Source P clearly gives the impression that the British dealt brutally with the Boer population in trying to defeat the Boer guerrilla fighters. However, as this source was written by a historian and writer that fought on the Boer side of the war, it means that this source is most likely very bias towards their side and is of course going to say things that put the Boer army in a better light than the British. This could explain the reason for Preller, the writer, exaggerating the conditions in which the women were treated. Preller gives an example of how the Boer population were dealt with ‘brutally’ by the British, he talks about how a woman was called a liar by a British Marshal as he said there were eggs in her house when she said there wasn’t, which was the truth. Preller’s idea of brutal treatment wasn’t to hurt or kill somebody, it was more to name call or insult someone. This shows that although the British may not have been particularly nice to the Boer population they definitely didn’t treat them badly and then in extension brutally. The ‘violence’ towards the Boer population in this source is clearly over exaggerated and for this reason not much weight can be placed on this source.
Source Q could be interpreted in many different ways. In one way source Q suggests that the British did deal brutally with the Boer population in trying to defeat Boer guerilla fighters as the soldier who wrote the source says they had to ‘deal’ with the women in a way that he found disagreeable. This suggests that they treated the women badly which then would be dealing with the population brutally, however, as the soldier doesn’t go into much detail on how they dealt with the women you can’t be sure if they were actually dealt with brutally or not. However, from the general tone of this source you do get the impression that the soldier didn’t enjoy the work he was ordered to do, this leads you to believe the population must have been treated badly but you can’t judge just how badly they were treated to give a justifiable reason on if the treatment was brutal or not. By this text being in the first person it makes the experience a lot more personal to the soldier and more likely to be truthful and for this reason you can believe this source is reliable.
Source R is of a Boer woman named Sophie Leviseur expressing her past of the Boer war. As she has lived through the treatment of the population by the British this may mean that the extra knowledge she has of the events make her opinion more valid then anyone else’s. Leviseur explains how the story of the concentration camps was over exaggerated. In general, concentration camps are not seen as nice places although, as Leviseur is explaining, they were over exaggerated. Leviseur’s opinion on this subject is most likely very reliable as she may have actually been in the concentration camps. This suggests that the treatment of the Boer population by the British wasn’t brutal, which is the opposite of source P. Source R also does support source Q in the way that Sophie Leviseur says that the British soldiers would burn down farms and houses which may have been seen as brutal, treatment but this scorched land idea was a standard army procedure so it was no more brutal to the Boers than it was to any population before so this leads you to believe the treatment of the Boer population in trying to defeat the Boer guerilla fighters wasn’t brutal, it was more standard procedure which is supported by Source R in saying the soldiers did what they would do in any war.
In conclusion, the evidence from the sources suggests that although the British may have not dealt with the Boer population nicely in trying to defeat the Boer guerrilla fighters, they weren’t dealt with brutally either. For the treatment of the Boer population to be brutal, it would have to be deliberate and none of the sources give evidence for any treatment of the Boers that wasn’t standard procedure for the British army. Although some of the standard procedures for the British army may have seemed brutal, like the scorched land idea, it was normal for the army to treat people like that and wouldn’t have been different in any other country or for any other army. There are some suggestions that women were treated badly but there is no substantial evidence for this; it seems as time has gone on a lot of the smaller negative points of the treatment of the Boer population by the British may have been expressed as huge brutal problems when it wasn’t really like that and by looking at these sources there is not enough evidence to support the argument that Boers were brutally hurt.
