SOUTH AFRICA: 200 years after slavery's abolition, South Africa remembers slaves shipped in both from Africa and across the Indian Ocean

On March 25th, 1807, Britain legally ended its involvement in the slave trade, bringing to a close its 270-year participation in one of the most horrific forms of human exploitation in history. That piece of legislature also led to the end of the slave trade in South Africa. But while some slaves at the Cape Colony came from Africa, many came from further afield - from across the Indian Ocean. The South African city of Cape Town owes its existence today to slaves who four hundred years ago helped build the first homes and other buildings in what was then a Dutch supply town on its shipping routes to the Far East. While the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is what horrified abolitionists with its commoditization of human cargo, the Cape saw slaves brought in through a less well known trade: the Indian Ocean Slave Trade. The Slave Lodge in Cape Town was built in 1679 as the slave lodge of the Dutch East India Company. It is believed that up to 9000 slaves, convicts and the mentally ill lived in the building between 1679 and 1811. Unlike the Transatlantic slave trade that exported slaves from Africa, slaves at the Cape were imported to Africa. The first slaves arrived a few years after the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a base at the Cape in 1652. The Cape remained a slave society for 176 years until the trade was abolished in 1834. "Most of the slaves that were brought to the Cape actually formed part of the Indian Ocean slave trade and for that reason there was significant elements to it that we need to bear in mind and we join the world in celebrating the bi-centenary of the abolition of the slave trade in the legal sense of the word. But in practical terms, after 1807, the slave trade still continued in various forms and in South Africa particularly 1808 has particular resonance for us because 1808 was the first slave rebellion n the Cape and here in South Africa, a useful lesson for us is that that slave rebellion was based on quite a multi cultural team of cohorts who organised the slave rebellion", said Vivienne Carelse, Director of the Iziko Slave Lodge in Cape Town. New exhibition galleries were recently opened at the museum to show that the Cape was an integral part of the Indian Ocean slave trade route. According to the museum website, slaves were brought to the Cape from four main areas: Indonesia, India-Ceylon, Madagascar and Mozambique. This in contrast to the route of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade that was used by European slave traders to transport African slaves to the plantations of the Americas and Caribbean. An installation evokes the cramped conditions of slaves aboard a slave ship, such as the Meermin, one of several ships sent by the Cape VOC authorities in the 18th century to Madagascar, to trade with local rulers and obtain slave men, women and children for the Slave Lodge in Cape Town. An alcove in the museum features an interactive column of light, which commemorates slaves through their names. Turning the rings in the column, each inscribed with names of slave inmates of the Slave Lodge, is a symbolic release. The rings in turn are associated with tree rings, the passing of time, and the story handed down over generations that slaves brought to the Cape were auctioned, as commodities, under trees. Finally, a room uses sound, projected images and animation to take visitors into the dark and oppressive conditions of slaves' lives in the Slave Lodge, according to the museum website.

ITN Source | March 26, 2007

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