Reactions to Rinderpest in Southern Africa 1896–97

Abstract

Rinderpest, a highly contagious cattle disease which swept through southern Africa in 1896–7, has attracted little interest from historians. A more detailed consideration of its effect on a cattle-keeping peasantry within the context of an industrializing economy assists in illuminating some of the socio-economic and political forces operative in the 1890s.The spread of rinderpest was acompanied by widespread suspicion and rumour. Some Europeans thought that the disease was spread by Africans. Many Africans, for their part, were convinced that rinderpest was a product of the white man's malice. Over large areas rinderpest was accepted with an attitude of fatalism and resignation. In Basutoland and East Griqualand, however, local leaders emerged who were willing to utilize grievances and rumours stemming from rinderpest for attempts at mobilization for the wider objective of revolt.The loss of large numbers of cattle caused considerable social and economic distress in African communities. The transport system was paralysed in an economy dependent on the extensive use of the ox-wagon, and this resulted in price rises and profiteering in more remote areas. With the disappearance of the source of meat and milk Africans experienced considerable hardship and in some cases starvation. Forced into taking contingency action, activities ranged from planting vegetables to stock-thieving. Generally, however, the impoverishment of Africans caused by rinderpest contributed to the growing proletarianization of Africans and the process of labour migration. Rinderpest did not produce fundamental structural changes in Southern African society, but it did emphasize the processes which were to characterize industrial South Africa of the twentieth century.