Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon View Large Images

Lexicon Emancipation of Slaves _____________________________________________________ Under the first British occupation (1795-1803) and the Batavian Republic (1803-06), scarcity of labour made it necessary to authorise further importation of African slaves under licence, though both governments hoped that Europeans would soon replace slave labour. The second British occupation of the Cape in 1806 coincided with waves of abolitionism of slavery in the British Isles, and one year later that country outlawed its slave trade. The British Act for the abolition of the slave-trade (1807) made it illegal after 1 March 1808 to land slaves at any British port, and slaves illegally landed were then subject to conditions of apprenticeship. Emancipation was preceded by a period (1816-33) when the law relative to slavery was amended to improve the lot of slaves. In 1816 Lord Charles Somerset set up a central registry, in the hope of stopping illegal enslavement of free persons of colour. Successive ordinances laid down hours of labour, allowed slaves to hold property, and forbade the sale of children under ten years away from their parents. Slavery remained legal at the Cape Colony until abolition on 1 December 1834. Following the abolition of the period of indentured labour?formally known as the apprenticeship system?was implemented between 1834 and 1838 (with some aspects lasting until 1840) with the primary aim of managing the transition from slave labour to a free labour market. Something in the order of 39 000 slaves became apprentices in 1834. Apprenticeship lasted from 1834 until 1838. However this was considered by some as being far too short a transitional period for the acquiring of new skills. A shortage of good land and of alternative employment obliged most of the former slaves to continue working for their masters; while proprietors found that, though wages had now to be paid, these only slowly rose above the cost of slave maintenance. Full freedom dawned on 1 December 1838 without unrest, while idleness was discouraged by vagrancy legislation. Without money or land, many former slaves found their way to the mission stations, proving a ready source of converts for the missionaries and establishment of outlying settlements. Towns and missions directly associated with the emancipation of slaves are, amongst others: Elim; Genadendal; Mamre; Suurbraak. Structures on this site (other than those located in the towns cited above) associated with freed slaves: Methodist Church, Somerset West, Western Cape; Rhenish Mission Church, Stellenbosch, Western Cape; South African Sendinggestig - Missionary Society Museum, Central Cape Town, Western Province; Stretch's Court, Graaff-Reinet, Cape Province (now part of the Drostdy Hotel).