Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labor on the Dutch Frontier - Paperback

by Elizabeth a. Eldredge and Fred Morton (Author)

As they advanced into the South Africa interior, white settlers and black Dutch-speakers enslaved local Africans rather than import slave laborers. Boers conducted slave raids with armed African auxiliaries, and turned the captives (mostly children) into domestics, herders, hunters, agricultural laborers, porters, drivers, personal servants, and artisans. Boer republics legalized slavery as "apprenticeship" and labeled thousands of captive children (whose parents they had killed) as "orphans".

Slavery in South Africa shows that slavery was widespread in South Africa until the late nineteenth century and that thousands of slaves were taken from African communities, profoundly affecting Boer-African relations.

Author Biography

Elizabeth A. Eldredge is a leading authority on Lesotho and South African History. Her Power in Colonial Africa: Conflict and Discourse in Lesotho, 1870- 1960 (University of Wisconsin Press) appeared in 2007.

Professor Fred Morton, University of Botswana, has published widely on Transvaal and Botswana history. His When Rustling was an Art: Pilane's Kgatla, 1840-1902 (David Philip) appeared in November 2009.