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New Contree, No. 46 (November1999)

A GREENER PAST? AN ASSESSMENT OF SOUTH AFRICAN

ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

1

Phia Steyn

(Department of History, University of the Orange Free State)

Opsomming

'n Groener verlede? 'n Opgawe van Suid-Afrikaanse omgewingshistoriografie

Die doel met hierdie artikel is om 'n oorsig te verskaf van die bestaande literatuur oor Suid-Afrikaanse omgewingsgeskiedenis. Die opkoms van omgewingsgeskiedenis as

'n identifiseerbare sub-dissipline in historiografie kan wereldwyd toegeskryf word aan

die belangstelling in die natuurlike omgewing wat deur die omgewingskrisis en gepaardgaande omgewingsrevolusie in die 1960s gegenereer is. In teenstelling met hierdie algemene tendens het omgewingsgeskiedenis in Suid-Afrika aanvanklik in die loop van die tagtigerjare ontwikkel vanuit die revisionistiese historiografie se belangstelling in pre-koloniale swart gemeenskappe. Sedertdien het die fokus en omvang daarvan uitgebrei tot so 'n mate dat omgewingshistorici daarop kan begin aandring dat omgewingsgeskiedenis as 'n volwaardige sub-dissipline binne die Suid-Afrikaanse historiografie erken moet word.

1. Introduction

The general interest ih and concern for the state and the future of the environment, brought about by the perceived environmental crisis and the corresponding environmental revolution in the 1960s, left its imprint on historical writing across the globe. It directly contributed to renewed historical interest in the processes of nature and the impact of humans on the environment over time: interest that was in part driven by the conviction that an understanding of the reciprocal impact between humans and the environment in the past would enable humankind to reverse the world-wide environmental degradation and thus ensure a healthy future for planet earth and its inhabitants.2 Since the late 1960s, this historical interest in environmental issues has found expression in the publication of numerous environmental histories, the founding of environmental history societies (for example the American Society for Environmental

1 A revised version of this article was presented at the annual conference of the American

Society for Environmental History, 15-18 March 2000, Tocama, USA. The financial assistance in the form of a travel grant py the Division for Social Sciences and Humanities of the National Research Foundation towards my participation in this conference is gratefully acknowledged. I would like to thank Andre Wessels and Nico Combrink for commenting on some aspects of the article.

2 According to Alfred Crosby the environmental movement that emerged in the 1960s was "the engine that drove environmental history" in the USA. A.W. Crosby, ''The past and the present of environmental history", The American Historical Review, 100,4 (October 1995), p. 1186.

A GREENER PAST? AN ASSESSMENT OF SOUTH AFRICAN

ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

1

Phia Steyn

Opsomming

1. Introduction

A GREENER PAST? AN ASSESSMENT OF SOUTH AFRICAN

ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORIOGRAPHY

1

Phia Steyn

Opsomming

1. Introduction

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History in 1976) and the division (in some countries) of this wide historical field into various streams.3

In the absence of television to bring the environmental crisis into people's homes, and due to the growing isolation of South Africa in the international political arena, the environmental revolution went by largely unnoticed by the general public and professional historians in this country. 4 The emergence of the environment as a central character in some historical narratives from the late 1960s onwards therefore initially had limited influence on historians writing on the South African past. South African historiography at that stage was far more concerned with the emergence of a strong revisionist interpretation of the country's past.

The rise of South African revisionist historiography was stimulated by two factors, namely the publication of the Oxford History of South Africa in two volumes (in 1969 and 1971 respectively) under the editorship of liberal historians Monica Wilson and Leonard Thompson, and the socialistic academic character prevalent abroad with which numerous South African historical emigres came into contact in the course of the 1960s.5 _{Revisionist historians took a critical view of the fundamental assumption of the}

Oxford History that the central theme in South African history is the interaction between

the various racial groups in the country.6 The conclusions of the Oxford History that apartheid was the result of racist prejudices of the Afrikaners and that economic interests had no influence on the racial policies of the National Party government were also found to be unacceptable interpretations of the South African pase

Revisionist historians, on the other hand, held the opinion that class interest was the dominant theme in South African history, and investigated the reciprocal relationship between apartheid and capitalism, concluding that apartheid as a political system was developed to serve capitalistic ends. A bitter debate ensued between liberal and revisionist historians for most of the 1970s, a debate to which Afrikaner nationalist historians (being the third most dominant historiographical school at the time) more often than not made limited contributions. By the late 1970s a shift occurred within the revisionist theoretical framework. Class interests as the sole determinant in South

3 See for example R. White, "American environmental history: The development of a new historical field", Pacific Historical Review, 54, 3 (1985), pp. 297-335 for the divisions within environmental history in the USA.

• See Phia Steyn and Andre Wessels, "The roots of contemporary governmental and non-governmental environmental activities in South Africa, 1654-1972", New Con tree, 45 (September 1999), pp. 77-80 for a discussion of the impact of the environmental revolution on South Africa. S. Marks, "Towards a people's history of South Africa? Recent developments in the historiography of South Africa", in R. Samuel (ed.), People's history and SOCialist theory (London, 1981), pp. 300-301.

• M. Wilson and L. Thompson (eds), The Oxford History of South Africa, 1 (Oxford, 1969), p. v. C. Saunders, "Historians and apartheid", in J. Lonsdale (ed.), South Africa in question (Cambridge, 1988), p. 19.

