This was the first comprehensive analysis of slavery in early colonial South Africa under the Dutch East India Company (1652–1795) when it was published in 1985. Based on archival research in Britain, the Netherlands and South Africa, it examines the nature of Cape slavery with reference to the literature on other slave societies. Dr Worden shows how the slave economy developed in town and countryside, and discusses the dynamics of the slave market, the growth of land concentration, the harsh life on the farm, and the developing polarization of rural race relations. He analyses the relation of fear and brutality in small farming communities and demonstrates that, contrary to previous assumptions, small-scale slavery produced conditions as severe as those experienced in the large-scale slave-holding systems of the Deep South. This important study contributes to an understanding of the development of South African colonial society and to comparative slave studies.
