Cape Colony Slave and Descendants Death Database

This database contain records of slave death registrations made compulsory by the British. Slave terms and status have been transcribed as is, and is a reflection of terms used for slaves at the time. Prize negroes were Africans captured at sea from slave ships and released into British colonies after the abolition of the British slave trade in 1807. These slaves were not set free but were "apprenticed" for fourteen years. The British abolished slavery in the Cape Colony in 1834 - 1835 with slaves freed after a four year "apprenticeship". Many of the Boere (descendants of the French Huguenots, Dutch and Germans who became farmers in the Cape Colony) opposed the manumission of slaves based on delusional racial and religious beliefs and started the Groot Trek. Defacto slave marriages were only recognised from 1839 onwards and the unmarried status of slaves in the records must be viewed in this light. 

In 1713 the first major outbreak of smallpox in Cape Town was introduced by a Dutch ship's crew whose laundry was sent to be washed at the Dutch East India Company's slave lodge. The disease spread quickly and devastated the indigenous Khoisan people,  as well as killing a quarter of the European colonists and a third of the enslaved population. Survivors were often left with facial scarring and blindness. 

Slave records - South African National Archives

Transcribed by Lara Seaward