“How does the late nineteenth century obsession with racial and criminal types lay the ground
for an instrument such as the terrorist album during apartheid in the twentieth century?”
To understand the link between racial and criminal types, as well as the terrorist type album,
we must first go back to the origins of the photographic tradition in Southern Africa., the 19th
century fingerprinting, 1913 SAP and these technologies (photography and fingerprinting),
global context shaped by Cold War, the connection between the colonial and apartheid eras.
Gustav Fritsch, a scientist with a curiosity in southern African racial types and a desire to
photograph them, arrived on Robben Island in 1863, armed with firearms and a stereoscope
camera.1 Therefore, he began a photographic tradition that, although not exactly within the
boundaries of jail photography, adhered to the genre's rules, nonetheless. However, he did not
introduce photography to Southern Africa.2 Even though the genre of racial-type
photographing was created in the 1860s and 1870s, its origins were much older. In 1845, E.
Thiesson took the first racial-type image in southern Africa, and he was not alone in his
obsession with racial types.3 Louis Agassiz, a Harvard professor, used photos of African-born
slaves to substantiate his polygenesis theory in 1850.4 Fritsch had been to Africa in search of
pure racial types as well, however, interactions with diversity i.e. the Zulu and Malays
external appearance had hampered his search and by 1872 he eliminated any sign of diversity
from African life by the time he released his photographs in Europe in 1872.5 Nonetheless,
Fritsch's Robben Island daguerreotypes, the first we have of any political prisoners on the
island, have historical significance since they document the first interaction of politics and
photography in southern Africa.6 The use of photography by police agencies throughout the
world was unsystematic, but it entailed a lot of thinking and debate about how to catch
criminals.7 In the 19th century, commercial photographers took both elite portraits and
criminal mug shots as a matter of course, for the respectable classes, nothing distinguished
the portrait of a member of the bourgeoisie from that of a criminal, it also did not help
matters that in late nineteenth-century Europe, photography was used to record, identify, and
detect criminals. 8 Bertillon pioneered a method of identification that was based on a set of
1
Dlamini, Jacob. "One. From Racial Types to Terrorist Types." In The Terrorist Album. (Harvard
University Press, 2020), 25
2
Ibid, 26
3
Ibid
4
Ibid
5
Ibid, 27
6
Ibid
7
Ibid, 27-28
8
Dlamini, Jacob. "One. From Racial Types to Terrorist Types." In The Terrorist Album. (Harvard
University Press, 2020), 28
for an instrument such as the terrorist album during apartheid in the twentieth century?”
To understand the link between racial and criminal types, as well as the terrorist type album,
we must first go back to the origins of the photographic tradition in Southern Africa., the 19th
century fingerprinting, 1913 SAP and these technologies (photography and fingerprinting),
global context shaped by Cold War, the connection between the colonial and apartheid eras.
Gustav Fritsch, a scientist with a curiosity in southern African racial types and a desire to
photograph them, arrived on Robben Island in 1863, armed with firearms and a stereoscope
camera.1 Therefore, he began a photographic tradition that, although not exactly within the
boundaries of jail photography, adhered to the genre's rules, nonetheless. However, he did not
introduce photography to Southern Africa.2 Even though the genre of racial-type
photographing was created in the 1860s and 1870s, its origins were much older. In 1845, E.
Thiesson took the first racial-type image in southern Africa, and he was not alone in his
obsession with racial types.3 Louis Agassiz, a Harvard professor, used photos of African-born
slaves to substantiate his polygenesis theory in 1850.4 Fritsch had been to Africa in search of
pure racial types as well, however, interactions with diversity i.e. the Zulu and Malays
external appearance had hampered his search and by 1872 he eliminated any sign of diversity
from African life by the time he released his photographs in Europe in 1872.5 Nonetheless,
Fritsch's Robben Island daguerreotypes, the first we have of any political prisoners on the
island, have historical significance since they document the first interaction of politics and
photography in southern Africa.6 The use of photography by police agencies throughout the
world was unsystematic, but it entailed a lot of thinking and debate about how to catch
criminals.7 In the 19th century, commercial photographers took both elite portraits and
criminal mug shots as a matter of course, for the respectable classes, nothing distinguished
the portrait of a member of the bourgeoisie from that of a criminal, it also did not help
matters that in late nineteenth-century Europe, photography was used to record, identify, and
detect criminals. 8 Bertillon pioneered a method of identification that was based on a set of
1
Dlamini, Jacob. "One. From Racial Types to Terrorist Types." In The Terrorist Album. (Harvard
University Press, 2020), 25
2
Ibid, 26
3
Ibid
4
Ibid
5
Ibid, 27
6
Ibid
7
Ibid, 27-28
8
Dlamini, Jacob. "One. From Racial Types to Terrorist Types." In The Terrorist Album. (Harvard
University Press, 2020), 28
