George Webb Hardy's the Black Peril and the social meaning of 'Black Peril' in early twentieth-century South Africa

Journal of Southern African Studies

Volumn 22, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 441-453

  Cornwell, Gareth ^a  

^a RHODES UNIVERSITY   (South Africa)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0002980693     PISSN: 03057070     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03057079608708504     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. See F.G. Wood, Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Berkeley, 1968). See also J. Pape, 'Black and White: "The Perils of Sex" in Colonial Zimbabwe', Journal of Southern African Studies, 16, 4 (1990), pp. 699-720; and D. Kennedy, Islands of White: Settler Society in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia 1890-1939 (Duke University Press, Durham, NC. 1987), esp. ch. 7, 'Black Perils'.
2. See F.G. Wood, Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Berkeley, 1968). See also J. Pape, 'Black and White: "The Perils of Sex" in Colonial Zimbabwe', Journal of Southern African Studies, 16, 4 (1990), pp. 699-720; and D. Kennedy, Islands of White: Settler Society in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia 1890-1939 (Duke University Press, Durham, NC. 1987), esp. ch. 7, 'Black Perils'.
3. See F.G. Wood, Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction (Berkeley, 1968). See also J. Pape, 'Black and White: "The Perils of Sex" in Colonial Zimbabwe', Journal of Southern African Studies, 16, 4 (1990), pp. 699-720; and D. Kennedy, Islands of White: Settler Society in Kenya and Southern Rhodesia 1890-1939 (Duke University Press, Durham, NC. 1987), esp. ch. 7, 'Black Perils'.
4. See A. Inglis, The White Women's Ordinance Protection: Sexual Anxiety and Politics in Papua (London, 1975).
5. F. Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York, 1968), pp. 38-40.
6. The notion of 'moral panic' elaborated by Stanley Cohen in his study of British media treatment of the Mods and the Rockers is invoked by both Etherington and Keegan (S. Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers [Oxford, 1980]). Cohen's work is useful in its insistence on the degree to which moral panics are created and sustained by the mass media, and it should be stressed that the role played in the Black Peril phenomenon by sensational journalism in South African newspapers cannot be overestimated. The phrase 'The Black Peril' itself (why not simply 'danger' or 'threat'?) smacks of journalistic hype.
7. N. Etherington, 'Natal's Black Rape Scare of the 1870s', Journal of Southern Africa Studies, 15, 1 (1988), p. 36. For related material focussing on South Africa, see S. Dubow, 'Race, Civilisation and Culture: The Elaboration of Segregationist Discourse in the Inter-War Years', in S. Marks and S. Trapido (eds), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century South Africa (Harlow, 1987) , and - subsequent to the writing of this essay - S. Dubow, Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Johannesburg, 1995).
8. N. Etherington, 'Natal's Black Rape Scare of the 1870s', Journal of Southern Africa Studies, 15, 1 (1988), p. 36. For related material focussing on South Africa, see S. Dubow, 'Race, Civilisation and Culture: The Elaboration of Segregationist Discourse in the Inter-War Years', in S. Marks and S. Trapido (eds), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century South Africa (Harlow, 1987) , and - subsequent to the writing of this essay - S. Dubow, Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Johannesburg, 1995).
9. N. Etherington, 'Natal's Black Rape Scare of the 1870s', Journal of Southern Africa Studies, 15, 1 (1988), p. 36. For related material focussing on South Africa, see S. Dubow, 'Race, Civilisation and Culture: The Elaboration of Segregationist Discourse in the Inter-War Years', in S. Marks and S. Trapido (eds), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth-Century South Africa (Harlow, 1987) , and - subsequent to the writing of this essay - S. Dubow, Illicit Union: Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa (Johannesburg, 1995).
10. Ibid., p. 50.
11. Ibid., pp. 52, 53.
12. Report of the Commission on Mixed Marriages in South Africa, U.C. 30-39 (Pretoria, 1939), pp. 13-14.
13. Ibid., p. 14. The fact that in the Transvaal Republic, inter-racial marriage was illegal while cohabitation was not, suggests that Afrikaners at this stage had a more pragmatic, class-based attitude toward sexual liaisons between blacks and whites, the crucial question being the legitimacy of the offspring and their entitlement to parental status and property. The British, on the other hand, were more motivated by an upper-caste aversion to the idea of 'immoral' contact, but were obliged by religious principle to recognize duly solemnized marriages.
