Trade, Slavery, and Islam in the Cape Colony

Abstract

Abstract The formal integration of the Cape of Good Hope into Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; VOC) trading networks in the seventeenth century led to profound change at the southern tip of Africa, across all domains. This chapter explores the literature on two major developments that resulted from VOC settlement at the Cape: the practice of slavery and the arrival of Islam. Paying attention to shifts in historiographical approaches and changes in the broader sociopolitical landscape, it demonstrates how these themes, once peripheral to South African historiography, attracted increased scholarly attention from the latter half of the twentieth century. In recent decades, both Islam and slavery have gained further visibility as researchers—Africanists and scholars of other regions alike—have sought to place South Africa in connected histories and transoceanic frameworks.