- Contrary to international usage, in South Africa the term ‘coloured’ does not refer to black people in general. It instead alludes to a phenotypically diverse group of people descended largely from Cape slaves, indigenous Khoisan peoples and other blacks who had been assimilated into Cape colonial society by the late nineteenth century. Being also partly descended from European settlers, coloureds are popularly regarded as being of ‘mixed race’ and hold an intermediate status in the South African racial hierarchy, distinct from the dominant white minority and the numerically preponderant African population
- This biblically derived justification for the enslavement of Africans and the racial oppression of blacks is based on the curse that Noah is supposed to have placed on the descendants of his son, Ham, for having observed him naked. According to the myth, Noah's curse damned Ham's descendants to be the servants of the offspring of his other sons, Shem and Japheth. In their dispersal over the earth after the flood Ham's descendants, as a consequence, were believed to have degenerated into barbarism and savagery and to have lost their awareness of God
- Banton , M. 1983 . Racial and Ethnic Competition Cambridge 39; W. Jordan, White over Black American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill, 1968), 17–20, 35–7; G.M. Fredrickson, White Supremacy: A Comparative Study in American and South African History (Oxford, 1981), 10; W. Evans, ‘From the Land of Canaan to the Land of Guinea: The Strange Odyssey of the “Sons of Ham”’, American Historical Review, 85, 1 (1980), 15–43
- Stone , G. , Whisson , M. and van , H. 1972 . “ der Merwe, eds ” . In Coloured Citizenship in South Africa 34 – 7 . Cape Town For a discussion of the ‘Gam’ stereotype see
- Marais , J. S. 1968 . The Cape Coloured People, 1652–1937 1 – 31 . Johannesburg For some examples, see; H. Cruse, Die Opheffing van die Kleurlingbevolking (Stellenbosch, 1947), 9–25; F.A. van Jaarsveld, Van van Riebeeck tot Verwoerd, 1652–1966 (Johannesburg, 1971), 29–31
- Lewis , G. 1987 . Between the Wire and the Wall: A History of South African ‘Coloured’ Politics 4 – 5 . Cape Town See, for instance,; I. Goldin, Making Race: The Politics and Economics of Coloured Identity in South Africa (Cape Town, 1987), 3–26; V. Bickford-Smith, ‘Commerce, Class and Ethnicity in Cape Town, 1875–1902’ (PhD thesis, Cambridge University, 1988), 343ff
- Miller , A. 1982 . “ ‘Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Stereotyping’ ” . In In the Eye of the Beholder: Contemporary Issues in Stereotyping Edited by: Miller , A. New York in, ed., 478ff discusses the psychological processes of dehumanization and ‘loss of restraint’ in the treatment of the ‘other’
- Davis , D. B. 1984 . Slavery and Human Progress New York 23ff.;N. Steppan, The Idea of Race in Science: Great Britain, 1800–1960 (London, 1982), x-xii;M. Adas, Machines as the Measures of Men: Science, Technology and Ideologies of Western Dominance (New York, 1989), 3–4, 12, 143–6; Jordan, White over Black, 134
- Worden , N. 1985 . Slavery in Dutch South Africa 4 – 5 . Cambridge J. Armstrong and N. Worden, ‘The Slaves, 1652–1834’, in R. Elphick and H. Giliomee, eds, The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1840 (Cape Town, 1989), 149–62; C. Crais, The Making of the Colonial Order: White Supremacy and Black Resistance in the Eastern Cape, 1770–1865 (Johannesburg, 1992), 33
