The Historian, the Premier and Forced Labour in the Cape Colony, 1878–1879

Abstract

In the 19th century, the Cape Colony displayed a seemingly insatiable appetite for cheap, unskilled labour in commercial agriculture, domestic service, mining and for public works. During the 1877–78 War of Ngcayecibi, or ninth frontier war, the colonial government captured, deported and indentured thousands of Xhosa men, women and children to address perceived labour shortages. Children as young as six years of age could be indentured for periods of up to 12 years. The policy of using the war to create a pool of cheap, exploitable labour was dressed up as ‘civilising’ Africans. This article seeks to address gaps in the historiography of the forced labour scheme by examining its scope and scale and the experiences and responses of people who were forced into servitude. I argue that forced labour was as much a political and cultural intervention as an economic one, and that it formed part of a broader colonial policy of establishing the dominance of the colonial state over Africans.