Anna Maria Rugarli

 
The role of women in the process of slave creolization
at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa*
 
This essay focuses on the role of women in the process of slave creolization occurred in the Cape Colony. Special attention is given to the moment of creolization defined as the moment when more than half of the slave population was locally born. This has a special meaning in the context of the Cape Colony as most of the slaves were imported.
When the Dutch East India Company established a colony in 1652, it was soon evident that slave labour would be essential for its survival and prosperity. The ethnic composition of the slave population at the Cape was extremely mixed. Slaves were imported from Madagascar and later from Mozambique, from the East African Coast, from India and from the East Indies. Cargoes were constituted mostly of slave men, main source of the workforce needed to start the new colony.
What is argued here is that in the specific context women played a significant role, as they can be considered the key issue of the process of creolization. Moreover they were fundamental in the process of self-reproduction of the slave population1.
The discussion of the issue which follows is entirely based on original manuscript documents from the Cape Archives of Cape Town. Such data are used here for the first time in the context of the role of women slaves.
 
 
1. A Definition of Slavery
 
In The institution of slavery is probably as old as human cultures. It has characterised ancient as well as recent times, and it has involved all the continents and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans throughout the centuries. Slavery has been defined in many different ways, but even though it has had a wide diversity of forms and has been practised all over the world in every historical epoch, the basic concepts used to define it are none the less the same.
Generally, it has been said that slavery reduced individuals to chattels with neither will nor initiative, depriving them of the capacity to control their own lives. The fate of slaves was to obey masters who, as owners, had control even over their private lives. Slaves were often outsiders who had previously inherited that status and were forced to live as such in foreign countries. A historian defined slavery as "the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonoured persons"2.
 
 
2. The Slave Trade
 
At the end of the fifteenth and in the sixteenth century the slave trade received a great boost from the expansion of European powers in the newly discovered overseas territories in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans3. At the beginning Portugal and Spain, which divided the world outside Europe, and then, during the course of the seventeenth century, England, Holland and France, were very active in securing the best routes and the most profitable positions for their settlements. During the sixteenth century they were all busy creating commercial and colonial empires that needed an enormous amount of labour. That is why their trade also included the export of slaves, a trade that grew steadily during the subsequent centuries, and involved the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia.
Up until now the slave trade has been treated mainly in the context of the triangular trade as if it were a phenomenon limited to the Atlantic Ocean4. In fact, there were other areas where it was practised, such as the Indian Ocean. As a consequence, the attention of historians of slavery has been directed to slaves destined for the Americas, while only a few have focused on those assigned to the Cape of Good Hope Colony5. This was a Dutch colony with its own peculiar history, not least on account of its strategic position, it being on the passage to the Indian Ocean. The relevance of the Cape Colony in the Indian Ocean area is not negligible since the slave trade was practised there as well as in the Atlantic.
 
 
3. An Outline of the Cape of Good Hope Colony' s History
 
The history of the Cape of Good Hope Colony can be easily divided into three main periods according to the identity of the colonial power that controlled it. The first was the so-called VOC period, which saw the rule of the Dutch East India Company over the colony6. It started in April 1652, when the first settlement was established, and ended in 1795 when the colony was taken for the first time by the British.
The second period was influenced significantly by the British, who ruled only until 1803, when the Dutch took the colony again. They renamed it the Batavian Republic and kept it until the British finally prevailed over them in 1806. From this year onwards (third period) the Cape remained a British possession and was still such when slavery was abolished in the 1830s7.
The history of the Cape of Good Hope Colony is tightly interwoven with the history of slavery. Shortly after the establishment of the colony by the VOC as a refreshment station for ships on their route to or from the Indian Ocean, imports of slaves from remote countries began. The need for a labour force to cultivate the soil, the shortage of Company employees, the prohibition of enslaving the local population and the deliberately small-scale immigration programme (of farmers or settlers from Europe) contributed to creating the need for an alternative labour supply in the form of slave labour (Worden 1985:6-9).
 
