Nederdeutsche Hervormde of Gereformeerde Zending Gemeentes

Elim Baptisms - District of Pretoria, Middelburg, Carolina Belfast and Machadodorp, Lydenburg

Inboekstelsel

As soon as the Groot Trek ended in 1840 and afterwards when the Boer republics of the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State gained independence in the mid-19th century, they continued the practice of slavery. Although the British had formally abolished slavery in the Cape Colony in 1834, the Boer republics continued to engage in the slave trade (often with the complicity of African slave trading chiefs), primarily through raids and wars against local African communities.

During these raids, adult men and women were often killed, while women and children were abducted and forced into servitude. This system, known as inboekstelsel, or "the apprenticeship system," primarily focused on the enslavement of children, who were often orphaned by the violence of the raids. These children were then "registered" (and given Dutch names and "converted" to Christianity) and forced to work as laborers, with the practice also including the sexual exploitation of enslaved females. This system of forced labor and exploitation continued in the independent Boer territories until the end of the Second Boer War in 1902. (Source: Female Inboekelinge in the South African Republic 1850 - 1880 (Article in Slavery and Abolition, August 2005), Fred Morton - University of Botswana)

National Archives of South Africa - Nederdeutsch Hervormde or Gereformeerde Zendeling Kerk

Transcribed by Lara Seaward