Settler Homes, Manhood and 'Houseboys': An Analysis of Natal's Rape Scare of 1886

Abstract

For the month of December 1886, white Natalians were galvanised by the fear that white women were in imminent danger of being raped by black men. Mobs of male settlers attacked Africans living in towns and huge public meetings were organised to discuss the 'social pest'. The colonial government responded to this agitation by passing laws providing for a system of 'native' registration in Natal and imposing capital punishment for the crime of rape. In attempting to account for the outbreak of this scare, this article examines the context in which white male anxieties emerged. Drawing from recent scholarship on 'white panics' produced by southern African and American historians, it posits that an economic depression in Natal in the 1880s heightened tensions between settlers and black competitors, and between white men and women. These economic dif culties threatened to undermine the position of white men within the colonial hierarchy, and increased concerns about the implications of black male domestic servants performing what was considered 'women's work' in settler homes, as well as white women's 'inappropriate' behaviour towards them. The scare was a manifestation of these concerns, as well as an opportunity for male settlers to reassert dominance over black men and white women. This article also considers the legislative legacy left by the 1886 panic. It concludes that the scare was a crucial factor in the promulgation of early laws providing for 'native' registration in Natal, and that the government's legislative response was in large degree shaped by extra-legal pressure applied by settlers.

Power and Identity: An Introduction to Sexualities in Southern Africa

“…When white women were assaulted and raped by black men, the state and often the white population at large acted in decisive ways. In the late 19th century, a rape scare in Natal was used to bolster laws regulating the movement of black men (Martens, 2002). At the turn of the century in Johannesburg a number of assaults and rapes resulted in a black peril scare which was used to arrest black men and introduce laws which controlled their movement and ended domestic service for black men in white households (van Onselen, 1982).…”

Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India

“…76 Finally, most historians have explored colonial panics about the perceived threat of imminent revolts and revolutionary activities, or alternatively, panics about disease and epidemics, which endangered the bodies of the colonisers and the colonial economy. 77 Yet the Hijra panicalong with several studies of panics about interracial sex 78 suggest that a range of sexual practices and relationships, as well as forms of gender expression, could be construed as threats to colonial rule in certain contexts. However, the question remains, why did the British view Hijras as a problem of colonial governance and a challenge to colonial authority?…”

Colonial Constructions of Masculinity: Transforming Aboriginal Australian Men into ‘Houseboys’

“…In the case of colonial Natal, Jeremy Martens argues that African men 'actively sought positions as domestic servants' and had done so 'since the earliest days of white settlement'. 78 Karen Hansen similarly documented domestic work as 'a man's job' in colonial Rhodesia. 79 While Robert Morrell described the work of washermen and houseboys as 'menial, brutal or unmanly', it is unclear whether he has taken western paradigms of masculinity to be the measure of a supposed 'natural' masculinity.…”