14. In his Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction, Forrest Wood gives a full account of the origin of the word (pp. 53-57). 'Miscegenation' was a coinage of the American journalists David Goodman Croly and George Wakeman, who in December 1863 anonymously published a 72-page booklet 'Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and the Negro'. The booklet advocated race mixture in order to improve the national stock: purporting to represent Republican policy, it was a hoax perpetrated by Democratic Party lobbyists. G. Duncan Mitchell's New Dictionary of Sociology (London, 1979) observes: 'Use of the word is to be avoided since, apart from its disreputable origins, it reinforces a pre-Darwinian theory of human variation' (p. 127).
15. In his Black Scare: The Racist Response to Emancipation and Reconstruction, Forrest Wood gives a full account of the origin of the word (pp. 53-57). 'Miscegenation' was a coinage of the American journalists David Goodman Croly and George Wakeman, who in December 1863 anonymously published a 72-page booklet 'Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and the Negro'. The booklet advocated race mixture in order to improve the national stock: purporting to represent Republican policy, it was a hoax perpetrated by Democratic Party lobbyists. G. Duncan Mitchell's New Dictionary of Sociology (London, 1979) observes: 'Use of the word is to be avoided since, apart from its disreputable origins, it reinforces a pre-Darwinian theory of human variation' (p. 127).
16. Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into Assaults on Women, U.G. 39-13 (Cape Town, 1913), p. 11.
17. Colony of Natal: Report of the Native Affairs Commission. 1906-07 (Pietermaritzburg, 1907), pp. 25-26. See also Daily Dispatch, 28 February 1906.
18. Colony of Natal: Report of the Native Affairs Commission. 1906-07 (Pietermaritzburg, 1907), pp. 25-26. See also Daily Dispatch, 28 February 1906.
19. See the statistics cited in the Assaults on Women Report, pp. 3-11.
20. T. Keegan, 'Black Peril, Lapsed Whites, and Moral Panic: A Study of Ideological Crisis in Early Twentieth Century South Africa', unpublished paper (presented at a seminar of the African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, ca. 1986), p.3.
21. Ibid., pp. 6, 10.
22. Report of the Commission Appointed to Enquire into Assaults on Women, pp. 23, 16.
23. Ibid., pp. 15-20, 24-26.
24. The concept of the 'residuum', Charles Booth's term for the unregenerate, potentially contaminating urban poor in England (C. Booth, Life and Labour of the People in London [London, 1892, 1903], vol. I. p. 154; vol. V p. 207),
25. was deployed in the South African context by several commentators at about the turn of the century. See G. Cornwell, 'Ambiguous Contagion: The Discourse of Race in South African English Writing 1890-1930' (PhD diss., Rhodes University, 1995), pp. 55-59.
26. J.M. Coetzee, 'The Mind of Apartheid: Geoffrey Cronje (1907-)', Social Dynamics, 17, 1 (1991), p. 30.
27. E.J.C. Stevens, White and Black: An Enquiry into South Africa's Greatest Problem (London, [1914]), p. 34.
28. P. Gibbon, Souls in Bondage (Edinburgh, 1904); F. Bancroft, Of Like Passions (London, 1907).
29. P. Gibbon, Souls in Bondage (Edinburgh, 1904); F. Bancroft, Of Like Passions (London, 1907).
30. These include J.P. FitzPatrick's 'The Outspan' and 'Induna Nairn' in The Outspan (1897); W.C. Scully's 'The Fundamental Axiom' and 'Kellson's Nemesis' in Kafir Stories (1895); N. Fincher, The Heir of Brendiford (1909). The locus classicus is probably Kipling's memorable story 'Beyond the Pale', Plain Tales from the Hills (1890).
31. These include J.P. FitzPatrick's 'The Outspan' and 'Induna Nairn' in The Outspan (1897); W.C. Scully's 'The Fundamental Axiom' and 'Kellson's Nemesis' in Kafir Stories (1895); N. Fincher, The Heir of Brendiford (1909). The locus classicus is probably Kipling's memorable story 'Beyond the Pale', Plain Tales from the Hills (1890).
