Why Did England Have To Create Concentration Camps?

Question

i know we didn't actually kill the africans we put in them

but

why?????????????????????????????

Answer 1

It's amazing how it's ENGLAND when it's anything bad, concentration camps, slavery etc, but BRITAIN when it's something good.

But to answer the question, the person who suggested concentration camps during the Boer war was NOT ENGLISH, (he was IRISH, from County Kerry to be exact) but they were used to ensure the detainees got fed.

The BRITISH forces were using a scorched earth police which would have meant no food available outside the camps.

OH - Around 27,000 actually died in the camps, almost all women and children

Answer 2

As part of the "scorched earth" policy adopted by the British Army during the Boer War and to deny the Boer irregulars a safe haven The farms of Boers and Africans were destroyed and the Boer inhabitants of the countryside were rounded up and held in concentration camps.
The plight of the Boer women and children in these camps became an international outrage - more than 20,000 died in the carelessly run, unhygienic camps.
They were "African" only by reason of residence in Africa and were almost all of Dutch ancestry.

Answer 3

The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during this conflict.

These had originally been set up for families whose farms had been destroyed by the British "Scorched Earth" policy (burning down all Boer homesteads and farms). However, following Kitchener's new policy, many women and children were forcibly moved to prevent the Boers from re-supplying at their homes and more camps were built and converted to prisons.

There were a total of 45 tented camps built for Boer internees and 64 for black African ones. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, 25,630 were sent overseas. So, most Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children, but the native African ones held large numbers of men as well. Even when forcibly removed from Boer areas, the black Africans were not considered to be hostile to the British, and provided a paid labor force.

The conditions in the camps were very unhealthy and the food rations were meager. The wives and children of men who were still fighting were given smaller rations than others. The poor diet and inadequate hygiene led to endemic contagious diseases such as measles, typhoid and dysentery. Coupled with a shortage of medical facilities, this led to large numbers of deaths. However the precise number of deaths is unknown. Reports have stated that the number of Boers killed was 18,000-28,000 and no one bothered to keep records on the number of deaths of the 107,000 Black Africans who were interned in Concentration Camps.

A "scorched earth policy" is one of the most devastating war strategies ever devised. What do you do with all the people whose homes and livelihoods you just destroyed? The decision for "camps" seemed logical for the time. The British were not the only ones to use this strategy; it was also used by the Spanish in the Ten Year War, and the US in the Philippine-American war.
There is no good way to fight a war, no civil way to avoid hurting the innocent, that is why we call it WAR.

Answer 4

because the Boers did not act like a "civilised" army- meaning stand in straight rows, wear gaudy uniforms and lose to superior tactics.
Instead they dressed like farmers and hid among other farmers. There was no way of telling which Boer was a civilian and which was a soldier ("insurgent" nowadays). They used the tactic later called by Mao "fish hiding in the waters"
So the Brits drained the lake.
By taking in the civilians they cut off food and ammo supplies to the Boer fighters. In the end, the Boers had to surrender or starve.

Which, BTW, ended the war with a minimum of casualties

Answer 5

The big difference was people werent deliberately killed as they were in some of the german camps but were more like the refugee camps you see in Africa today which have high numbers of people dying because of disease, malnutrition etc,and it wasn'tAfricans that died in them but the Boers(a people who live up to their name) who Britain was at war with that died many which were woman and children sinc the men had deserted them to fight a guerilla war in much the same way as al qeda are doing at the present time.

Answer 6

Gotta be something better on your mind than whatever you're actually concerned about. You have a poor concept of what you may be trying to get across, but the subject is repulsive. They brought Africans over to America and the West Indies as slaves. Countless died - doesn't matter how(brutally). What was done was at best criminal but in those times it was thought to be just another way to make money by trading human "savages" in bondage for money.

Answer 7

Probably for the same reason America created concentration camps for the Japanese during WWII: FEAR!! The U.S. government saw anyone of Japanese ancestry to be a potential threat to the security of America. Funny though, our government never sought to intern the millions of people of German ancestry who were living here at the time, and one would think that the threat posed by their numbers would be much greater. Now, why do you think that was?

Answer 8

Initially, the British released captured Boers, after making them sign an oath not to fight any more, so that they could return to their families. Unfortunately, the released Boers simply signed up with the Boer Commandoes, or were re-impressed by the notorious enemy Field Kornets, who, in the guerilla stage of the war, had the authority to take all the goods from a Boer family and leave them sitting on the veld, if Dad didn't join the Commandos. This was effectively a death sentence. Eventually Boers who were fed up with fighting turned up at the British lines looking for a place to stay. The British set up camps to house these peaceful burghers - these were refugee camps. Kitchener complained to the Boer leader about this recycling and asked him to stop it, but Botha refused to stop it. Kitchener was being pressured from the "Unconditional surrender" folks back in London so he adopted the "Reconcentrado Policy" used by the Spanish in Cuba of collecting all the civilians in an area. The collected Boer civilians were now stuffed in the former refugee camps, which became "concentration camps". Unfortunately, the act of concentrating these dispersed people caused epidemics of typhoid and measles to run through the camps, which hit the children disproportionately hard.

Quote:

Kitchener protested against the Boer practice of putting pressure on
burghers who had surrendered and taken the oath of neutrality to
rejoin
commandos. Botha replied "I am entitled by law to force every man to
join, and if they do not do so, to confiscate their property and
leave their familes in the veld."

Kitchener tried to make a deal with Botha: he would spare the farms
and familes of burghers on commando if Both would agree to leave in
peace those who had surrendered or wanted to remain neutral. Botha
would not agree. The fate of tens of thousands of women and children
was thus sealed.

Letter from K. to Botha 16th April 1901

As I informed your honour at Middleburg, Owing to the irregular
manner in which you have conducted and continue to conduct
hostilities by forcing unwilling and peaceful inhabitants to
join your Commandos, a proceeding totally unauthorised by the
customs of war, I have no other course open to me, and am
forced to take the very unpleasant and repugnant steps of bringing
in the woman and children.

Neither K. nor Botha foresaw all the consequences of their decisions.
Neither could see that between them they had contrived the war's
greatest tragedy.

Endquote.

Answer 9

Because they were suspected of carrying out acts of terrorism . We also had concentration camps in the WW2 in Britain for the German citizens who were here and the Italians, as well as the Japanese.

Answer 10

Because they were easy ways to keep the Boers in one place i.e. Concentrated.