HISTORY OF SLAVERY AND EARLY COLONISATION IN SOUTH
AFRICA
With colonialism, which
began in South Africa in 1652, came the Slavery and Forced Labour Model.
This was the original model of colonialism brought by the Dutch in 1652, and
subsequently exported from the Western Cape to the Afrikaner Republics of the
Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. Many South Africans are
the descendents of slaves brought to the Cape Colony from 1653 until 1822.
The changes wrought on
African societies by the imposition of European colonial rule occurred in quick
succession. In fact, it was the speed with which change occurred that set the
colonial era apart from earlier periods in South Africa. Of course, not all
societies were equally transformed. Some resisted the forces of colonial
intrusion, slavery and forced labour for extended periods. Others, however,
such as the Khoikhoi communities of the south-western Cape, disintegrated
within a matter of decades.
Initially, a colonial
contact was a two-way process. However, Africans were far from helpless victims
in the initial encounter. Colonial contact was not simply a matter of Europeans
imposing themselves upon African societies. For their part, African rulers saw
many benefits to be had from maintaining relations with Europeans, and for a
considerable period of time they engaged with Europeans voluntarily and on
their own terms.
Most importantly, trade
with Europeans gave African rulers access to a crucial aspect of European
technology, namely firearms. More than anything else, those who had ownership
and control over firearms were able to gather around themselves larger and larger
groups of people. In short, the ownership of firearms turned into a status
symbol and a means to gain political power.
Sadly, the article of trade
in which Europeans showed the greatest interest, and which Africans were
prepared to sacrifice, were slaves. The Atlantic slave trade stands at the
centre of a long history of European contact with Africa. This was the era of
the African Diaspora, an all embracing term historians have used to describe
the consequences of the slave trade. Estimates of the number of slaves
transported from their African homes to European colonial possession in the
Americas range from 9 to 15 million people. Although a great deal of violence
accompanied the trade in slaves, the sheer scale of operations involved a high
degree of organisation, on the part of both Europeans and Africans. In other
words, the Atlantic slave trade could not have taken place without the
cooperation, or complicity, of many Africans.
As the number of
transported slaves increased, African societies could not avoid transformation,
and 400 years of slave trading took their toll. Of course, not all African
societies were equally affected, but countries such as Angola and Senegal
suffered heavily.
The most important
consequences of the Atlantic slave trade were demographic, economic, and
political. There can be no doubt that the Atlantic slave trade greatly retarded
African demographic development, a fact that was to have lasting consequences
for the history of the continent. At best, African populations remained
stagnant. The export of the most economically active men and women led to the
disintegration of entire societies. The trade in slaves also led to new
political formations. In some cases, as people sought protection from the
violence and warfare that went with the slave trade, large centralised states
came into being.
Slavery
at the Cape
Jan van Riebeeck, who
founded the first colony at Cape Town in 1652, was an official of the Dutch
East India Company. The Dutch marked their permanence by building a five-pointed
stone castle on the shores of the bay, a structure that continues to dominate
the city centre of Cape Town. From within the walls of the Castle, the VOC
administered and governed the expanding colony.
At first, the Dutch were
primarily concerned with supplying their ships with fresh produce as they
rounded the Cape en route to the spice-producing islands of the Indonesian
archipelago. This is because the Dutch had their most important colonial
interests in Indonesia, which included the growing of crops and spices that
could not be produced in Europe. In Indonesia, the Dutch enslaved entire
populations, ruling them by force and coercing them to produce crops. In the
Cape, Van Riebeeck first attempted to get cattle and labour through
negotiation, but as soon as these negotiations broke down slavery was
implemented.
Even with slavery, the
Dutch did not have sufficient labour power to provide for their ships. In 1657,
some Company officials were released from their contracts and were allocated
land along the Liesbeeck River. These officials became known as the Free
Burghers (Farmers), and formed the nucleus of the white South African
population that came to be known as Boers or Afrikaners.
It soon became apparent
that if the free burghers were to be successful as agricultural producers, they
would need access to substantial labour. The indigenous peoples with whom the
Dutch first came into contact, the Khoikhoi, had been settled in the region for
at least a thousand years before the Dutch arrived, and were an unwilling
labour force. This is because the Khoikhoi were a pastoral people, and as long
as they had their lands, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, they could not be
pressed into service for the Dutch settlers. The settlers also practiced a form
of settled agriculture that came into direct conflict with the pastoral economy
of the Khoikhoi, and involved regular and structured seasonal migration.