- Armstrong and Worden, ‘Slaves’, 129–33; R. Elphick and H. Giliomee, ‘The Origins and Entrenchment of European Dominance at the Cape, 1652-C.1840’, in Elphick and Giliomee, Shaping, 524; R. Ross, ‘Cape Town 1750–1850: Synthesis in the Dialectic of Continents’, in R. Ross and G. Telkamp, eds, Colonial Cities: Essays on Urbanization in a Colonial Context (Leiden, 1985), 107–9
- Shell , R. “ Slavery at the Cape of Good Hope, 1680–1731 ” . (PhD thesis, Yale University, 1986), 3, 18–19; R. Watson, The Slave Question: Liberty and Property in South Africa (Hanover, 1991), 3
- For a summary of my argument with regard to this point, see below;for a more detailed discussion, see M. Adhikari, ‘Let Us Live for Our Children’: The Teachers' League of South Africa, 1913–1940 (Cape Town, forthcoming), 1–4
- Elphick and Giliomee, ‘European Domination,’ 540–1; R. Elphick and R. Shell, ‘Intergroup Relations: Khoikhoi, Settlers, Slaves and Free Blacks, 1652–1795’, in Elphick and Giliomee, Shaping, 215–6
- Armstrong and Worden, ‘Slaves’, 147–8; Elphick and Shell, ‘Intergroup Relations’, 225–6; Worden, Slavery, 95–6. Shell speculates that a hormonal imbalance from wet-nursing further reduced the fertility of female slaves (‘Slavery’, 219–22) and Andrew Bank suggests that a degree of family stability emerged among slaves in Cape Town only toward the end of the slave period: A. Bank, The Decline of Urban Slavery at the Cape, 1806–1843 (Cape Town, 1991), 105
- Armstrong and Worden . “ Slaves ” . 121; Worden, Slavery, 94. For slave assimilation in the eastern Cape see Crais, Colonial Order, 69–70
- Böeseken , A. 1977 . Slaves and Free Blacks at the Cape 97 Cape Town
- Worden, Slavery, 130. Shell argues that slaves were incorporated into the settler family in a permanently infantilized state: Shell, ‘Slavery’, 269–74
- Bank, Urban Slavery, 6; Elphick and Giliomee, ‘European Dominance’, 544
- Shell, ‘Slavery’, 137
- Slavery , 75 122 – 3 . Worden,;Shell, ‘Slavery’, 136–8, 161–3, 213–6
- Worden, Slavery, 102–3; Shell, ‘Slavery’, 269–75
- Elphick and Shell, ‘Intergroup Relations’, 203, 231; L. Guelke, ‘Freehold Farmers and Frontier Settlers, 1657–1780’, in Elphick and Giliomee, Shaping, 96–8; Worden, Slavery, 105, 149–50; Bank, Urban Slavery, 210–11
- Ross , R. 1983 . Cape of Torments: Slavery and Resistance in South Africa London 118; Worden, Slavery, 93; Armstrong and Worden, ‘Slaves’, 148; Bank, Urban Slavery, 59–62
- The Malay ethnicity which emerged out of the Cape Town underclass sub-culture was not principally the product of slavery, and Malays in any event came to be subsumed under the rubric of coloured
- Ross, Cape of Torments, 21–2; M. Bradlow, ‘Imperialism, State Formation and the Establishment of a Muslim Community at the Cape of Good Hope, 1770–1840: A Study in Urban Resistance’ (MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1988), 1, 101; Elphick and Giliomee, ‘European Dominance’, 541, 557; S. Judges, ‘Poverty, Living Conditions and Social Relations: Aspects of Life in Cape Town in the 1830s’ (MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1977), 147–8; R. Shell, ‘Rites and Rebellion: Islamic Conversion at the Cape, 1808–1915’, Studies in the History of Cape Town, vol. 5 (Cape Town, 1984), 4, 29; Bank, Urban Slavery, 105
- Urban Slavery , 9 21 Bank
- Adhikari, Teachers' League, 1–4, chapter 5
- Worden, Slavery, 34–6, 82, 90, 141–2. R. Elphick and V. Malherbe, ‘The Khoisan to 1828’, in Elphick and Giliomee, Shaping, 16–7, 20; Elphick and Shell, ‘Intergroup Relations’, 201
- Armstrong and Worden . “ Slaves ” . 138 – 9 . ;Crais, Colonial Order, 41–2
- Ross , R. 1982 . “ Pre-Industrial and Industrial Racial Stratification in South Africa ” . In Racism and Colonialism; Essays in Ideology and Social Structure Edited by: Ross , R. 86 Leiden in, ed.