 
4. First arrivals
 
The VOC wanted to maintain control over the imports and the number of slaves introduced into the colony and did not allow the burghers (Dutch settlers) to trade in slaves8. It is of some interest to note here that the first two cargoes came from the Guinea coast and Angola while all the successive cargoes were from Madagascar, Mozambique, India, Ceylon and the South and South-East Indies9. This was due to the fact that the VOC was soon excluded by its counterpart, the Dutch West India Company, from the trade along the West African Coast, so that it had to turn its attention to the Indian Ocean area and to the East Coast of the African continent (Worden 1985:41-43 and Bozarth 1987:139. Regarding the slave trade in the Indian Ocean, Gerbeau 1979, Worden 1992).
Cape slaves' places of origin varied significantly. They may be divided into two main groups: slaves of African origin - initially from the West and later the East African Coasts, and from the islands of Madagascar and Zanzibar - and slaves of Asiatic origin, from Indonesia and the Southern Chinese coastal areas, and from India and Ceylon. This 'classification' played an important role in the history of the Cape Colony and its later development, since the different origins of the slave population influenced greatly its nature and composition10.
As a matter of fact, the slave population of the Cape Colony was a unique case, because it was created by continuous imports throughout the VOC period and after up until the slave trade was abolished in 1808 during the Second British Occupation. These imports consisted mainly of men, the most suitable labour force available. Thus, the sex ratio of the slave population was highly unbalanced. This meant that its growth rate was slow, in other words it was not fast enough to allow it to be self-reproducing. As a consequence, from the very beginning the locally born slave population at the Cape was insufficient to keep up with the demand for labour, and it had to be constantly and steadily 'renewed' with individuals imported from foreign countries.
The slave trade in the Cape colony flourished through the second half of the seventeenth and the eighteenth century. The transporten, notarial slave sale records, and the VOC records show slave sales and give the idea of the number of slave imports into the colony. For instance, between 1695 and 1707, a number of 1844 slaves were imported of which 650 belonged to the Company. The period from 1717 to 1729 was a time of rapid slave population growth. Indeed, throughout most of the eighteenth century - with the exception of the 1740s, when there was a high slave mortality rate and insufficient imports (more or less 100-200 per annum). Under the First British Occupation (1795-1803) - after a period of two years without any imports at all - about 2900 slaves were imported into the colony with the encouragement of the Burgher Senate11. Finally under the Batavian Republic about 2288 slaves were introduced, mostly from Mozambique (Reidy 1998:79-98). The slave trade went on until the Second British Occupation and was abolished in 1808 when imports were stopped.
 
 
6. Historiography of the Process of Creolization at the Cape of Good Hope Colony
 
The issue of creolization has been neglected by most historians of slavery at the Cape Colony who argue about the moment of creolization12.
Nigel Worden argued that the proportion of imported females and children was slowly increasing towards the end of the century (Worden 1985:52-53). According to Worden the high infant mortality, the low rate of fertility and the low proportion of females inevitably affected the growth of the slave population so that frequent imports were necessary to keep up with the growing demand for slave labour throughout the eighteenth century.
Mary Rayner confirmed the increasing growth of the creole population by the end of the eighteenth century and underlined its marked intensification around the period 1816-1834. Rayner supported her thesis with the same reasons mentioned above by Worden as well, showing how these factors became less significant after the abolition of the slave trade (Rayner 1986:37-42). Andrew Bank too focused his attention on the period between 1806 and the end of slavery in 1834 assuming this was when the slave population remoulded as never before (Bank 199: 58-61, 78-79; book drawn from Bank's thesis). The central premise of his work is that the abolition of the slave trade and the Second British Occupation "marked an equally fundamental watershed in the history of the colony. Causes of this major change were the trend towards creolization, the balancing of gender ratios and the reversal to the natural increase of the slave population". Therefore Bank and Rayner agree that creole slaves dominated the slave population in the period between 1816 and 1834.
Robert Ross in his article entitled "Last Years of the Slave Trade to the Cape Colony" synthesised the changed patterns of the slave trade before its ending. He showed how this diversity had influenced the composition of the slave population introduced into the Cape Colony (Ross 1988:208-216). According to Ross the watershed was the 1770s. Before that date imports consisted basically of men from Madagascar, India, Ceylon and the Indonesian archipelago, whilst the small proportion of slave women were already born in the colony13.
Both the import of Asian slaves to the Cape, forbidden in 176714, and the increase of foreign slave ships which stopped over there contributed to the change in slaves' places of origin. This situation led to the increase in the number of slaves in the colony (Ross 1988:213-214).
Still according to Ross, under the First British Occupation (1785-1803) and the Batavian Republic (1803-1806), the slave trade went on, at a lower level though.
 