Therefore, as the Dutch settlement
expanded, independent Khoikhoi communities were placed under unbearable
pressure. Within 50 years of the establishment of the Dutch settlement, the
indigenous communities near Table Bay, despite heroic struggles on their part,
had been dispossessed of their lands and their independent means of existence
had come to an end.
Individual Khoikhoi men and
women became incorporated into colonial society as low-status servants. Beyond
the mountains of Table Valley, communities of Khoisan (as the Khoikhoi and the
indigenous hunter-gatherer San are collectively called) survived until the end
of the eighteenth century, but there can be little doubt that for the
indigenous populations of the Cape the arrival of the Dutch settlers proved to
be a major turning point.
The Dutch settlers were
therefore forced to look elsewhere for their labour needs. In 1658, a year
after the first free burghers had been granted their plots of land, the first
slaves were imported into South Africa, specifically for agricultural work.
These slaves arrived at the Cape on 28 March 1658 on board the Amersfoort and
had been captured by the Dutch from a Portuguese slaver en route to Brazil. Of
the 250 slaves captured, only 170 survived the journey to the Cape. Most of
these slaves were originally captured by the Portuguese in present-day Angola.
On 6 May 1658, 228 slaves from another group of slaves arrived at the Cape on
board the Hassalt, from Ghana. From 1710 onwards, the adult slave population
outnumbered the adult colonial population by as much as three to one.
Another source of slaves
was the VOC’s return fleets from Batavia and other places in the east which
sailed around the Cape on their way to Europe. VOC officials could not take
their slaves with them when they returned home, as slavery was illegal in the
Netherlands. Therefore, many of these officials sold their slaves at the Cape
because they could get a better price for their slaves there than in the East
Indies. Foreign ships on their way to the Americas from Madagascar also sold
slaves at the Cape.
The Indian subcontinent was
the main source of slaves during the early part of the 18th century, and
approximately 80% of slaves came from India during this period. A slaving station
was established in Delagoa Bay (present-day Maputo) in 1721, but was abandoned
in 1731. Between 1731 and 1765 more and more slaves were bought from
Madagascar.
In 1795, the Cape Colony
became a British colony, before it was returned to the Dutch in 1802. During
this first period of British rule, South-East Africa became the main source of
slaves. This trend continued with the return of the Dutch who continued to buy
slaves from slave traders operating in present-day Mozambique.
When in control of the Cape,
the VOC sent slavers to Mozambique and Madagascar. The main purpose of these
expeditions was to trade slaves. In those days, travelling by ship was very
uncomfortable and unhygienic for ordinary people, but especially for slaves who
had to be kept confined.
Between 1720 and 1790,
slave numbers increased from 2 500 to 14 500. At the time of the final ending
of slavery in 1838, the slave population stood at around 38 000. However,
unlike the European population, which doubled in number with each generation
through natural increase, the harsh living conditions of the Cape's slave
population meant that their numbers could only be sustained through continued
importation. Between 1652 and the ending of the slave trade in 1807, about 60
000 slaves were imported into the Colony.
Thus the Cape became not
just a society in which some people were slaves, but a fully-fledged slave
society. In slave societies, the institution of slavery touched all aspects of
life, as slavery was central to the social, economic and legal institutions. As
the boundaries of the Cape Colony expanded beyond the immediate vicinity of
Table Bay, slaves were put to work on the wine and wheat farms of the
south-western Cape. Quite simply, the colonial economy could not function
without the use of slave labour, and therefore slave-ownership was widespread.
Although most of the European settlers of the south-western Cape owned fewer
than ten slaves, almost all of them owned at least some slaves.
The most important social
feature of slave societies is that they were polarised between people who were
slaves and those who were not. Slaves were also defined by their race, and
although the VOC did not institute a codified form of racial classification,
the fact is that slaves were black and slave owners were white. There were a
few slaves who had been freed, who were called “free blacks”. These “free blacks” had managed to acquire
slaves of their own, but these slave owners were a tiny minority of the
slave-owning population. Thus, colonial South Africa was from the very start a
society structured along racial lines, in which black people occupied a
subordinate position.
Slavery was fully supported
by the Roman-Dutch legal system that the VOC brought to the Cape. In terms of
Roman-Dutch law, slaves were defined, first and foremost, as property. This
form of slavery, known as chattel slavery, meant that one human being was the
legal belonging of another human being. Slaves could be bought and sold,
bequeathed or used as security for loans. Since slaves were kept in a state of
slavery against their will, the slave owners and the VOC needed a system of
laws to ensure that slaves were kept in their subordinate position.
Therefore, slaves in the
Cape were strictly controlled, and according to law, slaves could be severely
punished for acts such as running away or failing to obey their owners’ orders.