- Elphick and Malherbe, ‘Khoisan’, 51–2; Guelke, ‘Freehold Farmers’, 96–7; S. Newton-King, ‘Some Thoughts about the Political Economy of Graaff-Reinet in the Late Eighteenth Century’ (Paper presented to the History Workshop Conference, University of the Witwatersrand, 1981), 3; W. Dooling, ‘Law and Community in a Slave Society: Stellenbosch District, 1760–1820’ (MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1991), 125
- This specific combination of sexual partners was significant because the children of such unions, unlike the offspring of slave mothers, were legally free
- Ross, Cape of Torments, 48–50
- Ibid., 39–40
- Armstrong and Worden . “ Slaves ” . 40; M. Rayner, ‘Wine and Slaves;The Failure of an Export Economy and the Ending of Slavery in the Cape Colony, South Africa, 1806–1834’ (PhD thesis, Duke University, 1986), 88; Elphick and Giliomee, ‘European Domination’, 547; S. Marks, ‘Khoisan Resistance to the Dutch in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Journal of African History, 13, 1 (1972), 70, 73
- Penn , N. “ Droster Gangs of the Bokkeveld and the Roggeveld, 1770–1800 ” . South African Historical Journal, 23 (1990), 36; Watson, Slave Question, 57–8
- Ross, Cape of Torments, 47; Worden, Slavery, 127; Rayner, ‘Wine and Slaves’, 305
- Newton-King , S. , Marks , S. and Atmore , A. 1980 . “ ‘The Labour Market of the Cape Colony, 1807–1828’ ” . In Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa London 171, 178–9; Crais, Colonial Order, 76
- Elphick and Malherbe, ‘Khoisan’, 40–1; Crais, Colonial Order, 59–60
- Elphick and Giliomee . “ European Domination ” . 541 – 2 . . Slave-knecht hostility was particularly sharp and the slaves tended to lump master and supervisor together as part of the same oppressive system. See Armstrong and Worden, ‘Slaves’ 145, 153; Worden, Slavery, 140
- Worden, Slavery, 142; Judges, ‘Poverty’, 7–10; Elphick and Giliomee, ‘European Dominance’, 557; Bradlow, ‘Muslim Community’, 1; Shell, ‘Slavery’, 139–41
- Elphick and Giliomee, ‘European Dominance’, 523–4, 537–8; Elphick and Shell, ‘Intergroup Relations’, 202–3; Elphick and Malherbe, ‘Khoisan’, 53; Guelke, ‘Freehold Farmers’, 96; Fredrickson, White Supremacy, 116–7
- Steppan, The Idea of Race, 1
- Foner , E. 1983 . Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and its Legacy 37 London
- Scully , P. , Marincowitz , J. , This , s. and Marincowitz , J. ‘Rural Production and Labour in the Western Cape, 1838–1888, with Special Reference to the Wheat Growing Areas’ (PhD thesis, University of London, 1985), 90–1, 311
- Marincowitz, ‘Rural Production’, 311; Scully, ‘Bouquet of Freedom’, 101, 143
- Worden , N. , James , W. and Simons , M. 1989 . “ ‘Adjusting to Emancipation: Freed Slaves and Farmers in Mid-Nineteenth Century South-Western Cape’ ” . In The Angry Divide 33 – 4 . Cape Town eds,; Scully, ‘Bouquet of Freedom’, 11–12; Watson, Slave Question, 20
- Rayner, ‘Wine and Slaves’, 314; Judges, ‘Poverty’, 15
- Marincowitz, ‘Rural Production’, 135
