorderly: ‘... the outcropping rocks and broken contour of the site – surely such a steep slope is not necessary in a country where surface drainage is so easy – make it impossible [to keep tidy]. The tents are alternately huddled and scattered in a narrow strip between the rock above and the flat with its conspicuous latrines below. The turf has long since been worn away and the soil, being naturally black, gives an unfortunate tone of grimness to the whole.’ When Emily Hobhouse arrived there in January 1901 there were already at least 2,000 people there. At the end of March this had reached over 3,000 and a couple of weeks later the number was nearly 4,000. Families continued to pour in and Bloemfontein camp had reached the considerable size of 7,500 in August 1901.2 While the testimonies of the Boer women have to be used with caution, an early letter from a mother to her prisoner son suggests that conditions were rudimentary in these early months. At the time that she wrote, there were thirteen families in the camp, with twelve people to a tent. There was no fuel and the women had to scavenge the veld for green bushes and mule dung to make fires. ‘It is very hard to be beggars’, she wrote. Another woman commented, ‘I never knew tent life was so hard’. ‘Still’, she added, ‘it might have been worse’. The greatest hardship was that they were not allowed into town to supplement their rations. Fortunately her brother had sent some furniture to make their tent more comfortable.

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