Slave owners were allowed to use harsh punishment like
whipping, withholding food, and making slaves work more hours. Slaves who tried
to run away were put in chains to prevent them from running away again, because
many slaves from West and East Africa believed that if they ran away they could
find their way back home. Slaves could even be put to death for attacking their
owners.
The food given to the
slaves was terrible. It was only after the slave trade in Cape Town was banned
that slave owners began to treat their slaves better. Better treatment of
slaves was due to the fact that slaves were no longer easily available and
therefore more expensive. Slaves were also treated better because slave owners
did not want them to run away or die while they were still young. This was in
contrast to the treatment of slaves before banning, as then it was cheaper for
slave owners to buy new slaves instead of providing good care for them.
How
could slaves limit the power of slavery?
The single largest
limitation that the slave owners faced was that they were compelled to
acknowledge that their slaves were not merely property, but also human beings
with human values, desires and emotions. On farms and households in the Cape,
slaves and slave owners lived very near each other and came into daily contact.
The culture that grew out
of these regular interactions was one of domination, but it was also one that
was based on acknowledging the humanity of the other party. From the very first
day when a slave was acquired by a settler and given a new name, slaves and
owners became involved in a constant struggle to see how much each could impose
their will on the other.
We see this clearly in the
records of the trial of the slave, Reijnier, a runaway who was caught and tried
22 years later. The story of Reijnier is based on the records of a criminal
trial. We can tell much about the slave society of the Cape by examining the
legal records that have been left behind by the VOC and are now held by the
Cape Archives in Cape Town.
In the first few decades of
the eighteenth century, Reijnier lived in the district of Drakenstein in the
south-western Cape. Reijnier, who had come from Madagascar, was the property of
the free burgher, Matthijs Krugel. On Krugel's farm, Simonsvalleij, Reijnier
had built a long-standing relationship with Manika, a female slave who had been
imported from India. They had a number of children together, including a
daughter named Sabina.
It is clear that Manika and
Reijnier's situation was unusual in the context of the Cape, as few slaves were
able to build and sustain such longstanding relationships. Since the colonists
preferred to import male rather than female slaves, the slave population
suffered from great sexual imbalance. Until the end of the eighteenth century
male slaves outnumbered female slaves by as much as four to one, although this
ratio could vary significantly from district to district.
The children born to Manika
were born into slavery, for slave women passed this status onto their children.
Manika's children would have been among only a small proportion of slaves who
were born at the Cape in the course of the eighteenth century, as mentioned
earlier, the slave population grew as a result of continued importation.
We can only speculate as to
the nature of the relationship that existed between Reijnier and Manika and the
kind of life they would have been able to lead. Since they came from such
different places of origin, they would probably have communicated with each
other in a type of pidgin. Their owners would have spoken to them in Dutch, and
out of this mixture of languages grew Afrikaans, as the slaves contributed
their share to the development of this dialect.
It is clear that Reijnier
and Manika's owners, Krugel and his wife, whom they would have called Mijnheer
and Mevrou, dominated their lives. Their roles as parents were also greatly
inhibited by their status as slaves. For some reason, Krugel's wife had taken
to regularly beating Reijnier and Manika's daughter, Sabina. Possibly this was
a result of sexual jealousy, or perhaps Sabina did not perform her duties to
the satisfaction of Mevrou Krugel. As parents, Reijnier and Manika had little
control over the maltreatment that Sabina suffered and which they were forced
to witness. It is a sad testimony to his lack of power that Reijnier, in an
attempt to put an end to the abuse of his daughter, was prepared to ask Krugel
to sell Sabina and possibly be separated from her for life.
However, to say that
Reijnier lacked power is not to say that he was absolutely powerless. There
were clear limits to the level of domination that slave owners could exercise
over their slaves. On one occasion, on a Saturday in a year around 1737, Mevrou
Krugel had gone too far in her maltreatment of Sabina. She had clearly
overstepped the boundaries that maintained the delicate balance of power
between masters and slaves. On this occasion Krugel's wife stripped Sabina
naked, tied her to a post and beat her mercilessly with a sjambok. Afterwards,
to accentuate the pain, she rubbed salt into the wounds, a tactic commonly
employed by Cape slave owners.
The event obviously scarred
Manika deeply, as she was able to tell the story clearly when she appeared
before the law courts 22 years later. When Reijnier returned to the homestead
after having worked in the fields he did not hesitate to vent his anger at the
maltreatment of his daughter. His wife, Manika, was the unfortunate victim of
his wrath. These were human actions and emotions, not the actions of people who
could be defined simply as property.
