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Flogging, Fear and Food: Punishment and Race in Colonial Natal

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03057070500035570

1465-3893

Stephen Allister Peté, Annie Devenish,

Colonialism, slavery, and trade

Abstract Following Michel Foucault's seminal work on the birth of the prison in Europe, much attention has been focused on the move away from ‘sanguinary’ punishments, such as torture and whipping, towards more subtle forms of disciplinary control. This move was not as marked in the colonies. In colonial Natal, elements of the pre-modern remained in the widespread and excessive flogging of African subjects. Benthamite ideas of punishment were adapted and transformed in a complex colonial discourse which linked ideas of punishment to those of race and colonial domination. What emerged from this process was a uniquely colonial hybrid, a penal discourse bifurcated along racial lines, combining elements of the pre-modern and the modern. The widespread flogging of Africans in colonial Natal was linked to a particular racialised understanding of colonial subjects that was shaped by colonial paternalism and a deeply embedded fear of attack from the surrounding black population. On the one hand, flogging was regarded as a simple form of punishment that the ‘childlike Native’ could understand. On the other hand, it was seen as a powerful deterrent, justified by the brutal nature of the ‘savages’ to whom it was applied. Race also defined the type of punishment considered suitable for white offenders. Of central concern to the colonists was the stigma involved (from a white colonial perspective) in punishing a white offender (as a representative of the ‘governing race’) alongside black offenders. Developing conceptions of race were also reflected in different dietary scales for different racial groups, which were in a constant state of flux during the colonial period. Throughout this period debates on the topic of penal reform reflected, reinforced and contributed to the development of colonial ideas about race and racial differences. Notes 1 C. van Onselen, ‘Crime and Total Institutions in the Making of Modern South Africa: the Life of “Nongoloza” Mathebula 1867–1948’, History Workshop, 19 (Witwatersrand, University of Witwatersrand Press, 1985), p. 63. 2 The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996. The infliction of corporal punishment within South African prisons was finally outlawed in terms of the Correctional Services Second Amendment Act 79 of 1996, which took effect on 31 March 1997. See S. Peté, ‘To Smack or not to Smack? Should the Law Prohibit South African Parents from Imposing Corporal Punishment on their Children?’, South African Journal on Human Rights, 14, 3 (1998), p. 443. 3 See S. Peté, ‘Punishment and Race: The Emergence of Racially Defined Punishment in Colonial Natal’, Natal University Law and Society Review, 1, 2 (1986), pp. 99–114. 4 Natal Legislative Assembly Debates, 1909, Volume 42, p. 381. 5 Government Notice 344: Report of Prison Reform Commission, paragraph 70, in Natal Government Gazette, 5 June 1906. 6 G. W. Hardy, The Black Peril (London, Holden and Hardingham Adelphi, year of publication unknown). 7 G. W. Hardy, The Black Peril, pp. 280–281 and 283–284. 8 G. W. Hardy, The Black Peril, pp. 283 and 286. 9 S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906–1908 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 238. 10 S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906–1908 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970). 11 S. Marks, Reluctant Rebellion: The 1906–1908 Disturbances in Natal (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1970). 12 For a remarkably similar struggle, between Colonial Office officials in London and military officers commanding forces in British colonial Africa, specifically over the use of corporal punishment as a means of disciplining African troops, see D. Killingray, ‘The “Rod of Empire”: The Debate Over Corporal Punishment in the British African Colonial Forces, 1888–1946’, Journal of African History, 35, 2 (1994), pp. 202–216. 