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The Legacy Of Slaves At The Cape, , - Coggle Diagram
The Legacy Of Slaves At The Cape
Language
The home language of slaves transported to South Africa were Buginese, Javanese, Malagasy, Tamil Creole Portuguese and Malay.
Many common SA food names also come from the languages spoken by slaves
The way in which language is used in the Cape can also be linked to slavery. The word "Malay" for example was associated with "slave" and "Muslim" and today still has some memories of being descended from slaves.
Descendents of the Dutch colonisers who called themselves Afrikaners, standardised the language as the pure language of the Afrikaans people, delinking the standardised version from its slave influence.
As a form of protest slaves created a new language from a mixture of languages spoken around them to communicate with each other and to keep their conversations private. Evidence of this new language can be found in Malay religious writings and letters. It was considered poor Dutch and called kombuis taal (kitchen language) by slave owners, and Kaaps by those who spoke the language. Many descendants of slaves speak Kaaps in the Cape today. The first movie in Kaaps, Barakat, was launched in Cape Town in mid August 2021.
Food
Bilbi’s Kitchen in Wynberg, like many Cape Malay restaurants, still shows the influence of slave recipes in their modern cuisine
SA recipes have strong Indonesian and Indian roots both from slaves and VOC officials who lived in their countries before coming to the Cape
koeksisters, Sosaties, Bredie, Curry and Bobotie are examples of foods influenced by slave food traditons
Slaves mixed European, Asian and African traditions with local ingredients and created a new food culture rooted in both their history of slavery and celebrating their freedom from slavery.
Music
Travelling musicians of mixed parentage entertained at dances and other celebrations
“Coloured” marching bands played music in the Streets of CT from the 1820s, travelling minstrel performed shows in the 1880s , and in the present time their legacy can be seen in the annual New Year’s minstrel band tradition
Western musical instruments were adapted by slaves and indigenous people into uniquely SA instruments. For example, the Khoi blended western and Khoi folk songs using an adapted 3 to 4 string guitar based on the Malabar slaves guitar.
: A little boy from a "Nuwe Jaar" ministral band
Slave owners established slave orchestras to sing and play their western music
Buildings
The slaves built most of the old buildings
The Slave Lodge is the second oldest building in Cape Town and has a stark, sombre history. It was built by the Dutch East India Company in 1679 to house the thousands of slaves brought to Cape Town during the 17th through 19th centuries
The Cape Malay Quarter or Bokaap shows the influence of Cape Malay slaves descendent on building style in the Cape
Slaves were used to build warehouses, the Company Gardens, the Castle fort, public buildings, homes and Cape Dutch wine farm houses
Religion
Slave owners at the Cape were expected by their church, the Dutch Reformed church, to baptize their slave children, though many did not
Islam was brought to SA by slaves and political exiles from the East Indies
Christian slaves were still slaves and their religion did not raise their status in society. Christianity was seen as the religion of those in authority, and Islam as the religion of resistance to slavery with many indigenous people and slaves converting to Islam.
The Dutch did not permit any religion other than Christianity. Some slaves were forced to be Christian. Slaves living in the Slave Lodge in Cape Town were all baptised whether their parents were Christian or not, and had to attend church and religious instruction in the Lodge school.
Societal challenges
Though slavery was abolished in 1834 , race, class and religious separation continued between black Slaves and their white Masters who still had ownership of land and economic opportunities.
Apartheid was a natural successor to slavery since black people were already looked down upon and it was accepted that white people were more powerful. Laws supported this view after slavery. Examples are the Masters and Servants Ordinances of 1841 and 1856 and the Native Land Act of 1913.
Lack of opportunities for the descendants of slaves in the Cape, and other indigenous people of colour has resulted in these desendents being amongst the poor and disadvantaged people of the Cape
Slaves were not paid but rather provided with food, including wine produced by the local wine farms, and this system became known as the dopstelsel which is still used on some farms today resulting in a high level of alcoholism amongst farm workers and poor people in the surrounding communities.
Female slaves were often sexually assaulted by their owners, and sailors were able to go to the slave lodge after docking in Cape Town for sexual activity. Noone was jailed for sexual violence toward women who were slaves. Some writers feel our history of violence toward women during slavery contributes to our current problem with gender based violence in our society.
A large number of slaves were put to work in households doing domestic work or working on farms, and their labour was very undervalued. Today farm workers and domestic workers are still amongst the poorest paid workers in our society, as we continue to undervalue their work
Sources of information
Legacy of slavery
https://slavery.iziko.org.za/legacyofslavery
David Wilkens, History, Truth Telling and the Legacies of Slavery in South Africa
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02582473.2017.1301543?casa_token=7amNjZps5McAAAAA:ZRQKnb1XlKC0UrCFmmDY-D51C1aSACyH3w2hcQf5B8bkFCVKvJQ0fcwaNpIvVTbTKiplB3HGt6LyqQ
J. Beyers. Beyond denial and exclusion: The history of relations between Christians and Muslims in the Cape Colony during the 17th-18th centuries with lessons for a post-colonial theology of religions
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0259-94222016000100004
Gavin Williams(2016). Slaves, Workers, and Wine: The ‘Dop System’ in the History of the Cape Wine Industry, 1658–1894.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308956094_Slaves_Workers_and_Wine_The_'Dop_System'_in_the_History_of_the_Cape_Wine_Industry_1658-1894/link/5cd95ec2a6fdccc9dda704bd/download
Gabeba Baderoon. The African Oceans—Tracing the Sea as Memory of Slavery in South African Literature and Culture,
https://www-jstor-org.ezproxy.uct.ac.za/stable/pdf/40468163.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A4aba792a6e1e54827812759184c31a53
https://africasacountry.com/2014/12/remembering-slavery-in-south-africa
https://www.capetownmagazine.com/kaaps
Barakat: First South African film in Cape Town's Afrikaans dialect.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-58189393
