1890s African rinderpest epizootic

Cattle dead from rinderpest in South Africa, 1896

In the 1890s, an epizootic of the rinderpest virus struck Africa, considered to be "the most devastating epidemic to hit southern Africa in the late nineteenth century". It killed more than 5.2 million cattle south of the Zambezi, as well as domestic oxen, sheep, and goats, and wild populations of buffalo, giraffe, and wildebeest. The subsequent effects of the rinderpest outbreak thus led to massive famine, economic collapse, as well as disease outbreak in humans. Starvation spread across the region, it resulted in the death of an estimated third of the human population of Ethiopia and two-thirds of the Maasai people of Tanzania.

The famine and the massive decrease in cattle population, led to a change in the landscape from grass to thornbush. This formed the ideal habitat for tsetse fly and allowed them to expand from central and western African to the rest of the continent. Tsetse fly carry sleeping sickness which is transmitted from a tsetse bite. This disease affected animals and humans.

The virus is thought to have been introduced into Eritrea in 1887 by Indian cattle brought by the Italians for their campaign against Somalia. It spread throughout the Horn of Africa, and crossed the Zambezi in March 1896.

Sir Arnold Theiler was instrumental in developing a vaccine that curbed the epizootic.

The environmental impact of rinderpest virus in Africa

The African rinderpest epizootic was able to spread efficiently from the northeast to the south of Africa due to beneficial environmental conditions. The virus was spread though close contact at water sources such as watering holes and rivers where cattle and other mammals would gather. In three years, rinderpest travelled 8000km from the Southern Sahel Massawa to Dakar in West Africa although it took another year to travel south to the Zambezi before it infected groups in Bulawayo in modern Zimbabwe. However, Africa experienced a series of unfortunately timed meteorological El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events between late 1880s to the early 1890s. This caused major droughts throughout the continent from the horn of Africa down to south Africa which caused massive concentrations of populations to gather at water sources. This encouraged the spread of the virus as it allowed large numbers to get infected quickly in a short amount of time.

The virus damaged various areas of society for pastoralists in Southern Bechuanaland, modern day Botswana, as cattle was crucial to their survival. They relied on their livestock as their only source of income and cattle were a large percent of the economy. Moreover, Southern Bechuanaland was a very dry country which meant there was a lack of water sources that farmers could use. Farmers were forced to take their livestock to the select few water holes in their areas which meant they were mixing with the infected wild mammals.  This deeply affected the economy because it relied on cattle. Infection numbers only rose which meant that livestock’s numbers were dwindling. Furthermore, by December 1896 the British colonial government who oversaw the Southern Bechuanaland recognised their failure to stop the virus. Britain did not collaborate with the Tswanas and Boers which meant that there was a mix of different disease management methods being used at once. The lack of system led to healthy and infected cattle being near each other which allowed the virus to spread more.

Similarly in Cape Colony, particularly in the Eastern Cape, many people were dependent on the cattle industry and Oxen were both crucial to the agrarian systems as ox were used to transport goods and plough the fields. A declining population caused society to starve as they as they relied on the cattle as one of their sources of food and income. Many communities turned to skinning and dried out the meat of the large number of carcasses to preserve them longer but this was only a temporary solution to famine because stocks were increasingly depleted.

Rinderpest also impacted the ecosystem. It has been described as a virus that caused the crumble of a man-controlled environmental system and it destroyed social structures and economically stable communities.

It has been reported to have killed 90% of cattle.Although there is not a percentage given for the other species of artiodactyls such as water buffalo, giraffe and wildebeest in its more deadly form it killed 95% of infected animals. This damaged the food chain for predators. Lions, hyenas and other predators that hunt livestock and other species were struggling to find food as their prey was being killed by the virus. This forced hyenas and some lions to adapt to the changes in the ecosystem and turn to killing humans instead as they were easy to hunt having been debilitated by famine and smallpox. These human attacks were most prevalent in Ethiopia between 1888 to 1892.

Cow manure was a useful material that was used in various ways in African countries. It was used to plaster walls and floors but most importantly it was a used as a natural fertilizer on the land. This forced agricultural revolution in this period as they had to find an alternative to manure and farm in new ways to bring yield.

