Mounted 'Kaffir Scouts', 1900 (c)

Photograph by Lieutenant Charles Tristram Melville Hare, Boer War (1899-1902), 1900 (c).

The term 'kaffir' derives from an Arabic word used to describe non-believers or non-Muslims. Use of the term spread via trade and commerce and European colonial regimes adopted it as an official term to describe various ethnic groups. It is in this context that the word is used in the title of this photograph.

The term is now regarded as a pejorative racial term primarily because of its association with the Apartheid regime in South Africa in which it was used as a derogatory term to describe Black Africans. The phrase 'the K-word' is now often used to replace the word.

Thousands of black Africans served alongside British forces during the Boer War. It is estimated that between 15,000 and 30,000 blacks were serving under arms with the British Army as scouts and sentries, while another 100,000 worked as labourers, transport drivers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, farriers and builders.

One of 17 photographs by Lieutenant Charles Hare.