Popular Community in 18th-Century Southern Africa: Family, Fellowship, Alternative Networks, and Mutual Aid at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652–1795

Abstract

This paper examines the character of popular community in the Cape of Good Hope, located at the southern tip of Africa, from 1652 to 1795. The Cape's popular classes consisted of slaves, indigenous Khoesan labourers, and sailors and soldiers. Traditionally, scholars have portrayed the various sections of the popular classes as socially and politically atomised. I contest this view, and attempt to make sense of the numerous instances of popular social and political connection and co-operation in archival records – including government records, especially criminal records, private letters and diaries, and travellers' accounts – that have been obscured or dismissed by historians. I show that through family, fellowship, the construction of alternative social networks and communities, and practices of mutual aid and solidarity, the popular classes in the Cape established a broad, class-based sense of belonging, or common community.