By now, Krugel and his wife
had lost control over the slaves on Simonsvalleij. In an attempt to restore his
authority, Krugel beat all the slaves on the farm. This was to no avail, for,
as Manika testified, Reijnier turned on his master and assaulted him, although
she did not witness the assault herself. As a consequence, Reijnier had to flee
the farm.
The mountains and valleys
of the south-western Cape provided many hiding places for slaves who had
deserted their owners. For more than two decades Reijnier lived in the
mountains around the Berg River as a droster, as runaway slaves were called.
For all this time Krugel had lost the labour of his slave, and therefore
Reijnier had turned out to be a poor investment. It seemed that Krugel and his
wife could not control their slaves, and resorted to physical violence as a
means to maintain authority over their labour force, as many slave owners did.
However, if such violence was allowed to spiral out of control, it could be
counterproductive. Through his actions, Reijnier had shown the limitations of
the use of slave labour in a colonial society.
The
Story of Dina
Another anecdote of slave
life concerns a slave woman by the name of Dina, who was owned by Roelof Petrus
Johannes Campher, a cattle farmer in the district of George, Cape Colony. In
October 1837, Dina was working in her master’s cattle kraal, loading cattle
dung onto the wagon. The cattle dung would be taken to the farm garden to be
used as a fertiliser. When the wagon was full, she stopped loading the wagon
and instead piled up the dung for the next load.
Her master asked her why
she was doing this but he was not pleased with her explanation. Roelof then
beat her twice with an ox strap. Dina tried to run to Mrs Campher to ask her to
stop Roelof from beating her. However, Roelof removed her clothes from the
back, tied her to a ladder and continued to beat her with an ox strap. He gave
her twenty-one lashes, and before beating her, Roelof said to Dina that he did
not care about the law. After the beating Dina was forced to go back to work.
The story of Dina shows
that severe beatings like these were very common even though the laws were
written to avoid them. The story of Dina can be told because she reported it to
the council of justice. Cases like these occurred regularly, but were not
reported, as many slaves were still used to being whipped by their masters.
Dina did not complain that she was being beaten. Instead, she complained that
she was beaten without doing anything wrong. This shows that the reforms were
not fully implemented in the Cape Colony.
What
was the impact of runaway slaves on the Cape slave society?
Almost from the start,
slaves began to runaway, because of ill treatment, overwork and the natural
desire to live as a free person.
Reijnier was one of many
slave runaways. He never ventured too far from the settler farms, and it is
probably this that led to his eventual capture. Manika may not have been
entirely truthful when she testified that she had not seen him in all the years
after he had fled. Runaway slaves were frequently supplied with foodstuffs from
surrounding farms, since they often lacked the knowledge that would allow them
to feed themselves from the natural environment.
Individual runaways were
thus very vulnerable. It made sense for them to join bands and find strength in
numbers. Thus there existed throughout the eighteenth century, and until the
ending of slavery, a community of runaway slaves in the caves of the Hottentots
Holland Mountains overlooking False Bay. This was the maroon community of
Hangklip.
This community survived as
long as it did because of the protected physical environment. The series of
caves in which the runaways lived had only two entrances. On the one side, they
were protected by the ocean, which made entry difficult and very dangerous. The
other entrance, from the mountain, could be easily defended.
The maroon community at
Hangklip was never able to cut itself off from the rest of colonial society and
for this reason they were vulnerable. If they attacked wagons crossing the
Hottentots Holland Mountains, they exposed themselves to the possibility of
recapture. Although they could to some extent live off fish caught from the
ocean, mostly they were dependent for their survival on goods obtained from
slaves who lived on surrounding farms, and from other runaways who lived as far
away as Table Mountain across the Cape Flats.
The Hangklip maroons were
not as successful as the maroon communities of slaves that existed in Brazil,
for example, where colonial authorities were compelled to recognise their
independence. However, the fact remains that the Dutch authorities were never
able to wipe out the community, and the Hangklip maroons continued to live on
the margins of colonial society.
It became clear to the
colonial authorities at the Cape, especially after the British took over
political power from the Dutch, that the use of slave labour had severe
limitations. Two minor rebellions of slaves in 1808 and 1825, in which a number
of white settlers were killed, made the continued use of slave labour even less
appealing. Moreover, by the second decade of the nineteenth century the use of
slave labour was no longer as profitable as it had been in earlier decades.
Thus, when the British government finally ended slavery in 1838, the Cape
ceased to be a slave society. It remained a colonial society, but the ending of
slavery was another significant turning point in the history of South Africa.
