Adapted from iziko (museums of cape town)
Casual trade by Company officials became so rampant that, in 1713. return tickets for slaves were booked and paid for in advance. A few years later, however, this was stopped altogether, when it was discovered that private people were making enormous profits at the cost of the Company’s cargo revenue.
For a few years from 1724 a slave station was maintained at Delagoa Bay, but the high mortality rate among Company servants led to its closure. The Company turned its attention again to Mozambique and later to Zanzibar.
Coming from different continents and cultures, the slaves had little in common except their bondage. They rarely formed a strongly united group with common aims. The mortality rate was extremely high, and their numbers increased not through procreation hut due to the continued importation of slaves. Groups, and even families, were broken up and scattered at auction sales — there being no obligation on a buyer, for instance, to purchase a mother as well as her children. Although slaves formed a large part of the population of the Cape, they were never accepted as being true members of the community.
Slaves from Madagascar and the African coast were the least valuable, although when Guinea slaves were first introduced they fetched 100 rix-dollars apiece, as opposed to the 50 paid for a Malagasy. Generally they were set to the hardest work, such as collecting firewood, for which they might have to search all day in order to collect just enough for a household’s needs for the next day.
At the other extreme was the Malay, described as the ‘king of slaves’. More quickly than any other group, the Malays learnt the skills of almost all the trades practiced at the Cape. When freed, many prospered commercially. Against this, however, they were regarded as temperamental and dangerous. ‘Running amok’ was something to be feared. On one occasion an Eastern slave, in utter desperation and beyond caring, rushed through the streets, dagger in hand, slashing at everyone in sight and eventually stabbing himself to death. By Law Muslim slaves were not allowed to practice there faith.
Most valued of all slaves was a Cape-born child of a slave mother and white father. In the early years of the colony, several marriages took place between white men and slave women, due to the shortage of white women at the colony. Later, sexual intercourse between whites and slaves took place without a formal union. During most of its existence, the Company’s slave lodge was renowned as the town’s leading brothel. Although forbidden, action was seldom taken against transgressors — except in the early years.
In one incident, Van Riebeeck noticed that Maria van Bengalen, one of his slaves, was often seen with Constable Willem Cornelis. His suspicions led him, with three others as witnesses, to burst into Cornelis’ bedroom one Sunday at around midnight. The two were found ‘in one another’s arms’. The next day, Cornelis was sentenced to pay a fine of 100 reals of eight (a Portuguese currency) and ‘labour for 50 years on public works’. The second part of the sentence was commuted to a fine of a further 50 reals. There is no record of a punishment imposed on Maria.
When Commissioner Hendrik van Reede visited the Cape in 1685 he noted that among the Company’s slaves there were no fewer than 57 children who obviously had white fathers. Van Reede decided that males could buy their freedom for 100 guilders on reaching the age of 25 years, provided that they had been confirmed in the Dutch Reformed Church and could speak Dutch. The same applied to women, but their age of freedom was 22 years.
The slave experience
Almost every aspect of a slave’s life was controlled by his or her owner. The owner usually gave a slave a new name, decided how much and what they may eat, where they slept, the clothes they wore and so forth.
Slave names
Slaves were usually given new names when they were enslaved. Many of these names were demeaning and sometimes insulting.
Some slaves continued to use their own name when they were amongst other slaves and friends. Some names described the slave’s personality or appearance.
These descriptions were not always flattering. Examples of such names are: Fortuijn (English = fortune), Dikbeen (English = Thickleg) and Wellekom (English = welcome). Other slaves received names of the month. Many people today still have surnames such as January, February, September or October.
Names from the classical period (Greek and Roman history) were also common and such as Cupido, Titus, Scipio and Hannibal. Names from the Old Testament were also used, such as Moses and Solomon. Some slaves were allowed to keep their given, indigenous names.
This practice was common among the VOC-owned slaves who lived in the Slave Lodge, but rare amongst slaves in private ownership Only a small group of slaves received names similar to those of free men and women such as Antony, Maria and Anna.
Food, shelter and clothing
On most farms, slaves slept in kitchens, attics and barns, or out-of-doors when the weather was warm. Only a very few larger farms had special sleeping quarters for slaves. Slaves who did domestic work, especially the women, usually slept within the main house: sometimes in the kitchen, but also sometimes in the same room as their owners. Some children were given a slave as a personal attendant.
For 165 years there were no rules about how slaves should be fed. Only in 1823, did the government declare that: “Every slave is to be daily supplied with sufficient and wholesome food”. Thereafter, slaves were suppose to receive a pound of meat, half a pound of rice and half a pound of bread per day. A pound is just less than half a kilogram.