32. These include J.P. FitzPatrick's 'The Outspan' and 'Induna Nairn' in The Outspan (1897); W.C. Scully's 'The Fundamental Axiom' and 'Kellson's Nemesis' in Kafir Stories (1895); N. Fincher, The Heir of Brendiford (1909). The locus classicus is probably Kipling's memorable story 'Beyond the Pale', Plain Tales from the Hills (1890).
33. Perhaps the most useful concise commentary on this feature is to be found in M. Shum, 'The Content of the Form: Romance and Realism in Douglas Blackburn's Leaven', English in Africa, 21 (1994), pp. 100-101.
34. R. Campbell, 'The Significance of Turbott Wolfe', Voorslag, 1, 1 (1926), p. 40.
35. G.W. Hardy, The Black Peril (London, 1912), pp. 9, 16, 21.
36. Ibid., pp. 101, 283.
37. Ibid., p. 161.
38. The moral economy of segregationism was indisputably driven by recoil from what was perceived as the mutual contamination and degradation of the races. See for the instance the argument outlined in H. J. Crocker, The South African Race Problem: The Solurion of Segregation [Johannesburg, 1908], pp. 10-11. See also F. W. Bell, The South African Native Problem: A Suggested Solution [Johannesburg, 1909], p. 3.
39. The moral economy of segregationism was indisputably driven by recoil from what was perceived as the mutual contamination and degradation of the races. See for the instance the argument outlined in H. J. Crocker, The South African Race Problem: The Solurion of Segregation [Johannesburg, 1908], pp. 10-11. See also F. W. Bell, The South African Native Problem: A Suggested Solution [Johannesburg, 1909], p. 3.
40. Hardy, Black Peril, p. 133.
41. Ibid., pp. 135, 136.
42. Ibid., p. 138.
43. W. Plomer, Turbott Wolfe (London, 1926; Oxford, 1985), pp. 128, 129.
44. Hardy, Black Peril, pp. 188, 194-196.
45. See Hardy, Black Peril, p. 140.
46. K. Theweleit, Male Fantasies I: Women, Floods, Bodies, History, trans. Stephen Conway (Cambridge, 1987). pp. 372-373.
47. Hardy, Black Peril, pp. 160, 188, 189. On the last-mentioned point, compare the following: As a clinching argument that our civilization may have a tendency to demoralize the native, take that terribly grave feature of town life - owing its origin in Johannesburg and Durban to the kafir, and in Cape Town to the coloured population intermixing with the white - the Black Peril (a theme it is impossible to ignore, as it cuts at the roots of our public morality, the sacredness of family life, our national honour, and the future prestige and purity of our race). That this is the direct outcome of our attempts to foist civilization on the native is only too evident by comparing him in his natural surroundings. (L.E. De Payre, 'Should We Civilize the Kafir?', The State [Apr. 1910], p. 546.)
48. Hardy, Black Peril, pp. 160, 188, 189. On the last-mentioned point, compare the following: As a clinching argument that our civilization may have a tendency to demoralize the native, take that terribly grave feature of town life - owing its origin in Johannesburg and Durban to the kafir, and in Cape Town to the coloured population intermixing with the white - the Black Peril (a theme it is impossible to ignore, as it cuts at the roots of our public morality, the sacredness of family life, our national honour, and the future prestige and purity of our race). That this is the direct outcome of our attempts to foist civilization on the native is only too evident by comparing him in his natural surroundings. (L.E. De Payre, 'Should We Civilize the Kafir?', The State [Apr. 1910], p. 546.)
49. Hardy, Black Peril, pp. 188, 194-196.
50. Ibid., p. 196.
51. G.W. Hardy, 'The Black Peril', The Prince (7 October 1904), p. 607.
52. Ibid.
53. See P. Rees, 'George Webb Hardy, Journalist and Novelist, and Race Relations in Natal, 1901-1906, with Particular Emphasis on Miscegenation' (MA diss., University of Natal, 1991), pp. 12-24.
