Female inboekelinge in the South African Republic, 1850–1880

Abstract

An outline is provided of slavery as experienced by African girl captives in the South African Republic (who after being seized along with boys, were resistered as apprentices, on inbockelinge in Dutch). Based on brief published autobiographies and scattered archival and newspaper references, the article examines the nature of capture, transport and sale of female children, their acculturation as youngsters and response as adults to their domestic roles in Dutch homesteads, their memory of origins, resistance to slavery, assimilation into African and Christian mission communities, and their adaption to industralizing, post-slavery South Africa.