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In some parts of the world January is anti-slavery and human trafficking prevention month. I am going to run a month long thread to honour slaves of the first decades of the colonial settlement at the Cape. #antislaverymonth
I am a descendant or relative of slavers, slave owners and slaves. #antislaverymonth
The primary way to identify slaves and learn more about them is to track their owners and the slavers in the colonial record of the period. This includes things like the âcompany journalâ usually written by or on behalf of first the commander and later governor. #antislaverymonth
It also includes church records â baptisms, marriages, memberships etc.; as well as resolutions of the council of policy, estate records, slave transactions, criminal records, and so on. #antislaverymonth
The number of written records that have survived and can be attributed to a slave in the first 5 or 6 decades of the colonial settlement is probably less than a handful. In fact, I know of only two. #antislaverymonth
I grew up knowing that although âwhiteâ, I most likely was mixed race. From my earliest memories around 4 or 5 I remember my father regaling people at rural community gatherings that we could be descended from a man who had married a black woman. #antislaverymonth
My father to tell the story because of the shock it caused. Our family was known as the âKatolieke kommunisteâ which we found greatly amusing. #antislaverymonth
When he died, I got some of his old papers, and among them were partial family trees, and stories written about my grandparents and great-grandparents. #antislaverymonth
I decided to do further research into what was in the papers and also to find out if there was any truth to the story of the marriage of a white male ancestor to a black female ancestor. #antislaverymonth
And that led me to the discovery that I had slavers, slave owners and slaves in my ancestry. Some who were slaves, once emancipated, became slaver-owners themselves. #antislaverymonth
And so I gathered a lot of records, and that in turn led me to launching my online project, the First Fifty Years, to collate as many records of the first decades of the colonial settlement at the Cape as I can. It can be accessed here: http://e-family.co.za/ffy/ #antislaverymonth
I have a lot of information on some individuals, while others were simply whispers in the record, with one or two entries. I will tweet about a mix.
In the census of the slave lodge (now known as Iziko Slave Lodge) on 1 January 1693 the following slave women were among those enumerated: Anna van de Caep van Wantrina; her mother Wantrina van Madagascar; and, Elisabeth van de Caep van Calmeronde
Anna: http://e-family.co.za/ffy/g9/p9715.htm
Watrina: http://e-family.co.za/ffy/g9/p9698.htm
Elisabeth: http://e-family.co.za/ffy/g9/p9676.htm
Watrina: http://e-family.co.za/ffy/g9/p9698.htm
Elisabeth: http://e-family.co.za/ffy/g9/p9676.htm
Anna Groothenning van Bengale was baptized on 1 January 1713, and apparently immediately emancipated because on 5 February 1713 she marries Christian Bok with whom she already had several children. She is my 7xgreat-grandmother. http://e-family.co.za/ffy/g3/p3183.htm
We only know some of the biological fathers of the children of enslaved women, but the mothers are usually named in the record. And mothers would include their lineage ie Anna van Wantrina. #antislaverymonth
Enslaved human beings at the Cape were not permitted to officially marry, although de facto relationships were sometimes recorded in passing. #antislaverymonth