Slavery
moves towards South Africa’s interior
It soon became apparent to
the Boers that beyond the Western Cape and Boland regions, the terrain of South
Africa was unsuitable for intensive agriculture but very suitable for cattle
farming. The majority of them lacked the financial means to buy slaves imported
all the way from Indonesia, but since they were already in the process of
dispossessing the indigenous population of their land, it seemed logical to
take both the land and the people by force.
In the wars which they
fought against the Khoi and the San, the Boers frequently followed a policy of
exterminating the mature adults, but capturing the children and raising them on
the farms. These children were taught to speak Dutch and to practice the
Christian religion. This system was hypocritically known as “apprenticeship”, but in fact it was
nothing better than slavery because normal human and family rights were not
respected, and children were bought and sold separately from their parents.
During the period of the
Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the British captured the Cape from the Dutch who
were allied to Napoleon. From 1828 onwards the British introduced a number of
administrative changes, known collectively as “the Revolution in Government”. These changes imposed
British laws and the English language on the reluctant Boers, and limited the
amount of land and labour that could be claimed by an individual.
In response, the Boers set
out on an epic quest (see Great Trek) to establish themselves as a free people
in their own country, where they could govern themselves according to their own
tastes and habits. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish themselves in
what is today KwaZulu-Natal, they settled on the highveld. There they founded
two republics, the Orange Free State (1854) and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek
(ZAR), better known as the Transvaal (1858).
The
Abolition of Slavery at the Cape
The British occupied the
Cape again in 1806, and in 1814 the Cape officially became a British colony.
The growing influence of the concept of human rights at the beginning of the
19th century, and the effects of a changing economic system in Western Europe
during the same period both contributed to the questioning of the practice of
slavery.
Therefore from 1806, the
British introduced laws (Amelioration laws) aimed at improving the welfare of
slaves in the Cape. The slave guardian appointed by the British government was
responsible for enforcing these laws. As a result, the lives of some slaves
improved after 1807. Even though there were reforms and laws to protect slaves,
some masters continued to ill-treat their slaves by administering cruel
punishment and ignoring these reform laws. Slaves were expected to report any
ill treatment to the slave protector appointed by the colonial government.
Amelioration
laws
Slaves were allowed to make
legal marriages after 1824. Families were allowed to
live together: wives and husbands could not be separated and their children
could not be sold before a certain age. Slaves were now taught
Christianity, and the baptism of slaves was encouraged. Sunday became a day of
rest. Slaves had to receive a
reasonable amount of food, shelter and clothing. The number of hours the slaves
could be made to work was limited. The punishment of slaves
was more strictly controlled.
Slaves were granted
property rights. Slaves who worked in their free time could save what they
earned, and buy freedom for themselves and their families - even against the
wishes of the owner.
Some slaves in Cape Town
were given a basic education. The government appointed
slave guardians to ensure that these laws were obeyed. There is evidence that
the slaves knew about their rights and made use of them. Some brought
complaints against their owners in the courts or to the Guardian of Slaves.
Both slave uprisings happened during this period, and in both cases the slaves
demanded immediate freedom.
The end of slavery at the
Cape was not due to internal pressure, but from a decision from outside. In
1807 the British government banned the slave trade to all her colonies,
including the Cape. This meant that no more slaves (from any destination) could
be sent to work in the Cape. However, those who were already in the Cape
continued to work as slaves until 1834 when all slaves in the British Empire
were to be set free (emancipated). Many of the slaves chose to remain on with
their owners while some started a new life in and around Cape Town working as
tradesmen. Gradually these people became absorbed into the Cape community.
Does
slavery still exist today?
Today, the term slavery is
used to indicate a wide range of human rights abuses and exploitative labour
practices. The United Nations defines contemporary slavery as consisting of:...a
variety of human rights violations. In addition to traditional slavery and the
slave trade, these abuses include the sale of children, child prostitution,
child pornography, the exploitation of child labour, the sexual mutilation of
female children, the use of children in armed conflicts, debt bondage, the
traffic in persons and in the sale of human organs, the exploitation of
prostitution, and certain practices under apartheid and colonial regimes.
The term “slavery” therefore has a much
broader use than chattel slavery. As recently as May 2002, the Anti-Slavery
Society reported that “Millions of children are in slavery. Girls as young as
six work as maids in the Philippines, children break rocks in Ghana’s quarries,
young boys are abducted from their homes in South Asia and forced to be camel
jockeys in the United Arab Emirates and girls are forced into prostitution in
the United Kingdom”.
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