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Blood on our Hands  
BLOOD ON OUR HANDS

The untold story of the complete annihilation of the IXam nation (the South African Bushmen) as we explore new evidence and eyewitness accounts of wholesale massacres that occurred during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARY FEATURE 70 minutes
Script/Director: Johann Abrahams


This is the untold story of the complete annihilation of the IXam nation (the South African bushmen). In this film through the eyes of a researcher and historian we explore new evidence and eyewitness accounts of wholesale massacres that occurred during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.

The film details the life and heroic efforts of Louis Anthing, the magistrate of Namaqualand, who solely tried to save the IXam nation from total annihilation. He collected affidavits and evidence, in his attempt to charge commando leaders with mass murder.

Louis Anthing wrote to the Cape Parliament in 1863, warning them of a wholesale massacre of the IXam that is taking place. “during the last 10 years a wholesale system of extermination of the Bushman people had been practiced...., Bushmen were killed - sometimes by hunting parties, at other times by commandos going out for the express purpose” .

Nobody listened to Anthing. He was silenced and the massacre continued. By 1910 the extinction of the South African indigenous bushman (the IXam), their culture and language was complete.

This film faces up to a shameful and bloodstained past.






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