scholarly journals Imperial skulduggery, science and the issue of provenance and restitution

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinhart Kößler

This article explores the history of the Alexander Ecker Collection and situates it within the larger trajectory of global collecting of human remains during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is then linked to the specific context of the genocide in then German South West Africa (1904–8), with the central figure of Eugen Fischer. The later trajectory of the collection leads up to the current issues of restitution. The Freiburg case is instructive since it raises issues about the possibilities and limitations of provenance research. At the same time, the actual restitution of fourteen human remains in 2014 occurred in a way that sparked serious conflict in Namibia which is still on-going four years later. In closing, exigencies as well as pressing needs in connection with the repatriation and (where possible) rehumanisation of human remains are discussed.

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-26
Author(s):  
Holger Stoecker ◽  
Andreas Winkelmann

From 2010 to 2013 the Charité Human Remains Project researched the provenance of the remains of fifty-seven men and women from the then colony of German South West Africa. They were collected during German colonial rule, especially but not only during the colonial war 1904–8. The remains were identified in anthropological collections of academic institutions in Berlin. The article describes the history of these collections, the aims, methods and interdisciplinary format of provenance research as well as its results and finally the restitutions of the remains to Namibia in 2011 and 2014.


1906 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. G. Irvine ◽  
D. Macaulay

In the month of June, 1905, no fewer than 99,518 natives were employed on mines and works in the labour districts of the Witwatersrand, and the neighbouring mining areas of Klerksdorp, Heidelberg, and Vereeniging. In addition to these there were also working on the gold mines over 45,000 Chinese labourers. This vast industrial army is recruited from many and in great measure from very distant sources. Of the natives employed during the year ending June, 1905, the whole of British South Africa furnished only just over 32%: less than 2% came from British Central Africa: 60% were drawn from the Southern Portuguese East Coast provinces; and 3.6% from the Portuguese provinces north of latitude 22°. German South-West Africa contributed under 1%, but this area has latterly ceased to be a source of supply.


Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz

This chapter examines Germany’s participation in the scramble for African territory, in particular the history of treaty making. It compares pre-nineteenth-century African treaties with treaties concluded subsequently. It draws attention to the undisputed legal character of African treaties concluded under the regime of the classic law of nations which, according to its natural law premises, was a universal and non-discriminatory law operating irrespective of civilisation, religion, race, or continent. It discusses protracted co-existence in South-West Africa under German protection; a mixture of protection and sovereignty in Togo and the Cameroons; and the situation in East Africa where absorption followed soon after the conclusion of treaties.


2012 ◽  
Vol 317-318 ◽  
pp. 41-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Maslin ◽  
Richard D. Pancost ◽  
Katy E. Wilson ◽  
Jonathan Lewis ◽  
Martin H. Trauth

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