Most people think of the Holocaust. Honestly, that’s the first thing that jumps into anyone's head when they hear the term. You picture the barbed wire of Auschwitz or the harrowing images from 1945. But if you're asking when did concentration camps start, the answer actually takes us back much further than Nazi Germany. It’s a darker, more global story than a single regime.
History is messy.
The concept of rounding up "problematic" populations and shoving them into guarded pens didn't just appear out of thin air in the 1930s. It was a gradual, brutal evolution of colonial warfare. Governments realized that if they couldn't beat an insurgency in the field, they could just starve the insurgency of its support by locking up the civilians. It’s a grim "logic" that appeared on three different continents before Hitler ever rose to power.
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The Reconcentration of Cuba
To find the true origin of the modern term, we have to look at 1896.
The Spanish Empire was crumbling. In Cuba, rebels were fighting for independence, using guerrilla tactics that drove the Spanish military crazy. General Valeriano Weyler—who was later nicknamed "The Butcher"—decided that the only way to win was to separate the rebels from the peasants who fed them. He issued a decree of reconcentración.
He didn't call them "death camps." He called them "reconcentration centers."
Basically, he forced hundreds of thousands of Cuban farmers into fortified towns. If you were outside the line after a certain date, you were considered a rebel and shot. Inside the lines? It was a nightmare. There was no food. No medicine. No sanitation. Somewhere around 150,000 to 400,000 people died from disease and starvation. This was the first time the world saw the mass, systematic detention of a civilian population during a conflict.
It was a pivot point in history.
The British and the Boer War
You’d think the world would have been horrified enough to stop. Instead, other empires took notes.
Just a few years later, during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa, the British Empire hit a wall. The Boer commandos—tough Dutch-descended farmers—were outmaneuvering the world's most powerful army. Lord Kitchener, the British commander, decided to follow the Spanish playbook but refined it. He burned Boer farms to the ground, salted the earth, and swept up the women and children into what were officially called "concentration camps."
This is where the English term actually gained its infamy.
Conditions were atrocious. Because the British military prioritized their own supply lines over feeding prisoners, measles and typhoid tore through the camps. Emily Hobhouse, a British welfare activist, actually went there and saw it for herself. She was horrified. She described children "fading away" from hunger. By the time the war ended, about 28,000 Boer civilians had died—most of them children under 16. It wasn't just Boers, either; the British also held over 100,000 Black Africans in separate, even worse camps, where at least 20,000 people perished.
The German Experiment in Namibia
This is the link people often miss.
Before the Third Reich, there was the German Empire in Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, in what is now Namibia, German colonial forces committed what many historians, like David Olusoga and Casper Erichsen, call the first genocide of the 20th century. When the Herero and Nama people rose up against colonial rule, the Germans didn't just fight them; they drove them into the desert to die and rounded up the survivors into Konzentrationslager.
One camp, Shark Island, was literally a "death through work" facility.
Prisoners were used as slave labor to build railways. The mortality rate was over 50%. Scientists even went there to study "racial science," measuring skulls and sending remains back to Berlin. Does that sound familiar? It should. Many of the soldiers and "scientists" involved in the Shark Island atrocities later influenced the early Nazi party. The connective tissue is there. It’s impossible to ignore.
Why the Nazi Era Changed Everything
So, if these camps existed for decades, why is the Holocaust the only thing we talk about?
When did concentration camps start becoming "extermination camps"? That's the distinction. The early camps in Cuba and South Africa were technically meant to "contain" people. The death was a result of gross negligence, callousness, and systemic failure.
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The Nazis took a pre-existing colonial tool and industrialised it.
Dachau, the first Nazi camp, opened in 1933. Initially, it wasn't for Jews; it was for political rivals—Communists and Social Democrats. But as the regime solidified, the system metastasized. By the time we get to 1941 and the "Final Solution," the camp system evolved into two distinct branches:
- Concentration Camps: Forced labor, political imprisonment, and horrific conditions (like Buchenwald).
- Extermination Camps: Facilities designed for the sole purpose of mass murder (like Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka).
Auschwitz-Birkenau was a hybrid of both. This industrialization of death was a departure from anything the Spanish or British had done. It wasn't "negligence" anymore. It was a factory setting for murder.
Common Misconceptions About the Timeline
People often get confused about the American involvement in this timeline. You’ve probably heard people debate whether the reservations for Native Americans or the Internment Camps for Japanese-Americans count.
Technically, by the definition of "concentrating a civilian population in a restricted area under guard," they do.
The United States interned 120,000 Japanese-Americans during WWII. While these weren't death camps—the mortality rates weren't comparable to the Boer War or the Holocaust—they were concentration camps by definition. Even President Franklin D. Roosevelt used that exact term in private memos before his staff convinced him to use the more PR-friendly "Relocation Centers."
There’s also the Soviet Gulag system.
The Gulags started almost immediately after the Russian Revolution in 1917. While they were "labor camps," the sheer scale and the death tolls make them a massive part of this history. Under Stalin, they became a permanent feature of the Soviet economy.
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The Evolution of the Definition
When you ask when did concentration camps start, you have to realize the definition has shifted.
Originally, it was a military term for a specific strategy of counter-insurgency. Today, it’s a word heavy with the weight of the Holocaust. Because of that, modern governments avoid the term like the plague. They use phrases like:
- Strategic Hamlets (Vietnam War)
- Re-education Camps (Xinjiang, China)
- Detention Centers (Border security)
The name changes, but the core mechanic—detaining a group of people based on who they are rather than what they’ve done—remains a tool of the state.
Tracking the Roots: A Quick Reference
It helps to see the timeline without the fluff. Here is the progression of how these camps appeared globally:
- 1896: Cuba. General Weyler invents reconcentración to stop rebels.
- 1898: The Philippines. US forces use similar "protected zones" during the Philippine-American War.
- 1900: South Africa. The British use "concentration camps" against Boer families.
- 1904: Namibia. Germany uses camps for the Herero and Nama people.
- 1917: Soviet Union. The first precursors to the Gulag system appear.
- 1933: Germany. Dachau opens, marking the start of the Nazi camp system.
Actionable Steps for Learning More
If you want to understand this better, don't just take a surface-level glance at a textbook. History is found in the primary sources.
- Read "The Black Hole of Empire" by Partha Chatterjee. It gives a deep look at how colonial powers used these tactics to maintain control. It's dense, but worth it.
- Visit the Arolsen Archives online. They have the world's most comprehensive collection of records on Nazi persecution. You can see the actual documents, the bureaucracy of it all. It’s chilling.
- Research the "Lager" system. Look into how different countries used the term. You'll find that the Italian camps in Libya (1930s) or the French camps for Spanish Civil War refugees (1939) offer a lot of context.
- Distinguish between "Interment" and "Extermination." When discussing this, always clarify the intent. Was it to keep people in, or to ensure they never came out? That distinction is vital for accurate historical discussion.
The history of concentration camps isn't just a German history; it's a global history of how modern states deal with people they deem "inconvenient." By understanding the roots in Cuba and South Africa, we can better recognize the warning signs when these systems begin to reappear under new names.
Check out the works of historian Andrea Pitzer, specifically her book One Long Night. She tracks the global history of these camps over the last 100-plus years better than almost anyone else in the field. Knowledge of this timeline is the only way to ensure "never again" actually means something.