The document discusses the social and labor systems that existed in Cape Town, South Africa between the 17th and 19th centuries. It describes the different classes of people - slaves, who could be bought and sold; serfs, who were bonded for 25 years; burghers, or citizens; and knechts, contracted wage laborers. It analyzes how slavery and coerced labor became established through the need for cheap labor on farms and households. It discusses the decline of free wage labor and the legal structures that aimed to continue tying freed slaves and serfs to their former masters.

2.  Professor of African studies
 Head of the African Studies
Library at the University of
Cape Town
 Focus on slavery, Islam and
HIV/AIDS
 The book that the article is
from, was the runner-up for
the prestigious BJ Venter
national book award in 1997

4.  SLAVES – imported persons or those born into
slavery who could be legally sold on their own
 SERFS – locally born native people who were
bonded to their owners for 25 years
 BURGHERS – a citizen of the town usually of
middle-class
 KNECHTS – a contracted wage labourer

5.  Free land and a universally free population
would unlikely coexist
 3 elements of the system:
◦ Free land
◦ Free peasants
◦ Nonworking land owners

6.  Europeans introduced guns and horses
which likely started the development of
slavery
 Effective moral, religious or legal
sanctions would have been needed to
prevent slavery or coerced labour
forms

7.  Formal emancipation (1838)
 Masters and servants ordinance (1841)
◦ Slavery had a recursive effect
◦ Cape legislation was designed to tie down ex-
slaves to their masters especially on the farms
◦ Contracts were forced and could not be broken
whether written or oral
◦ Even after the initial causes of slavery
gone, slavery was never abolished

8.  In 19th C, free land became scarce resulting in
individuals working for others to pay rent
◦ For example, the Khoi people were not forbidden to
take land rather they were told that they lost their land
in war (p. 3)
 In order to reserve land for the white settlement, the
population of cape town was persistently denied the right
to own land by law and military
◦ This resulted in the culmination of the natives land act
of 1913

9.  Do you think slavery still exists? If so, what
are some conditions that lead people to
engage in such labour (slavery, bondage)?

10.  In 1717 slavery was an accomplished fact:
◦ 8589 enslaved or born into slavery
◦ 2759 slaves imported into the Lodge
◦ 582 slaves born in lodge
◦ 3997 slaves imported
◦ 1251 slaves born in households

11.  Slavery was imposed on South Africa
◦ No one forced Cape households to buy slaves,
indeed the commission denied free burghers
permission to send slave ships to the east coast of
Africa
 1717 – the colony was condemned to slave labour
 In 1657, the Dutch East India Company released its
employees to become free burghers
◦ In order for free burghers to succeed in their
household, they needed slave labour

12.  The economy was in the hand of the individual
householders and the local officials
 Owners were ashamed of using their hands to
do work so they employed slaves
 Cape tenure system (p. 260) – separated those
who might become an owner from each other so
they do not form an union that would eventually
self govern

13.  In 17th C, many company employees
completed their contracts and left the
employment of the company to start farming
◦ They were given the same faculties as free
immigrants, such as:
 Grant of land
 Other assistance upon credit

14.  Household:
◦ Male youths (13 to 17) provided temporary unpaid
labour for their parents farm enterprises
◦ By 18, they left family homes in search of labour for
their own farms
◦ The shortage of labour was evident in the household
first as male child would leave the home
◦ At 16 yrs, male child reaches maturity to become the
head of household

15.  There are two types of knechts:
◦ Company knecht: subcontracted wage
labour “on loan” from the company
◦ Free knecht: one who worked without a
contract

16. ◦ Knechts and wage labourers were seen similar
to the indentured servants who worked on
contract for a fixed period of time (usually 3 to
7 years) in exchange for transportation, food,
clothing, housing and other necessities
◦ At cape, the knechts signed a renewable one-
year contract with the head of household and
received a cash wage of between 7 to 9
guilders a month (approximately $5.69 CAD)

17. ◦ They were mostly free blacks, and enjoyed
their freedom in the sense that they had no
institution or contract to follow, they did not
own land or property and were obviously not
employed by the company
◦ For example, in 1666 they were paid twice as
much and in 1692 they were declared the
largest labour pool in the cape population

18.  The hiring of a slave was always cheaper than
hiring a knecht because the labour of slaves was
cheap compared to the knechts who wanted a
higher wage
 According to Samuel Hudson (1806), in the 18th
century the hiring of slaves became popular as
slave owners inherited slaves and lived off the
proceeds of their hired out slaves

19.  “Nothing is more common than to see at all hours
of the day, numbers of young men whose parents
derive the whole income from the wages of two or
three salves, dressed in the first style and loitering
away their time. (265)”
 Do you think this still exists today? If so, can you
provide some examples.

20. ◦ A generation later, free knechts were ordered
to leave both the manual labour force as well
as the overseeing pool and become poor
whites
◦ By 1731, there was an emerging poor white
population, however they have not yet lost all
their skills, rather they still had to offer their
literacy skills to the colony

21.  “no master will listen with patience to complaints
(of his slaves) about ill-treatment and blows (at
the hands of the overseer knecht), but would
rebuke (disapprove) the slaves and even
command the knecht in their hearing, to give
them a good thrashing if they refuse to obey
him; but at the same time he would in private
reprimand the knechts for such brutality, and
point out to him that the slaves were human
beings and that he had to pay a high price for
them (266)”.