Slaves in the countryside ate food grown on the farms. Sometimes they also ate fish and rice. Some slave owners made use of the lack of legislation and their slaves received food of a very poor quality. One visitor wrote in 1804: “that black bread, half sand, and the offal of sheep and oxen are their general fare”. On the other hand, on some farms, slaves had small pieces of land where they grew vegetables for their own use. Domestic or house slaves usually received better food than the slaves who worked in the fields. On wine farms, slaves received tots of wine. In Cape Town, the slaves ate fish and vegetables.
A few wealthy Cape Town slave-owners dressed their slaves in uniforms. However, most slaves had very basic clothing. In winter, they wore cloth shirts, jackets, trousers or a dress, which were sometimes made of animal skins. As a rule, slaves that lived in Cape Town were better dressed than slaves who lived in the countryside. But this was not always the case: V.M. Golovnin who visited the Cape in 1804 wrote: “the slaves in this colony are kept very poorly – they are dressed in rags, even those who serve at the tables of their masters”.
Hendrik Cloete of Groot Constantia made detailed lists of what his slaves ate and how they dressed. The cost of keeping slaves were part of Cloete’s investment in his farm and he had to keep track of how much money he spent in relation to his income from the farm.
Clothing was used to distinguish slaves from free people. This was necessary as there was often no physical difference between slaves and free people. Slave men were not allowed to wear shoes. This placed slave men in the same status category as the under-age children of free people who also used to walk bare-foot. Slaves were also not allowed to wear hats until they passed an exam to prove that they could speak Dutch. Some slave men undermined this rule by wearing handkerchiefs and turbans.
Private lives of slaves
It was difficult for slaves to build a private life. Slaves did not have the same rights and freedom of movement as other members of the society. Many of them came from foreign countries with different traditions, customs and languages from those at the Cape. Slaves, including young children, were taken away from their families when sold into slavery and had to face to hardships of slavery on their own. Slaves were given new names at the Cape. Some slaves received a new name every time they were resold.
Because the slaves came from many different parts of the world, they spoke different languages. This made it difficult to communicate with each other. The Cape slaves came from East Africa, Madagascar, India and the East Indies. Slaves form India and the East Indies spoke a mixture of Indian and Indonesian languages, and Portuguese. Madagascan slaves spoke Malagasy and African slaves used their own languages to communicate. Some historians believe that the Afrikaans language developed from slaves trying to communicate with their Dutch speaking owners.
Family life
It was difficult to form new families and friendship after arrival at the Cape. Some were the only slave on a farm. Others became part of a slave group with different cultural backgrounds. The slaves themselves had different cultures, languages and religions. Also, because the slaves did mostly hard labour at the Cape, the slave traders preferred male slaves. There were a lot more men than women among the slave population and on some farms there were no female slaves. It was therefore difficult for slave men to find life partners at the Cape.
Yet it was important for slaves to form families. It was one way of regaining their humanity and self-respect. Families could also provide a support structure to help people cope with the violence and hardship they experienced as slaves. On the other hand, slave parents suffered even more as they had to witness their children being abused by their owners.
The case of Reijnier who ran away after his daughter Sabina was abused, may be an extreme example of abuse, but illustrates the helplessness of the parent. Slaves were not allowed to get married. Life partners could therefore be separated at the whim of the owner. The children of slaves could also be sold separately from their parents. Many disputes between slaves and slave owners started when the owner disregarded a slave parent’s authority over their children. Some slave couples belonged to different owners. They were therefore dependent on the goodwill of their owners to see each other.
Some slave men took Khoekhoe partners. That also meant that their children would not be regarded as slaves. The farmers did not like that and in 1752, the government allowed farmers to indenture these children until they were 25 years old. This meant that these children, called Bastaard Hottentots, spend the best part of their lives in similar conditions as slaves. Remember that people died at a much younger age in those days: few became older than 40 to 50. One was therefore middle-aged at 25: not at the beginning of life as today.
In Cape Town, slaves were able to mix easily with free people. These relationships included that of life partners. In some cases where a slave woman formed a relationship with a free man, her male partner bought her freedom and married her. Sometimes the man also bought the freedom of his wife’s children. Slave families, that is families where all family members were slaves, were centered on women.
Children usually lived with their mother. The fathers were more likely to be separated from their family than the mothers. In addition, young men were are more likely to be sold than young woman. Families therefore often consisted of a mother and her female children. Men, on the other hand, often lost their families.
Leisure activities
Leisure activities available to slaves dependent on where the slaves lived. Slaves who lived in the city had many more opportunities to make friends and to engage in leisure activities. All slaves had very little leisure time. They worked very long hours. A proclamation of 1823 stipulated that slaves were not allowed to work more than 10 hours a day in winter and 12 hours