The aboriginal peoples of southern Africa, collectively known as San, suffered widespread genocidal violence as a result of colonial invasion from the eighteenth century onwards. Being hunter-gatherers and racially stereotyped as among the lowest forms of humanity, they were targeted for mass violence by colonial states and civilian militias. The first case study in this chapter analyses exterminatory Dutch and British violence against San in the Cape Colony during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The second examines the obliteration of San society in Transorangia by indigenous Griqua polities during the early nineteenth century, cautioning against the over-simple, racialised binaries that often inform studies of frontier strife. Thirdly, from the mid-1840s onwards after the British annexation of Natal, conflict with San communities in the midlands resulted in their eradication by 1870. The fourth case study outlines how South African forces halted the German genocide of Namibian San when they invaded German South West Africa in 1914. The final case reveals a different pattern. It explores how late-nineteenth-century white pastoralists established peaceful relations with San in western Bechuanaland.

This chapter explores the use of martial law courts to punish and remove a number of chiefs after the Zulu rebellion of 1906. It focuses on the debates generated by two controversial trials under martial law: that of twenty Africans for the murder of two white policemen at the start of the unrest, and that of chief Tilonko for public order offences, which led to his deportation to St Helena. Taking place at a time when the colony was at peace, these episodes raised questions both about how far civilian courts could review military powers exercised under a proclamation of martial law and about the nature and purpose of indemnity legislation. In addressing them, the Privy Council once again took a very executive-minded view of emergency powers. Although officials at the Colonial Office were more sensitive to the demands of the rule of law, they were also prepared to defer to the political demands of a self-governing colony for severe action. Comparing the response to martial law in the Cape in 1899–1902 and Natal in 1906 reveals how much fidelity to the rule of law depended on how far its targets were perceived to be part of the political community whose rights needed protection.

In the history of southern Africa, the Irish are rarely mentioned as a distinct ethnic group. They are instead subsumed under larger categories such as ‘white’ or ‘English’. There was, however, a significant Irish Catholic presence in the region and especially in the Cape Colony. This chapter examines that community, its development, and its relationship to other groups, both European and indigenous.