Company Colonies, Property Rights, and the Extent of Settlement: A Case Study of Dutch South Africa, 1652-1795 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Institutions for the taking: property rights and the settlement of the Cape Colony, 1652-1750
The Economic History Review
Institutions for the taking: property rights and the settlement of the Cape Colony, 1652-1750 † By ALAN DYE and SUMNER LA CROIX * We examine the formation of property rights in land during the early settlement by the Dutch of the Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa. After its founding in 1652 as a provisioning outpost for ships of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the colonial government promoted settlement initially by granting land with well-specified and enforced property rights in restricted zones near Cape Town. By 1714 it transitioned to accommodate rapidly expanding settlement by creating a weaker form of property rights, the loan farm, which was imprecisely defined and had limited government enforcement. We develop a profit-maximizing monopsony model to explain the VOC's choice to transition from the better-specified land grant to the less well-specified loan farm. We conclude that the decline in the population size and ability of the Khoikhoi, the Cape's original inhabitants, to organize effective resistance to the Dutch invasion was critical to the transition, as it lowered the costs of private enforcement of settlers' territorial claims. The choice of property rights thus enabled and encouraged the rapid taking by European settlers of the western Cape of Africa for the expansion of the Dutch colony's pastoral economy.
How comfortable was the life of the average settler in the Dutch Cape Colony of the eighteenth century? The generally accepted view is of a poor, subsistence economy, with little progress being made in the 143 years of Dutch rule (1652-1795). In this article I show that new evidence from probate inventory and auction roll records contradicts earlier historical accounts. These documents bear witness to a relatively affluent settler society, comparable to some of the most prosperous regions of eighteenth-century England and Holland. This detailed picture of the material wealth of the Colony should inspire a revision of the standard accounts. I also briefly consider the causes and consequences of this prosperity.
Slaves as capital investment in the Dutch Cape Colony, 1652-1795
Working Papers, 2011
The Cape Colony of the eighteenth century was one of the most prosperous regions in the world. This paper shows that Cape farmers prospered, on average, because of the economies of scale and scope achieved through slavery. Slaves allowed farmers to specialise in agricultural products that were in high demand from the passing ships -notably, wheat, wine and meat -and the by-products from these products, such as tallow, skins, soap and candles. In exchange, farmers could import cheap manufactured products from Europe and the East. Secondly, the paper investigates why the relative affluence of the early settlers did not evolve into a high growth trajectory. The use of slaves as a substitute for wage labour or other capital investments allowed farmers to prosper, but it also resulted in severe inequality. It was this high inequality that drove the growthdebilitating institutions posited by . The immigration of Europeans was discouraged after 1717, and again during the middle of the century, while education was limited to the wealthy. Factor endowments interacted with institutions to create a highly unequal early South African society, with long-term development consequences.
From land dispossession to land restitution: European land rights in South Africa
Settler Colonial Studies, 2016
Behind every colonial and imperial project laid a persistent constellation of ideas in which rights, obligations and duties were specified to justify colonialism and establish ownership of land. This constellation of ideas provided the reasons for European expansionism, in addition to forming part of the ideological practices of the land-centred settler colonial project of founding new political orders. In this article, I explore the ideologies of land appropriation in colonial South Africa, paying particular attention to the idea of 'empty land' and 'trusteeship'. As well as attending to this partly neglected aspect of South Africa's colonial history, I argue that land restitution today continues to be informed by norms that were used to justify occupation and the appropriation of lands inhabited by indigenous peoples.
Fundamina, 2019
The pastoral indigenous communities living in southern Africa at the start of the colonial period were the fi rst to be dispossessed of their rights in land. They had exercised these rights in terms of their customary law systems for centuries before the arrival of non-indigenous settlers in 1652. During the nineteenth century, the fi nal acts of dispossession of land took place in terms of racially discriminatory legislation and administrative actions, just like the dispossession of land that took place after 19 June 1913. However, the descendants of these communities are unable to claim restoration of their rights in land in terms of the constitutional land reform programme. This contribution identifi es the customary law rights in land of these communities and compares such rights with the rights that non-indigenous settlers had in the land used as grazing on loan places. This comparison shows that the rights in land used * BA (Stell) LLB LLM (RAU) LLD (Pretoria); advocate of the High Court, state law adviser in the Offi ce of the Chief State Law Adviser. This contribution is based on parts of my doctoral thesis entitled The History of the Occupation of Land in the Cape Colony and the Eff ect Thereof on Land Law and Constitutionally Mandated Land Reform (University of Pretoria, 2019). as grazing of non-indigenous settlers and pastoral indigenous communities were in essence the same. However, from 1813 the colonial government implemented legislation in the Cape Colony that created big disparities with regard to rights in land between them. In this contribution, it is argued that colonial dispossession of land from pastoral indigenous communities should be rectifi ed by adopting legislation in terms of section 25(8) of the Constitution that will enable the descendants of these communities to claim restoration of their ancestral land.
Land and property rights in colonial contexts: An introduction
Portuguese Journal of Social Science, 2017
This is the introduction to a dossier on “Institutional encounters: European property rights in colonial contexts”, guest-edited by J.V. Serrão and published in the ‘Portuguese Journal of Social Science’ (June 2017, pp. 135-193). Contributions cover a variety of situations – three European empires (Dutch, British and Portuguese), three time periods (eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century) and several locations in Asia and Africa (both East and West).
Success and Failure of European Settler Farming in Colonial Africa
African Economic History Network Working Paper Series, 2014
This paper ties into a new literature that aims to quantify the long-term economic effects of historical European settlement, arguing for the need to properly address the role of indigenous agency in path-dependent settlement processes. We conduct three comparative case studies in West, East and Southern Africa, showing that the successes of European settler farming were often of a temporary nature and that they critically depended on colonial government policies arranging access to local land and labour resources. Further, we argue that these policies were shaped by the clashing interests of African smallholders and European planters, in which colonial governments did not necessarily abide to settler demands, as is often assumed.