22.  The European born entered the teaching
profession and so burghers (citizens of the town
or village) hired these company knechts (poor
whites) to give their children an education based
on what the knechts remembered from their
youth
 The free knechts on the other hand had nothing
to offer because they were born in the colony

23. ◦ 1658-1687: they were wage labourers and comprised as
much as 50% of the entire free population
◦ 1688-1739: they were mainly overseers, but they dropped
to 5% of the free population
◦ 1740-1795: they served as teachers of the children of the
household, representing less than 1% of the free population
◦ 1795 onwards: they were either teachers or itinerant
buyers for butchers (traveling from places), making up
considerably less than 1% of the population

24.  Freed slaves became the first free class of
renters in south Africa and their masters became
patroons
 In the early 17th century, European free knechts
were known to work for the free blacks for a
monetary wage, however this came to a decline
in the colony of cape

25.  Knechts were highly monitored by company clerks
until they were safely married because they did not
want them to form love bonds with their masters or
be accused of fornication (sexual intercourse with a
person whom they are not married to).
 Marriage was recommended for all knechts because
“every girl without exception prefers as her husband
a man who has been born in Europe to one who is
of colonial birth (Mentzel, 269)

26.  In 1689, The native Khoisan or Xhosa, were seen
as an option to hire, coerce and enslave, however
cape officials claimed it to be impossible to trade
them as slaves because of their outstanding love
and affection towards their children
 After 1731, as the colony of cape looked for cheap
coercible labour, they turned to the native women of
Khoi who were bought into the households of the
colonists without their men because the men did not
want to work the ground

27.  In 1795 Cape authorities were presented with 10 „article
of demand‟ by the district of Swellendam (west of Cape):
◦ Article 5 declared that any Khoi‟s caught to refuse or
resist any commands, would become the property of
the farmer employing them and serve him for life and if
they run away, their masters would be entitled to
pursue them and punish them (272-273)
◦ Article 6 declared that the Khoi‟s shall serve their
masters up to the age of 25 and not enter another‟s
employ without his consent, anyone who ran away
would be warned or taken into custody by the
messenger

28.  Lord Caledon (British governor) wanted to protect the
Khoisan labourers and so revealed clauses to the
employers:
◦ 10. The master shall not be allowed to detain or
prevent from departing, the wife or children of any Khoi
that has been in his service and once the contract
expired of the father or husband and debt had been
paid, they could leave
◦ 11. In the case of a Khoi dying, and his contract
coming to an end, the wife and children are at liberty to
leave

29.  Plagium slaves (person stealing) became
prevalent as well as zombie slaves who were
native people that were enslaved and
subsequently registered under dead slaves
names.
 The cape government allowed for apprenticeship
(one bound by a legal agreement to work for
another)
 In 1833, 1/6 of all 38,257 slaves were in the
eastern cape (6,376 slaves)

30.  What could possibly be the reasons
behind this low reportance of female
infants?

31.  The European settlers, attracted the native
populations into a wide range of coerced
forms of labour by claiming they had
“available” land as well as cheap water and
land resources, as well the possession of
firearms attracted many native population of
cape to work for these European settlers

32.  Slaves were seen as a child, no matter what their age
but referred to as boys and girls
 Their first name used was important because it was
socializing slaves into their statuses of unending
childhood
 The family as a metaphor - Frederich Engels:
◦ Pointed out that the social unit of family included the
slaves belonging to the head of the household
◦ Famulus – means domestic slave
◦ Familia – total number of slaves belonging to one man

33.  Artificial families were formed as a way to promote the
whole idea of a family because the family became an
important institution
 As slaves outnumbered the household family members,
therefore the safety of the family depended on the slaves
(example; some families had 105 members including
masters, servants, slaves)
 Cape slaves and serfs were incorporated into the family
physically and involuntarily regardless of their resistance

34.  When in-house slaves were born they had a
special place within the family, they were
important (prized) and were not sold off to
anyone instead they were kept in the family
 Female slaves were part of the family because
they could breed children
 Slaves were seen as dependent on their master
or mistress, thus bound them to childhood
forever

35.  Clothes were used to provide a distinction
between masters and slave
 They were forced to go barefoot without shoes
or stockings while the owners wore luxurious
footwear
 As a result of being forced to dress a certain
way, by the 19th century they started to create
their own culture with the use symbols such as
turbans and handkerchiefs

36.  If you were a slave, you would never become
free. If you were a slave, you could not become
an adult. If you were free, you could be an adult
(284).
 What do you think about this phrase?

37.  The chapter provides an economic, social and
domestic explanation for the decline of all free
wage labour and the subsequent introduction
and maintenance of both slavery and serfdom
 Slavery and serfdom:
◦ Were instituted and maintained by cape households
◦ Never mandated by the company
◦ Most convenient labour systems at the cape because it
was cheap and more coercible than free wage labour
◦ Both produced offspring that were also property as
both parent slaves and slave children could be passed
on to heirs of the free owners

38.  India: Little Serfs (45:00)
◦ Debt Bondage and Child Labour (3:29)
◦ http://digital.films.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/PortalVi
ewVideo.aspx?xtid=10539
 Stolen Childhoods (22:00) – 4:00 to 8:49
◦ http://digital.films.com.ezproxy.library.yorku.ca/PortalVi
ewVideo.aspx?xtid=35366