Cape Town Slave Lists 1816 - 1838 (A - E)

! Sensitivity : It is crucial to handle this database with care and a strong sense of responsibility. Many of the terms used were originally assigned by the VOC (Dutch East India Company) and often do not reflect how individuals and groups identified themselves. The terms themselves can be misleading, as they oversimplify the complex social realities experienced by people at the time.

This database may also contains terms that are considered derogatory, offensive, or harmful. The concepts within it are deeply connected to a history of colonial violence, enslavement, and racism that persisted both during and after the VOC's existence.

This database includes records of Cape Town slave registrations mandated by the British starting in 1816.

Table Mountain is the focal point of Cape Town. Known as Huri àoaxa or Hoerikwagga (roughly translated as where the sea rises) by the Khoisan peoples, the flat-topped mountain appears from afar to rise from the sea. When standing on top of the mountain the sea seems to rise up the edifice. It held religious and cultural significance for the indigenous peoples, who believed it was the abode of their supreme being, Tsui//Goab. The surrounding area was called //Hui !Gaeb or //Hui !Geis, loosely translated as "tied in the clouds," and the bay fronting the mountain was named Camissa (place of sweet waters). On March 12, 1488, the Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias, lost at sea (typical of Portuguese seafarers) on his failed mission to find a sea route to India, unwittingly rounded the southern tip of Africa. The turbulence created by the merging of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans allegedly caused him to name the confluence "Cabo das Tormentas" (Cape of Storms) and the adjacent headland, "Cabo de Esperança" (Cape of Good Hope), mistaking it for the southern tip of the African continent (in actuality Cape Agulhas), but seeing it as a beacon to eventually find a route to India. In 1503, the Portuguese sea captain Antonio de Saldanha, also lost at sea, accidentally sailed into the hitherto unknown Camissa. He wasted no time in laying claim to it, climbed Huri àoaxa, and named it Table Mountain, while the Camissa was named Saldanha Bay. 

The Bay became a watering hole and trading post with the indigenous peoples for the Portuguese until 1510 when Francis de Almeida, the first viceroy of the Portuguese holdings in the East, tried to steal two Khoi children and cattle. The Khoi rescued their children and cattle, and in the follow up attack from the Portuguese, the Khoi killed de Almeida and 66 of his crew. As a result of the ensuing conflict with the Khoi, the Portuguese avoided the Bay, and established a provision station on Mozambique Island. 

In 1601, the Dutch naval officer and cartographer Joris van Spilbergen renamed the bay to Table Bay. During the first half of the 1600s, both the British and Dutch East India Companies used the Bay to replenish fresh water supplies and to trade with the Khoisan peoples for fresh meat. On April 5, 1652, Jan van Riebeeck, on a five-year contract with the VOC, arrived in Table Bay to establish a permanent refreshment station for the extensive Dutch fleet. The erection of a wood and mud house as fortification marked the beginning of the settlement, which would take its name from Dias' blunder, Cape of Good Hope. Van Riebeeck's efforts to lure the Khoisan into providing manual labor for his farming schemes (while stealing their land and cattle) failed miserably and led to ongoing violent conflict. Meanwhile, VOC employees saw an opportunity to branch out on their own for financial gain in the lucrative food supply market, necessitating the importation of low-cost to free labor. The resultant settler colony became a slave trading colony on March 28, 1658, with the arrival of the first bulk shipment of enslaved individuals from Angola ("Prize Negroes" captured from a Portuguese ship) on the Dutch merchant ship Amersfoort. 

Slavery was abolished by the British at the Cape on December 1, 1834; however, slaves were required to undergo a four-year "apprenticeship." On December 1, 1838, all forms of forced labor were eliminated, marking the official end of slavery. Slave owners were compensated by the British Government for the loss of their slaves, and thousands of former slaves were left destitute and unemployed.

If no specific birthdate is provided in the register, the listed year of birth is an estimate made by the slave owner. The names of slave owners in these records highlight the universal nature of the slave trade and its social acceptance or tolerance, even among former slaves who became slave owners.

Slave records - South African National Archives

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