The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

The Missing People: Accounting for Indigenous Populations in Cape Colonial History

På svenska

Author

Summary, in English

Because information on the livelihoods of indigenous groups is often missing from colonial records, their presence usually escapes attention in quantitative estimates of colonial growth, inequality and productivity. This is nowhere more apparent than in the eighteenth-century Dutch Cape Colony where the role of Khoesan in Cape production has frequently been acknowledged but almost completely ignored in quantitative investigations. Combining household-level settler data with anecdotal accounts of Khoesan labour, this paper explores the impact of including Khoesan guesstimates into earlier calculations of slave productivity, societal inequality and GDP growth in the VOC period.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Document type

Working paper

Publisher

Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA)

Topic

  • Economic History

Keywords

  • Cape Colony
  • Khoesan
  • economic history
  • settler agriculture

Status

Submitted