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Anglo Boer War (1899-1902) ESHOWE Concentration Camp

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December 1900 - 15 April 1902

This camp with its 250 inhabitants was located at Fort Curtis outside Eshowe. Very few of the inhabitants were bona fide concentration camp inmates, with the vast majority being surrendered burghers or "hendsoppers" (quitters) from the Vryheid district who brought their livestock along and were allowed by the British to continue farming in Zululand under the administration of the Eshowe camp.

Those surrendered Boers without property were transferred, along with the few captured women and children to Merebank and Wentworth.

Eshowe camp, was an ‘administrative centre’ rather than a conventional camp, for mainly only the women, children and those without stock, resided in the camp itself. The other men herded their cattle widely over Zululand and were required only to report on Mondays to the police in the magisterial district in which they were then living. Run by the military, the camp staff consisted only of the superintendent and one nurse while two burghers helped to issue rations and do other tasks. Bell tents provided accommodation but these housed only five people each so there was none of the overcrowding found in the larger camps. The local district surgeon provided what medical care was needed and the seriously ill were cared for in the Eshowe hospital. The ration scale was relatively generous and mortality was low, with only four deaths (three of them adults and a baby which died of dysentery), for this was a healthy camp. Schools were run informally and no minister of religion was provided.

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