Rethinking slavery at the Cape

Rethinking slavery at the Cape Rethinking slavery at the Cape: Although slavery was common, the Cape was not a ‘slave economy’ in the strict sense, as it did not rely solely on slavery for economic surplus, according to Lund University’s Professor Erik Green. Following the establishment of its trading post at the Cape, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) quickly began importing enslaved individuals. By 1705, approximately 85% of farmers in Stellenbosch – the center of crop farming at the Cape – enslaved people. Numerous scholars have argued that enslaved labor was central to the expansion of European settlement in the region (see Green 2022 for an overview). Slave labor enabled settlers to establish profitable farms by exploiting imported human capital. As illustrated in Figure 1, the enslaved soon outnumbered the European settlers.