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African history were replaced by the view that racial relations, along with class interests, played an important role in shaping the South African society. B

The theoretical shift in South African revisionist historiography from the late 1970s onwards had important repercussions for the development of South African environmental history. While caught up in the argument that class interests were the only determinant in South African history, revisionist historians focussed predominantly on the state and its relationship with capital as well as on various aspects of the white working class. Once racial relations began to be taken into consideration (something that was in particular stimulated by the Soweto uprising of 1976), the revisionist historiographical agenda broadened considerably and came to include inter alia studies on the impact of capitalism and industrialisation on pre-colonial societies, the creation of the South African working classes, black resistance to white domination and the history of pre-colonial black ethnic groups.9

Increasing attention was also paid to various environmental issues such as ecological factors that enabled the rise of Shaka and the Zulu kingdom, which in turn opened up other environmental themes to revisionist historians. This development, coupled with the emergence of a general interest in the state of the environment in South Africa in the 1980s, directly contributed to the development of South African environmental history as an identifiable sub-discipline within South African historiography in the past two decades. Though initially limited mostly to revisionist historians, environmental history in South Africa has slowly caught on with historians in other historiographical traditions. The majority of environmental historians writing on the South African past, however, can still be labelled revisionist.

This article aims at providing an assessment of the existing body of literature on South African environmental history since the 1980s. Attention will be directed at the following: firstly, at some of the environment related histories that were published in the course of the twentieth century, and secondly, at South African environmental historiography since 1980. It is important to note that this article approaches South African environmental historiography from a thematic perspective and is therefore more concerned with the various environmental themes historians have addressed in the South African past than with the historiographical methods and paradigms employed by these histori~ns.

B Numerous studies provide detailed information on revisionist historiography as well as on the conflict between liberal anQ revisionist historians in the 1970s. See for example Saunders, "Historians and apartheid"; C. Saunders, The making of the South African past: Major historians

on race and class (Johannesburg, 1988), pp. 165-191; Ken Smith, The changing past: Trends

in South African historical writing (Johannesburg, 1988). pp. 155-228; G. Verhoef, "Die radikale

geskiedskrywing oor Suid-Afrika" (M.A. dissertation, Rand Afrikaans University, 1982).

9 Saunders, "Historians and apartheid", p. 29; Verhoef, "Radikale geskiedskrywing", p. 17; Saunders, Making of South African past, pp. 183-184.

Greener past 9

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2. Prelude to the establishment of environmental history in South Africa Alfred Crosby writes that American historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries "were fully, almost painfully, conscious of immense and accelerating change but did not yet think of it ecologically" .'0 The same argument is valid within the South African context. Even though historians dealt with a variety of aspects that directly and indirectly impacted on the South African environment, few historians ventured beyond the limitations of their historiographical paradigms to address the environment as a central character in their narratives.

One of the earliest examples of South African environmental history is the short historical essay on the influence of the tsetse fly on the South African past, written by B.H. Dicke in 1932." Dicke offered some daring observations in his essay for the period in which he lived. This is especially true for his comments on the fate of the early Voortrekkers in the trek led by Johannes Hendrik Janse van Rensburg. The Van Rensburg group was one ofthe first groups ofVoortrekkers to leave to the Cape Colony

in 1835 in what became known as the Great Trek. Unlike most of their fellow

Voortrekkers, with the exception of the Louis Trichardt trek, the Van Rensburg group did nottrek from the Transgariep (present-day Free State province) to (KwaZulu-) Natal, but continued on the route northwards into the Transvaal in search of a route to Delagoa Bay (present-day Maputo). By the middle of 1836 the whole Van Rensburg trek had been wiped out by the Amatongas of the Makuleke and Mahlengwe clans. ,2

According to Dicke the role of the Amatongas in the massacre of the Van Rensburg trek had been overemphasised by historians and he held the opinion that they merely "administered the coup-de-grace". Of more importance to him was the role played by the tsetse fly which destroyed the Voortrekkers' draught animals once they entered the fly belt in the Transvaal. The loss of animals compelled the Van Rensburg trek to leave their wagons behind, without which they were unable to follow the standard Voortrekker tactic of forming a wagon laager when faced with danger. With only ten guns and no wagons that could provide some form of protection, the Van Rensburg trek had no chance of survival against the onslaught of the Amatongas.'3

Dicke's conclusion that the tsetse fly "killed" the Van Rensburg trek long before the Amatongas did, was a controversial statement given the Afrikaner sentiments regarding the Great Trek at the time. However, he was not the first historian to focus on the influence of the tsetse fly belt on the settlement patterns of white people in the South

10 Crosby, "Environmental history", p. 1179.

11 S.H. Dicke, "The tsetse-fly's influence on South African history", South African Journal of

Science,.29 (October 1932), pp. 792-796.

12 C.F.J. Muller (ed.), Five hundred years South African history (3"' edition, Cape Town, 1987),

pp. 159, 162.

13 Dicke, "Tsetse-fly's influence", pp. 795-796. Dicke repeated this argument in his unfinished

work on the Northern Transvaal Voortrekkers that was published posthumously. See S.H. Dicke, "The Northern Transvaal Voortrekkers", in Archives Year Book for South African History, 1941,

1 (CapeTown, 1941), pp.128-134. '

10 Phia Steyn

pp. 159, 162.

1 (CapeTown, 1941), pp.128-134. '

10 Phia Steyn

pp. 159, 162.