- Marais, Cape Coloured People, 191; R. Ross, ‘The Origins of Capitalist Agriculture in the Cape Colony: A Survey’, in W. Beinart et al, eds, Putting a Plough to the Ground: Accumulation and Dispossession in Rural South Africa, 1850–1930 (Johannesburg, 1986), 82; E. Hengherr, ‘Emancipation and After: A Study of Cape Slavery and the Issues Arising from It 1830–1843’, (MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1953), 79–81; Scully, ‘Bouquet of Freedom’, 26; Judges, ‘Poverty’, 77, 80
- Worden, ‘Slavery and Post-Emancipation Reconstruction in the Western Cape’ (Paper presented to the Roots and Realities Conference, University of the Western Cape, 1986), 10–11; Scully, ‘Bouquet of Freedom’, 27; Judges, ‘Poverty’, 15–7, 79–80
- Marincowitz, ‘Rural Production’, 85; Scully, ‘Bouquet of Freedom’, 14–5; Ross, ‘Capitalist Agriculture’, 82; Worden, ‘Post-Emancipation Reconstruction’, 9–10; Hengherr, ‘Emancipation and After’, 14–5, 81–4
- Worden, ‘Adjusting to Emancipation’, 35–6
- Ross, ‘Capitalist Agriculture’, 82
- Select Commitee Report on Mission Lands, House of Assembly, (unnumbered), 3 Aug. 1854;10, 14, 27;Select Committee Report on Mission Lands, House of Assembly, (unnumbered), 27 March 1856, 21–6
- See, for example, Select Commitee Report on Lunatics, House of Assembly, (unnumbered), 26 March 1855, 17; A.2-'60, Select Committe Report on Criminals, xiv;G.29-'65, Commission Report on the Convict Station, xii–xiii;G.20-'66, Census of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 1865, 11, 84; A.65-'65, Census of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, 1865, Final Return, Population, 1
- G.24-'63, Commission Report on Education, lxix;see also the evidence of the Reverend Morgan, manager of the Scottish Church of Cape Town, ibid, 138
- Worger , W. 1987 . “ 2 ” . In South Africa's City of Diamonds: Mine Workers and Monopoly Capitalism in Kimberley, 1867–1895 New Haven chapter; R. Turrell, Capital and Labour on the Kimberley Diamond Fields, 1871–1890 (Cambridge, 1987), 29–31, 94–104; Bickford-Smith, ‘Cape Town’, 102–3, 185–8; E. van Heyningen, ‘Public Health and Society in Cape Town, 1880–1910 (PhD thesis, University of Cape Town, 1989), 112–3
- Watson, Slave Question, 11; Worden, Slavery, 151; Scully, ‘Bouquet of Freedom’, 121, 125; Worden, ‘Post-Emancipation Reconstruction’, 6; Rayner, ‘Wine and Slaves’, 315–16; Hengherr, ‘Emancipation and After’, 93
- Bolt , C. 1971 . Victorian Attitudes to Race 146 London Besides considerations of status, former slaves were despised for apparently failing to resist their oppression. Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of the Cape Colony, expressed this sentiment when he professed some admiration for the Xhosa on the grounds that, unlike other Negro peoples, they could not be enslaved.
- Cape Argus, 4 Feb. 1875
- Cape Argus, 18 Jan. 1886;Cape Times, 19 Jan. 1886
- Cape Times See, for example, 30 June 1882and C. Saunders, The Making of the South African Past: Major Historians on Race and Class (Cape Town, 1988), 33, for commentary by Theal in a similar vein
- Stone , G. ‘An Ethnographic and Socio-Semantic Analysis of Lexis among Working Class, Afrikaans-Speaking Coloured Adolescent and Young Adult Coloured Males in the Cape Peninsula, 1963–1990 (MA thesis, University of Cape Town, 1991), 284–6, 407; Stone, ‘Identity among Lower Class Coloured People’, 34–7
South African Historical Journal
Volume 27, 1992 - Issue 1