This film is part of Free
Savage South Africa - Savage Attack and Repulse
Members of a South African performance troupe arrive for an Earl's Court date
Overview
This striking film re-stages an episode from the second Matabele war between the British South African Company and the Ndebele Kingdom led by King Lobengula. It was re-enacted from performances by the visiting Savage South African troupe, assembled by Frank Fillis in South Africa and brought to England for a run at the Empress Theatre in Earl''s Court from April 1899. It was made as one of a series of scenes by the Warwick Trading Company. For another surviving scene of much better quality see Colonial Troops and Cavalry. For even better quality, filmed on 68mm film, see the Biograph film Landing of Savage South Africa in Southampton. This spectacle caused quite a stir and no little controversy, much of it racist. Some challenged the ethics of the enterprise, among them the Times, which queried "the action of the organisers in bringing over a large number of natives to be stared at and to take their chance of being demoralised in such strange and unedifying surroundings". The show arrived in Britain in April 1899; some six months later Britain would be at war, for the second time, with the South African Boers.
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