13 Ignatieff documents the emergence, during the capitalist industrial revolution in Europe, of a new system of punishment and control under which social order was to rest on consensus rather than coercion. This compelled institutions of punishment to attain a measure of legitimacy in the eyes of the people, via an emphasis on transforming and reforming prisoners. The coercive nature of prison punishment was hidden from view, and imprisonment was presented as a restrained and humane option. Incongruities were bound to arise, however, in transplanting the penal theories and assumptions of an industrialised metropolitan political economy into a rural colonial political economy. See M. Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain: the Penitentiary in the Industrial Revolution 1750–1850 (London, Macmillan, 1978), p. 213 and K. Marx, ‘Capital Volume I’, in B. Fine et al. (eds), Capitalism and the Rule of Law (London, Hutchinson, 1979), p. 9. 14 The ideological perceptions of the colonists as to the treatment of black offenders were very different from those of the English authorities. See Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, in general, and D. Welsh, The Roots of Segregation: Native Policy in Colonial Natal 1845–1910 (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 27. 15 Bill 9 of 1876, ‘To Alter and Amend the Ordinance No. 2, 1850’, entitled ‘Ordinance for Regulating the Relative Rights and Duties of Masters, Servants and Apprentices’. 16 Pietermaritzburg Archives Respository (hereafter PAR) G57/1873, Government House Natal, 58, Incoming dispatches from the Secretary of State, Dispatch No. 325, ‘Kimberley to The Officer Administering the Government’, 17 May 1873, paragraphs 3 and 7. 17 PAR, Mic. 1/1/1/1/116 – CO (Colonial Office London) 179, 124, 12032, ‘Bulwer to Carnarvon’, 30 August 1877, paragraph 1. 18 Natal Witness, 28 September 1876. 19 Natal Witness, 28 September 1876. 20 Natal Witness, 28 September 1876. 21 Bill 6 of 1883, ‘Private Flogging of Prisoners Bill’. See Government House, Natal 372/ Circular Despatch, Carnarvon to Bulwer, 7 January 1878, and Government House, Natal 382/ Circular Despatch, Derby to Bulwer, 18 January 1883. 22 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Volume 6, pp. 30–31: Debate of 16 July 1883. 23 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Volume 6, p. 32. 24 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Volume 6, p. 34. 25 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 67 and J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom: The Civil War in Zululand, 1879–1884 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1994), p. 89. 26 See Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom. 27 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 187. 28 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 238. 29 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion. 30 Guy emphasises that by the 1880s the agricultural autonomy of African homesteads was being undermined and a significant number of Zulu were beginning to leave their homesteads in search of employment on mines, farms and railways or as domestic workers in neighbouring colonies. The British invasion of the Zulu kingdom in 1879, civil war in Zululand and colonial seizures of African land contributed to this economic breakdown. Marks also cites the increasing indebtedness and poverty of Africans, as a result of a lack of access to land and over-population within African reserves, as factors. See Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, p. xix; R. Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen: Settler Masculinity in Colonial Natal 1880–1920 (Pretoria, Unisa Press, 2001), p. 32; and Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, pp. 120–122. 31 See S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds), Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa: African Class Formation, Culture and Consciousness 1870–1930 (Harlow, Longman, 1982) and S. Marks and A. Atmore (eds), Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa (London, Longman, 1980). 32 In general, see S. Greenberg, Race and State in Capitalist Development (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1980). 33 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 11. 34 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 139. 