'HAVE YOU EVER CAPTURED ANYTHING FOR YOUR PARENTS?' WAR, CAPTIVITY, AND SLAVERY ON THE PRECOLONIAL SOUTHERN AFRICAN HIGHVELD, C.1800-71

Abstract

The article analyses various cases of captivity in a region comprised within modern-day South Africa and Lesotho in the late precolonial period. Focusing on a single social institution, bohlanka, the article follows its traces scattered among the Batlhaping, the Basotho, the Barolong, the Bataung, and other smaller precolonial communities. Generally considered by scholars as a form of clientship based on cattle-loans, bohlanka is here redefined as originating from warfare and captivity, and later expanding to include the destitute. The fundamental elements of the institution - violence, natal alienation, and suspended death - lead to the conclusion that bohlanka constituted a local form of slavery that pre-dated colonial influences.