However the African farming sector prior to rinderpest in 1897in the Southeast of Africa was struggling due to mixture of droughts and infestation of red locusts (Nomadacris septumfascinata serville) in 1895 and 1896. Large swarms of locusts migrated from the northeast to the south coastal area of KwaZulu-Natal in August 1895. They caused massive amounts of damage to whole mealies and sugar cane fields. This resulted in major loss for farmers who invested in their field but were left with no crops to sell as due to extreme damage.  

Effect of Rinderpest on Borana in Southern Ethiopia

The rinderpest swept through the Borana region in Southern Ethiopia in 18-30 days, Central Ethiopia in 8 days and Eritrea in 3 days. The severity of the rinderpest upon the communities depended on what animals the communities relied upon. As it left behind little to no cattle, communities such as the Maasai were hit hard while the Somali and Gabra were almost untouched as they relied on camels. The Borana in Southern Ethiopia used a cattle-based economy, a pastoral economy, when the rinderpest arrived in August 1891. Cattle played an important role in marriages, as a food source, and in the maintenance of social security networks. As a result, the Borana was left without an economy and food. The only ones who manged to keep their herds alive were those who were already in remote areas. The ones who were hit the hardest were those relying on the Tula wells for water, as these became centres where infection spread. As the pest travelled, the wells and grazing land surrounding them were abandoned in fear of infection.

What limited food stores existed rapidly depleted, and what meat had been preserved ran out not long after the pest arrived. This meant that food taboos and societal hierarchy, such as the pastoral Borana being seen as better than the Waata who were hunter-gatherers, were set aside in favour of survival. Such compromises were also seen elsewhere in Eastern and Northern Africa. Additional problems arose as the rinderpest also killed animals such as buffalo, Grant’s gazelle and giraffes, meaning that predators like lions and hyenas had fewer alternatives when hunting. This led to predation of humans who were already weak from famine and smallpox outbreaks. In Northern Ethiopia, hyenas were particularly bad at attacking humans, going as far as dragging people out of their homes during the night. The smallpox was spread as people moved around trying to find better off places. Efforts to isolate infected people and inoculation were tried to minimize the severity of the smallpox. Still, whole families died out. With all the combined factors, the social networks broke down, and the weaker members of society, such as elders and orphans were left to fend for themselves as everyone strove to survive. Today, the Borana uses term the ciinna, meaning ”termination of everything”, for the overall impact the pest had on the society.

The Borana community is overseen by the Gada system, which dealt with political, administrative and ritual functions, and qallu institutions, which oversaw rituals and religious activities. Under the crisis, these institutions overseeing the Borana broke down, but did not completely collapse. Two years after the Rinderpest moved through the area, they, together with members of the community, got together to get a headcount and put down plans for the reconstruction of the Borana community. It was decided to merge weaker clans and sub-clans who had too few members left. The survivors from the crisis were organized into larger settlements around the wells, both to keep the wells open and functional but also as a precaution against predators, and so that the weakest could get the help they needed. To help society to reestablish itself, every customary rule and food taboo that had been broken under the Rinderpest and its consequences, were forgiven and everyone was declared clean. This went for all violations independent of their nature (sexual, food taboos, cannibalism). Strict laws were also put in place to ensure that any further rule breaking would be discouraged.

The few domesticated animals to survive in Borana areas were donkeys and horses. These were both important in helping the community start the rebuilding of itself. Horses, in combination with dogs, were used to aid in hunting of game, while donkeys were used as pack animals and helped restart trade and social networks. Unlike many other communities after the Rinderpest, the Borana clans rebuilt and returned to a pastoral economy. To work towards this, redistribution of remaining cattle was implemented in harmony with the social hierarchy, meaning oldest son got first, but younger brothers got ownership over calves in turn. In the aftermath of the Rinderpest with few cattle and the redistributive social system made this period into one of the more equal periods for the area.

Europeans travelling through the area, like H.S.H. Cavendish, makes remarks on the prosperity of the land only a handful of years after the Rinderpest swept through the area.

Further reading

• Sunseri, Thaddeus (2018-04-26). "The African Rinderpest Panzootic, 1888–1897". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.375. ISBN 978-0-19-027773-4.