35 See J. G. Riekert, ‘The Natal Master and Servant Laws’ (LLM thesis, University of Natal, 1983), p. 150. 36 Welsh, The Roots of Segregation, p. 27. 37 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 13. 38 See P. R. Spiller, ‘The Natal Supreme Court: its Origins (1846–1858) and its Early Development (1858–1874)’ (PhD thesis, University of Natal, 1982), pp. 63 and 308–310. 39 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 139. 40 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 52. 41 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 59 and 61. 42 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 59. 43 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 66. 44 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 24. 45 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 166. 46 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 139. 47 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, pp. 16 and 144. 48 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 16. 49 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 24. 50 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 87. 51 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 238. 52 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 144. 53 See S. Peté, ‘The Penal System of Colonial Natal: From British Roots to Racially Defined Punishment’ (LLM thesis, University of Cape Town, 1985), part II, chapter 3. 54 Morrell, From Boys to Gentlemen, p. 160. 55 Natal Witness, 26 March 1872. 56 Natal Witness, 26 March 1872. 57 Natal Witness, 2 April 1872. 58 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Vol. 6, pp. 323–326: Debate of 24 August 1883; and pp. 361–367: Debate of 29 August 1883. 59 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Vol. 6, p. 324, Mr Crowder, 24 August 1883. 60 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Vol. 6, p. 324, Mr Crowder, 24 August 1883. 61 Colonial Secretary's Office, Natal (Hereafter CSON), 2562/C 117/86, Resident Magistrate of Durban to Superintendent Durban Gaol, 8 December 1886. 62 Colonial Secretary's Office, Natal (Hereafter CSON), 2562/C 117/86, Resident Magistrate of Durban to Superintendent Durban Gaol, 8 December 1886., Report of Superintendent, Durban Gaol, 8 December 1886. See further J. C. Martens, ‘Settler Homes, Manhood and “Houseboys”: An Analysis of Natal's Rape Scare of 1886’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28, 2 (June 2002), pp. 379–380. 63 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, p. 36. 64 M. Mamdani, ‘Indirect Rule’, Citizen and Subject (Kampala, Fountain, 1996), p. 62. 65 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, pp. 35–36. 66 Marks, Reluctant Rebellion, pp. 35–36. 67 Mamdani, ‘Indirect Rule’, Citizen and Subject, p. 62. 68 Mamdani, ‘Customary Law’, Citizen and Subject, p. 111. 69 Mamdani, ‘Indirect Rule’, Citizen and Subject, p. 63. 70 Mamdani. ‘Customary Law’, Citizen and Subject, p. 111. 71 Ignatieff, A Just Measure of Pain, p. 213. 72 See M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1977). 73 See M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish – The Birth of the Prison, p. 34. 74 Natal Legislative Assembly Debates, 1909, Volume 42, p. 378: Mr. Armstrong. 75 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Volume 6, p. 323: Mr. Crowder, 24 August 1883. 76 M. Crowder, The Flogging of Phineas McIntosh: A Tale of Colonial Folly and Injustice, Bechuanaland 1933 (New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1988), p. 49. 77 See, in general, S. Peté, ‘Spare the Rod and Spoil the Nation? Trends in Corporal Punishment’, South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 3 (1994), pp. 295–297; and Peté, ‘Punishment and Race’, pp. 99–114. 78 B. K. Mbenga, ‘Forced Labour in the Pilanesberg: The Flogging of Chief Kgamanyane by Commandant Paul Kruger, Saulspoort, April 1870’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23, 1 (March 1997), pp. 127–140. 79 B. K. Mbenga, ‘Forced Labour in the Pilanesberg: The Flogging of Chief Kgamanyane by Commandant Paul Kruger, Saulspoort, April 1870’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23, 1 (March 1997), pp. 127–140. 