16 March - A smallpoxepidemic broke out at the Cape Colony. A smallpox outbreak kills 25% of the White Cape population and devastates the Cape Khoikhoi. The Khoikhoi, due to a lack of immunity, have their population nearly wiped.[2][3][4] 90% of the Khoikhoi population ends up being killed in the smallpox epidemic.[5][6][7]
Cape slaves flee but are captured and punished. Thomas van Bengalen is hanged, and the leader Tromp van Madagascar is sentenced to impalement but commits suicide.[8] Other Cape captives have their Achilles tendons severed or feet broken on the wheel.
A Cape labour shortage follows, land becomes "ownerless" and is taken by colonial cattle farmers.[9][10][11]
↑ Ahjum, S., ‘The Law of the (White) Father: Psychoanalysis, “Paternalism”, and the Historiography of Cape Slave Women’, in G. Campbell, S. Miers and J. C. Miller (eds.), Women and Slavery, Volume 1: Africa, the Indian Ocean World, and the Medieval North Atlantic (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2007), 83–108.
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