54. Hardy, The Black Peril', pp. 607, 609.
55. For a contrasting contemporary comment published in 1922, see Peter Nielsen's The Black Man's Place in South Africa (Cape Town, Juta): Racial repugnance ... arises naturally and spontaneously and, in this sense, instinctively, through the feeling of jealousy which is caused, in both men and women, by fear of losing their natural mates to rivals of both sexes from another and disparate race. (p. 113) Nielsen's book argues for the complete equality and 'assimilation' of black people, and is to my knowledge by far the most sensible and prescient treatment of the 'Native Question' dating from the period.
56. See Comwell, 'Ambiguous Contagion', pp. 75-81.
57. Hardy, Black Peril, p. 40.
58. Ibid., pp. 67, 57, 59; compare the character Joyce and his 'little chum' in Souls in Bondage.
59. Ibid., pp. 67, 57, 59; compare the character Joyce and his 'little chum' in Souls in Bondage.
60. Hardy, The Black Peril, pp. 65 (cf. p. 71 ), 176.
61. Ibid., pp. 73, 164, 165.
62. Ibid., p. 147.
63. Ibid., p.11.
64. Compare, for example, W.C. Scully, Daniel Vananda: The Life Story of a Human Being (Cape Town, 1923), pp. 201-204. See also the responses to Question 9 in the protocol for evidence submitted to the 1912 Commission of the South African General Missionary Conference: 'Are there any circumstances in the mode of life of the native in the part of the country with which you are familiar which might be regarded as predisposing to such crime [sexual assault]?' Respondent after respondent brings up the instance of the lax, careless or wanton white housewife and the virile young black 'houseboy'. Hardy also tackles the related question of employing black male 'nurses' to care for young white children of both sexes (pp. 95, 97, 230-231).
65. Compare, for example, W.C. Scully, Daniel Vananda: The Life Story of a Human Being (Cape Town, 1923), pp. 201-204. See also the responses to Question 9 in the protocol for evidence submitted to the 1912 Commission of the South African General Missionary Conference: 'Are there any circumstances in the mode of life of the native in the part of the country with which you are familiar which might be regarded as predisposing to such crime [sexual assault]?' Respondent after respondent brings up the instance of the lax, careless or wanton white housewife and the virile young black 'houseboy'. Hardy also tackles the related question of employing black male 'nurses' to care for young white children of both sexes (pp. 95, 97, 230-231).
66. C. van Onselen, 'The Witches of Suburbia: Domestic Service on the Witwatersrand. 1890-1914', in Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand 1886-1914. Vol. 2, New Nineveh (Johannesburg, 1982), pp. 1-73.
67. Hardy, Black Peril, pp. 191, 97.
68. Ibid., pp. 72, 74, 73; compare p. 76.
69. Rees, 'George Webb Hardy', p. 76.
70. Hardy, Black Peril, pp. 257, 264, 270, 273-275.
71. R. Kipling, The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales (London, [1890]).
72. A. Béteille, 'Race, Caste and Gender', Man (New Series) 25 (1990), p. 491.
73. The parallel between the two varieties of sexual 'Peril' is identified as a relationship of causation in the plot of Francis Bancroft's novel Of Like Passions; see also her article 'White Women in South Africa', The Englishwoman 9 (January-March 1911), pp. 262-269 . The discourse on the 'White Peril' reached its fullest elaboration in Sol Plaatje's pamphlet of 1921, 'The Mote and the Beam: An Epic on Sex-Relationship 'Twixt White and Black in British South Africa,' reprinted in English in Africa, 3, 2 (1976), pp. 85-92.
74. The parallel between the two varieties of sexual 'Peril' is identified as a relationship of causation in the plot of Francis Bancroft's novel Of Like Passions; see also her article 'White Women in South Africa', The Englishwoman 9 (January-March 1911), pp. 262-269 . The discourse on the 'White Peril' reached its fullest elaboration in Sol Plaatje's pamphlet of 1921, 'The Mote and the Beam: An Epic on Sex-Relationship 'Twixt White and Black in British South Africa,' reprinted in English in Africa, 3, 2 (1976), pp. 85-92.
75. M. Gluckman, 'Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand,' Bantu Studies, 14 (1940), p. 13.
76. L. Dumont, Homo Hierarchus: The Caste System and Its Implications (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970), p. 255.
77. See, for instance, D.M. Schneider, American Kinship (Englewood Cliffs, 1968).