Boma (enclosure)

A boma is a enclosure, , corral, small fort or a district government office used in many parts of the African Great Lakes region, as well as Central and Southern Africa. It is particularly associated with European colonial rule. It is incorporated into many African languages, as well as colonial varieties of English, French and German.

As a livestock enclosure, a boma is the equivalent of kraal. The former term is used in areas influenced by the Swahili language, and the latter is employed in areas influenced by Afrikaans.

In the form of fortified villages or camps, bomas were commonplace in Central Africa in the 18th and 19th century in areas affected by the slave trade, tribal wars and colonial conquest, and were built by both sides in such conflicts.

Apart from the neatly built shown in illustrations of bomas, the term, in practice, more often resembled the structure shown in the cartoon accompanying this article. In that form, they often were referred to by the likes of J. A. Hunter and Henry Morton Stanley.

In British colonies, especially in remote areas, boma came to be used to mean colonial government offices because in the late 19th century such offices usually included a fortified police station or military barracks, often in the form of a timber stockade, though some had stone walls. Many were called forts, as in 'Fort Jameson', 'Fort Manning', or 'Fort Rosebery'. In the 20th century it came to mean the district or provincial government headquarters, even where fortifications were no longer required.

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