80 B. K. Mbenga, ‘Forced Labour in the Pilanesberg: The Flogging of Chief Kgamanyane by Commandant Paul Kruger, Saulspoort, April 1870’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 23, 1 (March 1997), pp. 127–140. 81 Ex Parte Attorney General, Namibia: In Re Corporal Punishment by Organs of the State, 1991 (3) SA 76 (Nm) at 94G-H. See also Peté, ‘Spare the Rod and Spoil the Nation?’, pp. 295–297. 82 S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics – The Creation of the Mods and the Rockers (Oxford, Robertson, 1973). 83 See C. Bundy, The Rise and Fall of the South African Peasantry (London, Heinemann Educational, 1979). 84 CSON 215/227, District Surgeon Pietermaritzburg to Resident Magistrate Pietermaritzburg, 21 January 1865. 85 CSON 993/5081. 86 CSON 993/5081, District Surgeon to Resident Magistrate Durban, 24 January 1885. 87 CSON 993/5081, District Surgeon to Resident Magistrate Durban, 24 January 1885., Colonial Secretary to Resident Magistrate Durban, 27 January 1885. 88 CSON 993/5081, District Surgeon to Resident Magistrate Durban, 24 January 1885., Colonial Secretary to Resident Magistrate Durban, 27 January 1885., District Surgeon Durban to Resident Magistrate Durban, 2 February 1885. 89 CSON 993/5081, District Surgeon to Resident Magistrate Durban, 24 January 1885., Colonial Secretary to Resident Magistrate Durban, 27 January 1885., District Surgeon Durban to Resident Magistrate Durban, 2 February 1885, Report of District Surgeon Pietermaritzburg, 2 March 1886. 90 CSON 993/5081, District Surgeon to Resident Magistrate Durban, 24 January 1885. 91 CSON 993/5081, District Surgeon to Resident Magistrate Durban, 24 January 1885. 92 CSON 1138/1197, Resident Magistrate Pietermaritzburg, March 1887. 93 CSON 1138/2457. 94 Government Notice 360, in Natal Government Gazette, 2 August 1887. 95 ‘Prison Reform’, The Natal Advertiser, 5 January 1905. 96 ‘Prison Reform’, The Natal Advertiser, 5 January 1905. 97 ‘Prison Reform’, The Natal Advertiser, 5 January 1905. 98 Government Notice 344, Report of the Prison Reform Commission, paragraph 26, in Natal Government Gazette, 5 June 1906. 99 Peté, ‘The Penal System in Colonial Natal’, Chapter 4. 100 CSON 314/2265, Report of Assistant Resident Magistrate Durban, 8 October 1868. 101 Natal Legislative Council Debates, 1883, Volume 6, p. 324: Mr. Crowder, 24 August 1883. 102 F. Hale, ‘Racist Attitudes and Prison Reform in George Webb Hardy's The Prince and The Black Peril’, NATALIA, Journal of the Natal Society, 25 (December 1995), p. 29. 103 ‘Industrial Prisons’, Natal Witness, 30 May 1904. 104 ‘Testimony from Within’, The Natal Advertiser, 1 June 1904. 105 ‘Opinions of Representative Men’, Letter of Joseph Barker, The Natal Advertiser, 30 May 1904. 106 ‘Opinions of Representative Men’, Letter of Joseph Barker, The Natal Advertiser, 30 May 1904. 107 ‘The Criminal Regenerate’ (Editorial), The Natal Advertiser, 7 June 1904. 108 ‘Testimony from Within’, The Natal Advertiser, 1 June 1904. 109 ‘Testimony from Within’, The Natal Advertiser, 1 June 1904. 110 Natal Witness, 1 June 1904. 111 ‘Prison Reform II’ (Editorial), Natal Witness, 15 June 1904. 112 ‘Prison Reform II’ (Editorial), Natal Witness, 15 June 1904. 113 Quoted in Hale, ‘Racist Attitudes and Prison Reform’, p. 33. 114 Quoted in Hale, ‘Racist Attitudes and Prison Reform’, p. 35. 115 Quoted in Hale, ‘Racist Attitudes and Prison Reform’, p. 35. 116 The reasons for the rise in white unemployment at this time are set out in F. A. Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold: A Study of Class Relations and Racial Discrimination in South Africa (Lanham Md, University Press of America, 1976) pp. 52–53. 117 ‘Prison Reform’, Natal Witness, 29 December 1904. 118 ‘Employment Bureau for Ex-Convicts’, The Natal Advertiser, 3 June 1904. 119 Government Notice 344, Report of the Prison Reform Commission, in Natal Government Gazette, 5 June 1906. 120 ‘Testimony from Within’, The Natal Advertiser, 1 June 1904. See also ‘A Plea for the Criminal’, The Natal Advertiser, 30 May 1904; ‘Why Waste Prison Labour?’, Natal Witness, 8 June 1905; and ‘The City Gaol’, Natal Witness, 6 May 1905. 121 The ‘Panopticon’ was a blueprint for a total institution drawn up by the utilitarian reformer Jeremy Bentham, but never built. See Foucault, Discipline and Punish, pp. 195–228.