 
6. Two Recent Views on Creolization
 
More recently two historians faced the issue of crealization from a plurality of perspectives and in a more complete way15. On the one hand, Craig Iannini focused on the social implications of the intermingling of creole slaves in their masters' space by the first two decades of the nineteenth century. He compared it to the situation of Khoikhoi and Prize Negroes, purposely avoiding any discussion of demographic data and causes of the slow rate of creolization. Iannini instead stated that "by the early nineteenth century, Cape Town' s slaves, specifically creolized slaves, had been incorporated into Cape Town society as quasi-citizens to a far greater degree that had Khoi or Prize Negroes". (Iannini 1995:131-132; Iannini based his analysis on Bank's data)16 In that period, wrote Iannini, creole slaves were integrated in and belonged to the population of the colony as individuals who were also "subjects of the British Crown" (Iannini 1995:138, 154-155)17.
On the other hand, Robert Shell singled out and highlighted the peculiarities of the process of creolization and referred to the issue throughout his book (Shell 1994). According to Shell, the slave population creolized in several different moments before the ending of the trade in 1808. This phenomenon was due to the combination of factors such as the 'fluctuation' in imports of cargoes and the imbalance in the sex ratio of imported slaves.
The importance of mercantile competition and of shipping patterns was fundamental for the process of creolization since these factors heavily influenced the provenience of slaves brought to the Cape Colony (Shell 1994:40-46). Shell attributed the diversification of the routes to slavers' widened connections and to their need to keep up with the higher demand for labour. While the irregularity in importing slaves - particularly women - affected the self-reproduction of the population, creolization carried on steadily, resulting in the high number of locally born slaves (more than those imported) that occurred after 177018. After that date more women and younger slaves were imported than before, a fact that favoured the balance in the sex ratio of the slave population and boosted its capability to reproduce. Shell considered the racial stereotyping of slaves and the consequent division of labour as clear signs of the changing origins and of creolization. Creole slaves were most appreciated mainly for four reasons. Firstly creole slaves had a higher life expectancy due to their acclimatisation to the environment; secondly, the price for mulatto slaves made the price for all the creoles rise; thirdly, they were not expected to run away (indeed they were often given supervisory jobs in fields); fourthly, creole slaves' first language was Dutch so they did not have communication problems. Slaves from the Indian Ocean area came after them, and Malagasy were the last in order of preference. This division obviously meant different prices on the market and different tasks for slaves (Shell 1994:58-59).
 
 
6. Data for This Research
 
This research is limited to twenty Slave Registers of the Slave Office, eight for the district of Graaff Reinet and twelve for that of Cape Town19. From the data collected it is possible to estimate the trend of the locally born population, how young it was and how quickly it was growing, crucial factors to understand the process of creolization in the history of slavery at the Cape of Good Hope Colony.
The sample analysed is made up of 1250 slaves. Of these 722 were found to be males and 528 females. In regional terms, 259 females lived in the Graaff Reinet district and 269 in that of Cape Town.
 
Tab. 1 - Sample of slaves
 
Slaves
Graaf Reiner
Cape Town
Total
Males
364
358
722
Females
259
269
528
Total
623
627
1250
 
From the table presented below it is apparent that the gender imbalance derived from the disproportionate import of males as opposed to females, although in 1816, when the Slave Registers were compiled, this difference was less marked than it was before. It has been said previously that mostly males were introduced into the Cape Colony because they could be better exploited as field or domestic workers.
 
Tab. 2 - Imported slaves
 

 

Slaves
Graaf Reiner
Cape Town
Total
Males
107
124
231
Females
32
33
65
Total
139
157
296
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
These two tables taken together show that the gender imbalance is even more apparent if we compare the data concerning the whole sample of slaves and those concerning imported slaves. Out of 722 males20, 231 were imported, while out of 528 women only 65 were imported. The origins of imported slaves, as shown in the table below, were different.
 
