'The Importation of Slaves and 'Prize Negroes' at the Cape, 1797-1818', unpublished MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1997 (supervisor, Professor Nigel Anthony Worden) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Indian Ocean slaves in Cape Town, 1695-1807
Journal of Southern African Studies, 2016
Cape Town during the eighteenth century was an integral part of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) trading empire in the Indian Ocean, acting as a refreshment post, refitting harbour and market town for the rural hinterland. In the absence of a pliable indigenous population the mainstay of its labour force was slavery. Historians have long recognized the diverse regions of the Indian Ocean world from which slaves were obtained, but precise enumeration of the town’s enslaved population has been hampered by sources that combine the urban population with the rural hinterland. This paper uses new data obtained from household inventories to show how the main sources of Cape Town’s slave population shifted from South Asia in the early parts of the century, to Southeast Asia and then to the Southwest Indian Ocean and especially eastern Africa by the time of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. The paper then argues that both the Indian and the African roots of Cape Town’s slave heritage have been obscured by the strong emphasis in popular perception and memory on ‘Malay’ slaves from Southeast Asia and analyses the political dynamics behind such a distortion.
Slaves and Free Blacks in VOC Cape Town, 1652–1795
2010
During the past three decades, historians of the Cape Colony during the period of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) rule have transformed our view of the role of slavery. Slavery has moved from an issue of marginal importance to one which is now considered central to the establishment and growth of a colonial society in South Africa. Most of this work, however, focused on the agrarian areas of the colony, and there has, until recently, been relatively little attempt to plumb the uniqueness of the experience of slaves and free blacks in VOC Cape Town. This topic deserves interest because of the cosmopolitan nature of the urban environment and its links with the wider world of the Indian Ocean. This article is a synthesis of the most important recent research on the experience of slaves and free blacks in Cape Town. It shows that although there is general agreement about the origins and development of slavery, its demographic nature and its economic significance, Cape historians have yet to fully utilise the available sources to trace the cultural and social history of urban slavery. This article indicates some of the areas – such as family history, the role of religion, material culture and the creation of meaning – which are in need of research, and suggests some of the sources and approaches which could be utilised.
University Press, 2014, xviii * 378 pp., $90 (hardback), ISBN g7}-o-82t4-2106-1, s_q-95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-82 t4-2107-g The recent discovery of the Portuguese slaver Sao Jose,which sank in 1794 with Mozambican captil-6 offTable Bay' near Cape Town, has brought Indian Ocean slave traffic international attention. This makes Richard Allen's assertions of a 'tyranny of the Atlantic' or Atlantic-cen trism in European Slav,e
When Cape Slavery Ended: Evidence from a New Slave Emancipation Dataset
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2020
AEHN working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. The papers have not been peer reviewed, but published at the discretion of the AEHN committee. The African Economic History Network is funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Sweden
Slavery & Abolition, 2016
This article explores the local and intercontinental networks that underpinned the private trade in slaves and the transportation of the enslaved in the VOC seaborne empire during the eighteenth century. We rely on two sets of complementary VOC records, with their respective shortcomings, to reveal information about those who were involved in this trade as sellers, buyers and traded. Our focus is on the Cape of Good Hope as a node with a high demand for slaves, and Cochin from where slaves were traded and transported to all regions of the empire, including the Cape. It is apparent from these sources that high ranking VOC officials, the Company rank and file, free citizens and Asians under VOC jurisdiction partook in this lucrative trade. Analyses of regions of origin, age, gender, and caste are provided, giving the reader a rare glimpse into the identity of the enslaved. Introduction: labour, coercion and mobility Throughout the Vereenigde Oostindische Company ('Dutch East India Company', VOC) empire, mobility and coercion were key elements in mobilizing labour and maintaining imperial order. 1 With the exception of the Cape of Good Hope, most attention has been devoted to the European workers, employed in wage labour relations in which sailors and soldiers were free to enter, but not free to leave before the end of their contract ranging between three and seven years. 2 Over several decades, a significant body of literature has excavated the work and lives of slaves, free Asians and free blacks at the Cape. 3 For other regions, the scale of such scholarship is more modest. Only recently are historians broadening their scope more systematically to include the thousands of Asians, Europeans and Eurasians working through systems of slavery, corvee and convict labour. 4 Several studies have pointed out the
The Volume and African Origins of the British Slave Trade before 1714
Cahiers d'études africaines, 1995
This paper uses a new data set of 1,633 slaving voyages to produce new estimates of the volume of the English transatlantic slave trade from 1662 to 1714. The new estimates are compared with those of Joseph Inikori (in an earlier essay in this journal), and of other scholars. The paper presents breakdowns by decade and colony of arrival, and offers detailed information on African regions of embarkation. New estimates of voyage mortality are also presented. Résumé Résumé Importance et origine des Africains au sein de la traite britannique des esclaves au XVIIIe siècle: une évaluation comparative.-Cet article utilise un nouvel ensemble de données portant sur 1 633 expéditions négrières afin d'établir de nouvelles estimations de la traite britannique des esclaves entre 1662 et 1714. Ces nouvelles estimations sont comparées à celles qu'a données Joseph Inikori dans un article paru dans les Cahiers d'Études africaines (n° 128, 1992), et à celles d'autres chercheurs. L'auteur fournit des chiffres par décades et par colonies de destination, et offre une information détaillée sur les zones africaines d'embarquement. De nouvelles estimations de la mortalité au cours des voyages sont également présentées.
2019
Few could have foreseen the consequences when the British Parliament, in 1807, passed the Slave Trade Act that sought to abolish slave imports into the British Empire. From population decreases in the British Caribbean to increased prices in the Cape Colony, historical evidence suggests that the effects of the Act were felt far and wide even though commercialization of slaves was still possible within colonial territories. Using newly digitized historical datasets covering more than 40 years in two different districts of the British Cape Colony, this paper measures changes in slave ownership and acquisition patterns from a longitudinal perspective. This approach allows me to tease out the effects of the Act on farmers with different types of agricultural outputs, most notably crop and livestock farming, agricultural types with very different labor demands. The results show that livestock farmers, surprisingly, were more inelastic to the import ban in comparison to crop farmers. These res...
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.