On runners and fighters

Karl Bergemann graduates today

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[A]nd with many others who are similarly situated, some with two or three Servants away, [we] have to deplore the want of proper Laws to check the rapidly increasing evils of vagrancy. The above is otherwise a very good Servant, but seeing daily instances of Boys running away without fear of detection, has for the sake of a holiday followed the example, and must, consequently, by this time, be in a rapid state of demoralization.

H.H. Gird, a resident in the Cape district of Wynberg, placed the above advert in the Government Gazette in March of 1836, a year and some months after the implementation of the apprenticeship system in English colonies. In so doing, he unwittingly penned what Shane White calls a ‘postcard from the past’ – a relic shard outlining a defining moment in the life of the subject it aimed to portray. He provided a snapshot of a master class of employers commenting on the state of desertion into which his juvenile emigrant apprentice, one Henry Young, alias Belmore, was thrust.

So begins (somewhat paraphrased) Karl Bergemann’s PhD on the history of desertion at the Cape. Karl studies the emancipation of enslaved, apprenticed, and indentured labourers in the 1830s by using advertisements from the Government Gazette and De Zuid Afrikaan to create and analyse a large dataset of runaways that offer insights into their demographics, skills, and experiences.

At just 13 years of age, indentured in a foreign country to an employer not of his choosing, Henry, described as having ‘light brown hair, grey eyes and a freckled face’, threw his lot in with the hundreds of runaways, those ‘seekers of freedom’, who had embarked on a similar path in the preceding years. The laws enacted in this period, first in 1834 and then with the final emancipation of the enslaved in 1838, saw coerced labour landscapes change across three distinct yet overlapping periods. The deserters this thesis investigates are drawn from three categories of coerced labour: First, during the period 1830-34, the enslaved; then, during the period 1834-38, the apprentices; and finally, during the period 1839-42 and in the wake of emancipation, the contractually indentured. Henry, like others before and after him, became a runaway, a ‘fugitive’ from the law, relying on his wits and whatever help would have been afforded him to remain undetected in a world that relied on civic cooperation and the print medium, specifically the runaway advertisement, to sustain the status quo.

Karl investigates the motivations and mechanisms behind escapes like those of young Henry, introducing the concept of ‘assimilation marronage’ as a novel strategy for integration within colonial society. Unlike traditional forms of marronage, which involved fleeing to remote areas to live independently or establish separate communities (often referred to as maroon communities), assimilation marronage involves the integration of escapees into the broader society, albeit in a discreet or hidden manner. This strategy allows individuals to remain within the colonial societies from which they escaped, adopting new identities or blending into the existing social fabric to avoid recapture.

In short, Karl’s quantitative and qualitative work shows that runaways at the Cape generally did not flee into the interior but instead headed for Cape Town, where they hoped to assimilate into free society. The images below depict some of these runaways, created by Kathryn Smith and Pearl Mamathuba, as part of the Charting the Uncharted art exhibit in 2022.

Expect to hear much more of Karl’s work in the coming months. This post, though, is to recognise the author rather than his scholarship.

I met Karl just before Covid. Three months into his PhD, the world locked down. It was the worst time to be a PhD student.

In the third year of his PhD, Karl lost his father in a hit-and-run accident. He writes in his thesis acknowledgements:

I lost my father midway through my PhD journey. His inspiration in all facets of life was and always will be immeasurable. The loss was such that it threatened to unravel me from the inside out. What kept it all together was the individual and collective strength of my family members. I’d therefore like to thank them by name upfront. To my mother, Desray; brothers Justin and Wesley; sisters-in-law Geneviéve and Chelsee; and finally, the rock upon which all my aspirations are built: my wife, Tamaryn. Thank you for the loving bond that saw us through tragedy and continues to strengthen us as we move forward in this world. Always remember: “Life may hit hard but Bergemanns hit harder.”

Karl does hit hard, in the very literal sense of the word. By his fourth year, his funding ran out. His only source of income was Muaythai fights. Currently number 10 in the world, only a week ago, Karl won the ITMA Games heavyweight championship in Phuket, Thailand. He sent me this WhatsApp last Sunday:

My opponent at 86kg pulled out 4 days before the fight so I only had the option of moving to the heavyweight division to fight my American opponent who weighed in at 115kg. I was 88kg when I agreed to the fight because it was that or no fight at all. In the end, South African mielie pap beats American corn on the cob. Won via TKO rd 2 after I dropped him 3 times in the round. Hands of stone.

Hands of stone, yes, and an iron will. Congratulations, Karl, on a fantastic dissertation – one international examiner called it ‘very impressive’ and ‘a tour de force’ – and on displaying an even more impressive strength of character, time and again. I’m sure your father would have been proud today.

Karl was co-supervised by Kate Ekama (Stellenbosch) and Laura Mitchell (UC Irvine). Let me take this opportunity to also thank them for the expert guidance and support they provided. ‘On runners and fighters’ was first published on Our Long Walk. The image was created with Midjourney v6.