Tab. 3 - Imported slaves' places of origin
 
Places of origin
Graaf Reiner
Cape Town
Total
Batavia
2
17
19
Bengal
6
15
21
Bougies
5
4
9
Ceylon
1
-
1
Delmina
-
2
2
Isle of France
3
-
3
Java
-
2
2
Macassar
1
3
4
Macoa
9
2
2
Madagascar
3
6
15
Malabar
4
15
19
Mandaar
1
-
1
Matjava
-
1
1
Mauritius
-
4
4
Mozambique
104
80
184
Senegal
-
1
1
 
 
Out of 296 imported slaves, 184 were imported from Mozambique and only in lower proportion from the East Indies and Madagascar. As has been said earlier on, most of the slaves from Mozambique were imported at the end of the eighteenth century, which explains why they are in such a large number compared with slaves from other places21.
The central premise of this essay is that the slave population in the Cape Colony started reproducing itself before the end of the eighteenth century and that it increased steadily during the next decades. But although the growth in the slave population followed a constant and natural trend, it nevertheless increased slowly. It is possible to establish this from the analysis of the Registers of Slaves. As they were compiled starting from 1816, 621 slaves had been registered as being born before 1808 and in the Cape Colony. This number does not obviously include slaves born after the abolition of the slave trade.
 
Tab. 4- Slaves born before 1808 in the Cape Colony
 
Slaves
Graaf Reiner
Cape Town
Total
Males
195
206
401
Females
129
91
220
Total
324
297
621
 
 
 
 
 
 
8. On Females Slaves
 
Observing the graph of females' ages, it is possible to notice that women could live over 40 years, although the sample considered here is quite small, and the majority of females included are between the age of two and forty years.
 

 

 
Graph n. 1 - Females
 
From graph n.1 it can be argued that only 23 women were reported to have died, so the death rate of adult females was low. However, it is proper to underline that that of infant mortality was quite high, therefore one datum balances the other. On the basis of what has been analysed up until now about women, it comes out that their life expectancy was more or less forty years despite their living and working conditions. Graph n.2 shows that most of the slave men are grouped until the age of forty, although they are mainly slaves imported from outside the colony. This situation mirrors the position of the women already explained, the only difference being that males are in a larger number than females.
 
 
Graph n. 2 - Males
 
A quarter of the total number of slave women in the Slave Registers sample were mothers, the majority of whom were locally born. Out of 120 mothers only 17 were from Mozambique, Malabar and Bengal. There was a large number of women (as has already been specified the records consider as adult all females over 12 years) between the age of 13 and 42. That this was the period of highest fertility it can be seen by comparing the graphs regarding all females (graph n.1) with that of mothers at first child (the majority being between the age of 17 and 24 years).
 
 
Graph n. 3 - Mothers (first child)
 
Moreover, in graph n. 3 significant peaks are those corresponding to the ages of 23 and 33 years, and it can also be noticed that some mothers gave birth at a quite old age. Although the average age when women gave birth for the first time is between the age of 24 and 26 years, it is more appropriate to consider the distribution of children per mother (graph n. 4), to have an indication of the growth rate of the slave population.
 
 
Graph n. 4 - Distribution of children per mother
 
In this way the danger of arriving at the wrong conclusions is avoided. Considering only the average age of mothers, one might conclude that women started to have children quite late in their lives, but that is not the case.
There were exceptions of slave women who bore children late, during the second half of their 30s and during their 40s, but these were indeed exceptions. Nevertheless, it should be remarked that fertility patterns of slave women could be considered long, lasting until their 40s, but depending on when they started their reproductive cycle.
Yet there is no substantial difference between locally born mothers and mothers of different origin. The trend is equivalent for each group, even if one could question whether the latter is a valid sample as it is only made up of 17 mothers. Clearly the mothers' mortality rate is as low as that of the wider category of women. Of 120 of them, only 8 were registered to have died. Two mothers were born out of the Cape Colony, while 6 were locally born.
In conclusion, out of a total number of 528 women, there were 120 who were mothers - a high proportion considering that in this group of females are included those who could not have children, and children as well.
 
