Session 2: On the Ground; Experiences and Reflections of War
Joint Session 2: On the Ground; Experiences and Reflections of War
Chair: Bob Brecher
Black Soldiers: Military Force and Slavery in the Early Modern Atlantic World
Victor Emthoven
Royal Netherlands Naval College, The Netherlands
The Atlantic World was a violent place; not least because slavery was an inseparable part of that world. From the early 1500s, people of African descent, both free and unfree, were used in one military capacity or another. The so-called black conquistadores, for instance, played a significant role in the conquest of the New World. Over time, the word ‘Negro’ would become synonymous with both a slave and a black person, a person of African descent. Both groups, slaves and free people of colour, would each perform different military tasks. The European Atlantic empires could not have survived without these black soldiers.
This paper examines the military roles played by Blacks and men of African descent, both free and unfree, in the New World and West Africa. In the Americas, slaves were used in three different military capacities. Especially in the Spanish overseas settlements, hundreds of slaves were used for building and maintaining the forts and large defence works. During expeditions in the interior against Amerindians and runaway slaves, the so-called maroons, slaves would be used as auxiliary troops: as bearers and scouts. And finally, because of a chronic shortage of European soldiers, overseas governments were, rather reluctantly, forced to arm slaves and use them as regular soldiers.
In the overseas settlements, a process of creolisation took place; new ethnic and cultural groups emerged, generally addressed as free people of colour. In Suriname, for instance, a special military unit of manumitted slaves was formed for hunting down maroons. All over the New World, in their process of emancipation, free Blacks and free people of colour created their own units in the civic militias. They, too, were active in bush patrols hunting down runaway slaves. During the Napoleonic wars, the British established a dozen or so professional West Indies regiments comprising free people of colour.
In the European forts in West Africa, slaves were used to perform all sorts of military tasks. Furthermore, the trading companies could rely on their local allies, the so-called asafo. In villages surrounding these forts, a new ethnic group of Euro-Africans emerged. During the eighteenth century, they would man the garrisons of the forts. Eventually the Euro-Africans would establish their own asafo, their own company in the local African militia.
The War of Resistance: China 1937-1945
Lu Liu
Department of History University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN, USA
The War of Resistance (1937-1945), known as the Chinese Theater of World War II, was by far one of the worst instances of holocaust in the human history. After the east coast of China fell into Japanese occupation, including the national capital Nanjing, the Nationalist government announced a decision of a wholesale relocation of the Chinese state to the western interior, in the hope to win the final victory of the conflict through long term resistance. Millions of Chinese citizens responded to the call of evacuation. Images of civilian refugees packing trains and steamers, clogging paths and roadways, and clutching their belongings as they march raggedly to the western interior of the country are common representations of the total war. According to contemporary foreign journalists, “China was on the move in one of the greatest migrations in human history. … Certainly the long files of gaunt people who moved west across the roads and mountains must have presented a sight unmatched since the days of nomad hordes.” The organization of the civilian evacuation and the resettlement of refugee migrants had not only taken a central place in the wartime mass mobilization, but imposed great burdens as well to state, society, and communities. My paper examines both official strategies and communal responses to the drastic rise of refugees. Toward the end of the 1930s, public scrutiny of the refugee problem gave rise to a strong reform movement that led to the reorganization of the cause of welfare and the establishment of a national relief infrastructure. State-centered social policies and relief activities replaced those offered by local elites and voluntary organizations. In particular, a gigantic national transit network was constructed for the convenience of the civilian exodus. The provision of refugee relief reshaped the boundary between state and society.
Breaking Ranks: Secrets, Silences and Stories of South Africa’s Border War
Gary Baines
Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
For some fifteen yeas little attention has been paid to South Africa’s Border War and the memories of soldiers who fought therein. Likewise, combatants with the liberation movements have all but been forgotten or otherwise marginalised in the new political dispensation. But the recent controversy over the exclusion of the names of SADF soldiers from the Freedom Park memorial wall and the involvement of ex-combatants in violent crimes has received media coverage. The spate of publications and the existence of internet sites that host personal accounts of the war also suggest that there is significant public interest in these matters. And the discovery of mass graves and the questions about the treatment of detainees in SWAPO camps has kept the war in the public eye in Namibia. This paper seeks to explain why the silences existed in the first place and why soldiers are breaking rank and telling their stories now.
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