The Micro-History of a South African Murder

This article explores a murder that took place on a Transvaal farm in the early 20th century. By subjecting it to the techniques of micro-history, it demonstrates that the killing, far from having merely a narrow personal or criminal significance, casts a powerful if lurid light on important historical processes and phenomena. Central among these are the following: the social power of Boer landowners over an impoverished white tenantry; the intimacy and violence of master–servant relations between the races in the countryside; the new mode of policing in the wake of the South African War; and the fact that black action in that conflict continued to affright Boer/Afrikaner consciousness. In short, the article offers a study of how a wider history is embedded in, and illuminated by, a single criminal case. The startling evidence of the trial is also used to convey the relationships of power on a particular agrarian estate, and how these were challenged as the state enlisted servants as witnesses against their masters.