This document discusses the transition to freedom for slaves and Khoisan (indigenous people) after emancipation in the 1820s-1830s in the Cape region of South Africa. It describes the options available to emancipated slaves and Khoisan, including continuing to work for former masters, moving to urban or mission areas, or attempting to establish independent farming. However, limited land provision and job opportunities meant many returned to farm labor. A new labor system emerged combining seasonal and wage labor. A Masters and Servants Ordinance in 1841 protected workers but included harsh penalties, helping farmers stabilize their labor force.

1. The Post-Emancipation Cape
Theme Six

2. Gradual Transition to Freedom
 Competing interests between forced labour and
free labour;
 Theme of interstitiality;
 Dominant theme in explaining the lives of Khoisan
and slaves prior to their respective emancipations in
1828 and 1838;
 “Inbetweeness”;
 Degrees of being “unfree”;
 Ambiguous status – equality before the law;
acculturation; respectability; Christianity;
 Though still denied full participation in the culture of
the master class;
 But what about after the emancipations?

3. Emancipated Slaves
 Options:
 Continue working for their ex-masters, for a wage;
 Work for other farmers;
 Move to urban locations;
 Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown popular in the eastern Cape;
 Cape Town popular in the south-western Cape;
 Move to mission stations;
 Genadendal, Elim and Mamre (Groenekloof) popular in the
south-western Cape (all Moravian missions);
 Mission stations had become a symbol of refuge prior to the
emancipations;
 Anxious to obtain property;
 Could have become the basis for the emergence of an
independent peasantry.

4. „Hottentots‟
 Similar options open to them as to the slaves:
 Mission stations and urban centres popular;
 Also anxious to acquire land;
 Independent peasant production most evident in the Kat
River Settlement;
 Otherwise, no provision of land;
 Some „Hottentots‟ were able to purchase land through
the wages they earned engaging in various trades:
 Timber-cutters;
 Transport riders – from farms to urban centres;
 Producing soap, salt, clothes made from animal hides, etc.;
 Blacksmiths;
 Shoemakers;
 Knife-makers.

5. Changes in Labour Patterns
 Labour shortages had been a common feature of the
Cape economy since the earliest days of the Colony;
 Farmers complained that this situation worsened
following the emancipations of the 1820s and 1830s;
 For farmers, the transition from slave labour to wage
labour was eased by the British Government‟s payment
of compensation to slave-owners;
 Began to adjust to new labour patterns along with the
Khoisan and ex-slaves, who increasingly began to
comprise one social class – Coloureds;
 Abolitionists had called for a permanent wage-labour
force to replace slave or bonded labour;
 However, a different sort of labour system began to
emerge in the 1840s.

6.  A combination of seasonal labour and a permanent
farm labour force only partially paid by wages
emerged instead;
 Limited alternatives for many ex-slaves and Khoisan, but
to return to farm labour;
 Mission stations became overcrowded and couldn‟t sustain
large populations;
 Even mission residents were forced to seek employment in the
neighbouring farming communities;
 There was also limited employment opportunities in urban
centres;
 Nonetheless, a small entrepreneurial Coloured class did
emerge;
 Coloureds began working for land (as tenants); food;
drink (the dop system); clothing and housing;
 Casual or seasonal labour became a common feature
of the Cape‟s new labour system;

7. Masters & Servants Ordinance
 Passed in 1841;
 While it protected labourers against exploitation, it
introduced harsh punishments for those labourers
who broke contracts;
 The stricter contract system allowed farmers to re-
establish the stability of their labour force;
 The passage of this ordinance was not met with
the same degree of protest as similar, proposed
ordinances had been in the previous decade;
 The mission and humanitarian lobby had been
weakened;
 Financial constraints on all mission societies;
 Growing racist sentiment following the Sixth Frontier War;
 Both Khoisan and slaves had been emancipated;
 More conservative Governors and Colonial Office staff;

8. Mission Ideology
 Influence of mission ideology;
 Inculcated many of the features of capitalism and
colonialism among the Khoisan settled at missions and
in the Kat River Settlement;
 Organisation of space – private property; measured
plots of land;
 Organisation of time – mission bell calling the faithful to
prayer; clock and watches;
 Hallmarks of British Protestant culture;
 Like other mission dwellers, even after emancipation,
scores of Khoisan continued to embrace aspects of
colonial culture;
 However, mission ideology was double-edged;
 Millenarian overtones of evangelical Protestant
teaching;
 Meant that mission teachings could be moulded into