Wage Labour and Slavery on the Cape Frontier

Summary, in English

The 1807 ban on the importation of slaves is said to have had severe consequences for farmers in South Africa’s Southwestern Cape, an areaof wheat and wine farming that used large numbers of slave labourers.The ban resulted in a rapid rise in slave prices, which signif icantly increased input costs. In contrast, the effect of the ban was apparently much more moderate in the eastern parts of the colony, where stock farmers used predominantly Khoesan labour. We use six tax censuses from the easternmost district in the Colony, Graaff-Reinet, to show thatthe ban on importing slaves did indeed have important consequences for farmers, even on the colony’s distant frontier. The ban affected not only the composition of labour but also its productivity.

• Author: Erik Green; Johan Fourie
• Editor: Karin Hofmeester; Pim de Zwart
• Department/s: Department of Economic History
• Publishing year: 2018-03-13
• Language: English
• Pages: 265-294
• Publication/Series: Work Around the Globe: Historical Comparisons and Connections
• Links: http://dx.doi.org/10.5117/9789462984363
• Document type: Book chapter
• Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
• Topic: Economic History
• Status: Published
• ISBN/ISSN/Other: ISBN: 978-94-6298-436-3; ISBN: 978-90-4853-502-6