The vast majority of Cape slaves came from Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia. The earliest slaves at the Cape, other than those brought on the Amersfoort andHasselt, were predominantly from Bengal, but after the area became incorporated into the Mughal Empire in , the supply of slaves from the region was cut off. A fairly constant source of slaves also came from what · + Words Essay on Slavery. Slavery is a term that signifies the injustice that is being carried out against humans since the s. Whenever this word comes up, usually people picture rich white people ruling over black people. However, that is not the only case to exist. After a profound study, historians found evidence that suggested the presence of slavery in almost every culture During the period of Dutch colonisation at the Cape, slavery was a common way in which manual labour was produced. The jobs and duties which were given to slaves ranged from simple household jobs to intensive labour around farms and its surrounds
Essay about slavery at the cape
With colonialism, which began in South Africa incame the Slavery and Forced Labour Model. This was the original model of colonialism brought by the Dutch inand subsequently exported from the Western Cape to the Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, slavery at the cape essay.
Many South Africans are the descendents of slaves brought to the Cape Colony from until Slavery at the cape essay 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, slavery at the cape essay. Initially, a colonial contact was a two-way process. However, slavery at the cape essay, Africans were far from helpless victims slavery at the cape essay the initial encounter, slavery at the cape essay.
Colonial contact was not simply a matter slavery at the cape essay Europeans imposing themselves upon African societies. For their part, African rulers saw many benefits to be had from maintaining relations with Europeans, slavery at the cape essay, 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 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.
Jan van Riebeeck, slavery at the cape essay, who founded the first colony at Cape Town inwas 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. An image of Jan Van Riebeeck and the local San people, slavery at the cape essay. Source: cybercapetown. Even with slavery, the Dutch did not have sufficient labour power to provide for their ships. Insome Company officials were released from their slavery at the cape essay and were allocated land along the Liesbeeck River.
These officials became known as the Free Burghers Farmersand 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, slavery at the cape essay.
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. Ina year after the first free burghers had been granted their plots of land, the first slaves were imported into South Africa, slavery at the cape essay, specifically for agricultural work.
These slaves arrived at the Cape on 28 March on board the Amersfoort and had been captured by the Dutch from a Portuguese slaver en route to Brazil. Of the slaves captured, slavery at the cape essay, only survived the journey to the Cape. Most of these slaves were originally captured by the Portuguese in present-day Angola. On 6 Mayslaves from another group of slaves arrived at the Cape on board the Hassalt, from Ghana.
From onwards, the adult slave population outnumbered the adult colonial population by as much as three to one. 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 Ocean Slave Routes © museums. A slaving station was established in Delagoa Bay present-day Maputo inbut was abandoned in Between and more and more slaves were bought from Madagascar.
Inthe Cape Colony became a British colony, before it was returned to the Dutch in 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 andslave numbers increased from 2 to 14 At the time of the final ending of slavery inthe slave population stood at around 38 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 and the ending of the slave trade inabout 60 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 slavery at the cape essay 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. Thus, colonial South Africa was from the very start a society structured along racial lines, in which black people occupied a subordinate position. Slavery at the cape essay 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. Slave owners were allowed to use harsh punishment like whipping, slavery at the cape essay, 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. Slavery at the cape essay 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 slavery at the cape essay 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 slavery at the cape essay years later.
The story of Reijnier is based on the records of a criminal trial.
Cape Slavery - The Origins of the Cape Minstrels
, time: 3:43The Early Cape Slave Trade | South African History Online
The vast majority of Cape slaves came from Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia. The earliest slaves at the Cape, other than those brought on the Amersfoort andHasselt, were predominantly from Bengal, but after the area became incorporated into the Mughal Empire in , the supply of slaves from the region was cut off. A fairly constant source of slaves also came from what · + Words Essay on Slavery. Slavery is a term that signifies the injustice that is being carried out against humans since the s. Whenever this word comes up, usually people picture rich white people ruling over black people. However, that is not the only case to exist. After a profound study, historians found evidence that suggested the presence of slavery in almost every culture The first slaves that ever arrived in the Cape were from Angola by sea. The slaves were first introduced around Later slaves arrived from different parts of the world when a higher demand for them needed to be met. The slaves that arrived were men, women and
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