Law\u27s Violence and the Boundary Between Corporal Discipline and Physical Abuse in German South West Africa

This article is organized as follows. Part One sketches the way the article will approach the issue of law and violence. Part Two provides a very brief summary of the history of German colonial rule in South West Africa. Part Three discusses the status of the right of discipline in German law up to and during the colonial period. Part Four turns to the colonial situation itself, examining the colonial debate over the right to discipline in the context of settlers’ abuse of farm workers. Part Five follows this debate into the diamond mines discovered toward the end of the German colonial period and mined by African migrant workers under frequently abusive foremen