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2017, Magnifying perspectives: Contributions to history, a Festschrift for Robert Ross, edited by Iva Pesa and Jan-Bart Gewald (Leiden: African Studies Centre, Leiden, occasional publication number 26)
This article presents a detailed exploration of the status of freed slaves (called 'free blacks' by the Dutch authorities) in early colonial Cape Town and surrounds. It takes issue with the long held view that freed slaves did not share the legal or social status of freeburghers, but rather occupied an intermediate position between freeburghers and slaves.
2010 •
During the past three decades, historians of the Cape Colony during the period of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) rule have transformed our view of the role of slavery. Slavery has moved from an issue of marginal importance to one which is now considered central to the establishment and growth of a colonial society in South Africa. Most of this work, however, focused on the agrarian areas of the colony, and there has, until recently, been relatively little attempt to plumb the uniqueness of the experience of slaves and free blacks in VOC Cape Town. This topic deserves interest because of the cosmopolitan nature of the urban environment and its links with the wider world of the Indian Ocean. This article is a synthesis of the most important recent research on the experience of slaves and free blacks in Cape Town. It shows that although there is general agreement about the origins and development of slavery, its demographic nature and its economic significance, Cape historians have yet to fully utilise the available sources to trace the cultural and social history of urban slavery. This article indicates some of the areas – such as family history, the role of religion, material culture and the creation of meaning – which are in need of research, and suggests some of the sources and approaches which could be utilised.
Citizenship Studies
"'The fact so often disputed by the black man': Khoekhoe citizenship at the Cape in the early to mid-nineteenth century"2003 •
2011 •
This thesis demonstrates the continuation of slave importation at the Cape during the early British rule, when the slave trade was regulated, then outlawed (1807), from 1797 to 1818. Appendices I and II provide a useful and painstakingly researched dataset of the slave trade (1797-1822). This thesis is a valuable resource to students of the Indian Ocean slave trade. The author has vastly extended his original dataset, to cover slave traffic passing the Cape during the period 1644-1860. Portions of the dataset are available upon request.
Slavery and Abolition
Freedom at issue: Vagrancy legislation and the meaning of freedom in Britain and the Cape Colony, 1799 to 18421994 •
Journal of Southern African Studies
Indian Ocean slaves in Cape Town, 1695-18072016 •
Cape Town during the eighteenth century was an integral part of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) trading empire in the Indian Ocean, acting as a refreshment post, refitting harbour and market town for the rural hinterland. In the absence of a pliable indigenous population the mainstay of its labour force was slavery. Historians have long recognized the diverse regions of the Indian Ocean world from which slaves were obtained, but precise enumeration of the town’s enslaved population has been hampered by sources that combine the urban population with the rural hinterland. This paper uses new data obtained from household inventories to show how the main sources of Cape Town’s slave population shifted from South Asia in the early parts of the century, to Southeast Asia and then to the Southwest Indian Ocean and especially eastern Africa by the time of the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. The paper then argues that both the Indian and the African roots of Cape Town’s slave heritage have been obscured by the strong emphasis in popular perception and memory on ‘Malay’ slaves from Southeast Asia and analyses the political dynamics behind such a distortion.
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Middle East Critique
Fuel Smuggling in the West Bank 2018 2021: Palestinian Economic Agency under the Israeli System of Spatial Control2024 •
Everyday Boundaries, Borders and Post Conflict Societies
Everyday Boundaries, Borders and Post Conflict Societies2020 •
Journal of adolescence
Culture beats gender? The importance of controlling for identity- and parenting-related risk factors in adolescent psychopathology2018 •
Journal of Biological Chemistry
Passive Immunization against β-Amyloid Peptide Protects Central Nervous System (CNS) Neurons from Increased Vulnerability Associated with an Alzheimer’s Disease-causing Mutation2002 •
Theoretical and Applied Climatology
Climatic preferences for beach tourism: an empirical study on Greek islands2018 •
International Journal of Epidemiology
Vaccinations against smallpox and tuberculosis are associated with better long-term survival: a Danish case-cohort study 1971–20102016 •
Journal of Human Kinetics
Dynamic Stretching Increases the Eccentric Rate of Force Development, but not Jump Height in Female Volleyball Players2022 •