 
8. On Females Under Twelve
 
It is of major significance to highlight some details about females within the category of children, as women are the main subject of my research.
All the females under the age of twelve have been considered as children and separated into two classes to distinguish those bought from those born after 1816. They were all born in the Cape Colony, but females born after 1816 are the majority, 191 out of 245. Of course, also in this case the mortality rate is proportional to that of children. But their total number is lower than that of women. This could be a sign of growth rate not yet adequate to a normal level of self-reproduction.
However the number of females under 12 years is higher than that of males of the same age, a tendency that points out the natural growth of the slave population, in which the sex ratio is going to be balanced as it is following a spontaneous course. Clear proof is the Lists and Returns of Slaves which shows the number of slaves registered in 1833. I have considered returns concerning the districts of Graaff Reinet and Cape Town (see tables B and C).
Comparing the proportion of females and males distinguished according to ages, it evident that in both lists the number of females exceeds that of males at the age included between 1 and 6 years, more or less equal at the age of 6 to 18 and that it starts decreasing slightly at the age of 25 to 35. Afterwards the gap becomes even larger. It enlarges at the age between 35 and 45 years, and at that included between 45 and 55, to get even wider going on until the age of 60 and upwards. Such difference in the proportion of males and females within the slave population still reflects the effects of the slave trade, when men were imported in a larger number than women for the reasons above mentioned. This gap becomes markedly thinner at age between 18 and 35 years, a fact that highlights how, during the last years of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the slave population reached a balance in the sex ratio, evidence of its capability to reproduce itself before the end of the slave trade in 1808.
Table B - Males
 
MALES
1to 6
6to 18
18 to 25
25 to 35

35 to 45
45 to 55
55 to 60
Cape Town and Simonstown
749
1379
752
641
1117
620
425
Albany
12
17
10
11
12
7
7
Beaufort
36
72
25
32
41
24
13

Clan William
103
152
54
82
78
32
27

George
190
321
130
125
134
69
52

Graaf Reinet
155
287
155
134
211
110
52

Stellenbhosch
636
1138
639
591
823
507
288

Swellendam
286
507
227
214
205
147
91

Somerset
126
206
113
97
144
78
33

Uitenhage
106
169
88
78
118
37
30

Worcester
302
471
242
231
286
113
119
 
Finally, females exceeded males in the period included between 1 and 18 years, a fact that underlines once again the natural and spontaneous trend of growth followed by the slave population that changed dramatically its initial condition of unnatural imbalance in the sex ratio.
 
Table C- Females
 
FEMALES
1to 6
6to 18
18 to 25
25 to 35

35 to 45
45 to 55
55 to 60
Cape Town and Simonstown
836
1339
733
614
664
254
163
Albany
10
14
15
12
10
5
4
Beaufort
49
76
43
45
30
14
6

Clan William
98
153
76
84
62
18
12

George
184
332
165
144
118
37
24

Graaf Reinet
168
277
124
144
130
53
29

Stellenbhosch
729
1146
539
472
382
166
122

Swellendam
316
495
274
200
183
67
49

Somerset
150
236
133
140
112
36
23

Uitenhage
110
188
81
82
71
40
23

Worcester
309
503
203
228
191
54
56
 
 
 
 
 
10. Conclusion
 
The hypothesis made at the beginning of this research has been tested out by means of the analysis of the Registers of Slaves of the Slave Registrar Office, compiled from 1816. It has been shown that the proportion of the creole slaves in the Cape Colony was substantial before the end of the slave trade in 1808 and that women had a major role in the process of shaping and moulding the slave population, because their number was increasing more rapidly than that of men.
First of all, imported slaves have been distinguished from locally born, and then they have been separated according to sex and age to understand clearly the composition of the slave population and be able to analyse and compare each of these categories. Following this procedure, one can show how the slave population increased in number, how quickly that increase occurred and how the imbalance in its sex ratio decreased to finally reach a balance.
The slave population started reproducing itself before the end of the eighteenth century, and it increased steadily during the following decades. Women had an important role in this process of shaping and moulding the slave population because their number was increasing more rapidly than that of men, as the proportion of imported slave women into the Cape colony increased towards the end of the eighteenth century. The slave population started to reproduce itself before the end of the seventeenth century and increased steadily during the following decades - evidence of its capability to reproduce itself before the end of the salve trade in 1808.
From the analysis of the Slave Registers it is evident that in the period considered females had a life expectancy of 40 years and gave birth until that age, so that their fertility pattern can be considered long, while their mortality rate was low. The average of all birth intervals is 2,8 years although there was a high infant mortality rate, a fact that did not allow the slave population to grow as fast as the white population.