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Slavery in South Africa existed from 1653 in the Dutch Cape Colony until the abolition of slavery in the British Cape Colony on 1 January 1834. This followed the British banning the trade of slaves between colonies in 1807, with their emancipation by 1834. Beyond legal abolition, slavery continued in the Transvaal though a system of inboekstelsel. [1]
In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck set up a refreshment station for ships bound to the Dutch East Indies in what is now Cape Town. [2] After failing to obtain cattle and local people willing to work by negotiating with them, Van Riebeeck introduced slavery in the Cape Colony. [3] The first slave, Abraham van Batavia, arrived in 1653 ("van Batavia" meaning "from Batavia", the name of Jakarta during the Dutch colonial period), and shortly afterward, a slaving voyage was undertaken from the Cape to Mauritius and Madagascar. [2]
In April 1657, there were ten slaves in the settlement, from a population of 144. That increased greatly the next year, when the Dutch captured a Portuguese slaver with 500 Angolan slaves, and 250 were taken to the Cape. [4] Two months later, a further 228 slaves arrived from Guinea. [4] The process was enhanced when settler colonialism commenced when former Dutch East India Company officials were granted land lots. The agricultural settlements of the Boers economically dislocated the pastoral Khoekhoe in Table Bay, who were forced to serve as servants due to their loss of grazing land. The Dutch colonists additionally imported slaves from Portuguese Mozambique, Madagascar, Dutch Ceylon and Dutch India. Slaves in the Dutch colonies were given poor food, subject to poor living conditions, and punished with whipping for fleeing or disobeying orders. [3]
Threats to Dutch control of the Cape Colony had emerged in the 18th century, when the Dutch East India Company was weakened during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War. During the 1780s, troops of the French Royal Army were stationed in the Cape to prevent invasion by Great Britain. The Cape was invaded by the British in 1795 during the War of the First Coalition, and occupied until 1803. [5]
Britain later formally annexed the Cape and later passed the Slave Trade Act 1807. It was enforced from 1808, ending the external slave trade. Slaves were permitted to be traded only within the colony. [2] At the same time, Parliament passed a series of acts known as the amelioration laws designed to provide better living conditions for slaves. These acts allowed slaves to marry, purchase their own freedom, live with their families, and receive a basic education. The acts also limited punishments and work hours, and encouraged missionaries to convert Africans to Christianity. [3]
The first large wave of British settlers, the 1820 Settlers, were not permitted to own slaves. [6]
In 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act received Royal Assent from King William IV; this paved the way for the abolition of slavery within the British Empire and its colonies. It was reported that there were 38,427 slaves in the Cape of Good Hope in 1833, many fewer than in Jamaica, Barbados or Mauritius, though higher than the reported numbers in other British colonies.[ citation needed ]
On 1 August 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but they were indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was abolished in two stages; the first set of apprenticeships came to an end on 1 August 1838, while the final apprenticeships were scheduled to cease on 1 August 1840, six years after the official emancipation.[ citation needed ]
Boers are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled Dutch Cape Colony, but the United Kingdom incorporated it into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from Trekboer then later "boer", which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world.
The Cape Colony, also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, then became the Cape Province, which existed even after 1961, when South Africa had become a republic, albeit, temporarily outside the Commonwealth of Nations (1961–94).
Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck was a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company.
The emancipation of the British West Indies refers to the abolition of slavery in Britain's colonies in the West Indies during the 1830s. The British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, which emancipated all slaves in the British West Indies. After emancipation, a system of apprenticeship was established, where emancipated slaves were required by the various colonial assemblies to continue working for their former masters for a period of four to six years in exchange for provisions. The system of apprenticeship was abolished by the various colonial assemblies in 1838, after pressure from the British public, completing the process of emancipation. These were the steps taken by British West Indian planters to solve the labour problems created by the emancipation of the enslaved Africans in 1838.
Emancipation Day is observed in many former European colonies in the Caribbean and areas of the United States on various dates to commemorate the emancipation of slaves of African descent.
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. Passed by Earl Grey's reforming administration, it expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of "the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company", Ceylon, and Saint Helena. The Act came into force on 1 August 1834, and was repealed in 1998 as a part of wider rationalisation of English statute law; however, later anti-slavery legislation remains in force.
Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape on 6 April 1652, setting up a supply station and fortifications for the Dutch East India Company. The decade saw the beginning of European settlement, marked by the introduction of crops from Europe and the New World and culminating in war with the Khoikhoi in 1659.
Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.
Area known today as Cape Town has no written history before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. The German anthropologist Theophilus Hahn recorded that the original name of the area was '||Hui !Gais' – a toponym in the indigenous Khoi language meaning "where clouds gather."
The Slave Compensation Act 1837 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, signed into law on 23 December 1837.
In common with most Caribbean countries, slavery in the British Virgin Islands forms a major part of the history of the Territory. One commentator has gone so far as to say: "One of the most important aspects of the History of the British Virgin Islands is slavery."
The Early History of slavery in the Indian subcontinent is contested because it depends on the translations of terms such as dasa and dasyu. Greek writer Megasthenes, in his 4th century BCE work Indika or Indica, states that slavery was banned within the Maurya Empire, while the multilingual, mid 3rd Century BCE, Edicts of Ashoka independently identify obligations to slaves and hired workers, within the same Empire.
Slavery in Seychelles existed until its final abolition in 1835. Slaves were brought to the Seychelles when the island was first populated by French planters and their slaves from Mauritius. The British banned the slave trade on the island when it became British territory in 1815, and slavery itself was abolished twenty years later.
Nigel Worden is a British/South African historian who has researched the history of Cape slavery and the social and cultural history of early colonial Cape Town. He is Emeritus Professor of History and retired from the Historical Studies department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 2016. He graduated from Jesus College Cambridge and was subsequently Research Fellow at Clare Hall, University of Cambridge and Lecturer in Commonwealth History at the University of Edinburgh. He holds MA and PhD degrees in History from the University of Cambridge and BA degrees in Art History and Linguistics from the University of South Africa.
The Dutch Cape Colony was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) colony in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original colony and the successive states that the colony was incorporated into occupied much of modern South Africa. Between 1652 and 1691, it was a Commandment, and between 1691 and 1795, a Governorate of the VOC. Jan van Riebeeck established the colony as a re-supply and layover port for vessels of the VOC trading with Asia. The Cape came under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and from 1803 to 1806 was ruled by the Batavian Republic. Much to the dismay of the shareholders of the VOC, who focused primarily on making profits from the Asian trade, the colony rapidly expanded into a settler colony in the years after its founding.
De Zuid-Afrikaan was a nineteenth-century Dutch language newspaper based in Cape Town that circulated throughout the Cape Colony, published between 1830 and 1930.
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom was the movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries to end the practice of slavery, whether formal or informal, in the United Kingdom, the British Empire and the world, including ending the Atlantic slave trade. It was part of a wider abolitionism movement in Western Europe and the Americas.
The Hottentot Proclamation, also known as the Hottentot Code, the Caledon Proclamation, or the Caledon Code, was a decree issued by governor of the Cape Colony the Earl of Caledon on 1 November 1809 to legalise the enslavement of Khoikhoi, the decree was a first in a series of colonial laws designed to curtail the rights of First people living in the Cape Colony.
The history of slavery in the Netherlands dates back to the period of classical antiquity. During the early modern period, Dutch slave traders bought and sold over 1.6 million enslaved people. The Netherlands abolished Dutch involvement the Atlantic slave trade in 1814 under diplomatic pressure from the United Kingdom, but slavery would continue to exist in the Dutch colonial empire until 1863.
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.
