Cape Town | Freedom And Movement

In establishing a British society in the Cape, women were needed to help fulfill positions and grow trade and commerce. This enabled women to have more voice and presence than they would in Britain.

Shifts in law and ways in which honor was satisfied led Cape Dutch women to turn from legal to religious authorities to gain redress. This was due to the highly misogynistic legal system in the Cape. Often courts sided with men over legal disputes. Women utilized ethics taught by the church to make conversations over disputes more fair.

malay_slaves_gathered_under_an_unbrella_eating_fruit.jpg

Within households of free men and women, black and white but primarily in English households, men wanted to have complete control over wives, children, and servants.

Women have multiple social roles within the household: productive (cooking, cleaning, and making clothes), reproductive (bearing offspring), and community management (ensuring kids had access to education and helping other women with their homes)

Girls' schooling was focused on domestic training rather than academics.

By the 1810s many free single European women became missionaries. Missionary homes acted as sanctuaries providing freedom from marginalization such as abuse. Missionaries acted as saviors of women but their work made missionaries more vulnerable.

Women and Economics

Under the Roman-Dutch law of the Cape, women held equal rights for inheritance to men. Wives were in a particularly strong position to accumulate property.

Women were seen as equals to men in areas such as owning and buying property.

All marriages were a community of property which meant that any property gained during the marriage was under the control of the husband.

The death of one spouse meant that property was divided between the family and the spouse.

Women played a major role in bringing in money for the family .

Free cape women didn’t embark on businesses independently but did work for businesses and manage property.

Poor women could only move into crop production as weeders and harvesters, with limited rights, if any, over the distribution of produce.

Settler women's personal involvement in the economic life of the colony disturbed British ideas in the lack of separation between private and public spheres. Women were more free to interact with men alone in their homes and there were no clear societal expectations in home, work spaces. This sparked discourse between those that were more constrictive over women's freedom and those that were more liberal.

slave-and-merchants-in-johannes-rach-greenmarket-square-1764.png

Around 1820 retail shops emerged and the separation between work and home became blurred.

“...substantial numbers of high-status houses in the city during the period 1740-1780 used front rooms as retail stores and living rooms and she stresses the fact of 'the complete physical integration of commerce into the domestic environment' at this time.”

~Antonia Malan (Historical Archeologist)

With an increased number of British immigrants, a new colonial middle class was formed.

The separation of working women from nonworking women carried a race aspect as most Black women were not as well off as white women and therefore had to work.

“European women were essential to the colonial enterprise and the solidification of racial boundaries in ways which repeatedly tied their supportive and subordinate position to community cohesion and colonial security”

~Ann Stoler (Anthropologist and Historian)

Sexualizing Women

Cape Town in the 18th century was a male-dominated society. By the end of the 18th century, only 20% of the slave population consisted of women.

For free women, professional reputation was tied explicitly to sexuality.

“The more a woman tried to attain a middle-class standard of respectability through her economic efforts, the more vulnerable she became to insinuations about her sexual reputation, for of course the ideology of separate spheres required women to stay in the home to be truly respected”

~Kirsten Mckenzie (Historian)

Colonial South Africa differed most extremely from early modern Europe with regard to the number of single women.

Premarital sex was socially rejected but many women tried to get around it with an exchange of promises or deals to support themselves. This was basically them selling their bodies in order for economic support.

Slave women were exposed to gendered pressures emanating from other male slaves, as many originated from male-dominated societies. Cape Town's patriarchal society enabled slave men to exert some control over slave women.

The vulnerability of slave women was particularly acute since slaveholders legally owned women’s bodies.

18th-century women – especially indigenous colonized women – were constructed as sexually voracious, needing to be controlled and tamed.

Law in Cape Town dictated that only women could be guilty of adultery, not men.

Adultery was between free men and slave women. These relationships ruined the reputations of women.

Free men who committed adultery with slave women were punished much less severely than women who had illicit sexual relations with slave men.

Khoi_Women_and_Dutch_Colonist_highly_sexualized_drawing.png

Women had few legal or social resources to protect themselves. Victims of sexual and other types of assault at the hands of their masters as well as other slaves found themselves unprotected and alone.

Oftentimes, female slaves engaged in sexual relations with their masters in order to secure advantages for their children and themselves.

The 18th century Cape stresses the profound vulnerability of the women who entered into sexual arrangements between slave and slave master. Often these relationships resulted from poverty and poor social support systems.

During the first few decades of the Dutch colonization (~1680), Khoi women were objects of sexual curiosity of passing sailors and visitors.

Free women who expressed their agency frustrated and angered authorities as they challenged societal norms but did not break the law.

Prostitution of slave women reached beyond the Slave Lodge or European men. Slave men sometimes made use of opportune moments to prostitute slave women, usually in exchange for money or food. These

interactions sometimes resulted in assault or rape.

Sarah Baartman Saartjie

(1789 - 1815)

View Page Sources

Women in Cape Town

Indigenous Women and Women of the European Settlers

History of the Cape

1756-1763 During the Seven Years' War many French and British ships visit the Cape. Visitors begin referring to the port as "Cape Town"

1803 Britain gives up control of the cape to the Batavian Republic under the Treaty of Amiens

1807 Slave trade ends in Cape

1822 Slave and black popular culture rises. This occurred on the outskirts of Cape Town and included men and women. Slaves would come together at night to dance and play instruments from their home tribes

1834 Slavery and controlled labor ends in Cape Built-in 1679 the slave lodge was the second oldest building in South Africa. Utilized until 1834, it housed about 9000 slaves throughout its time.

1806 Britain regains control of the Cape. By this time most of the western Cape remains under control by Dutch farmers

1824 The free press is established enabling free individuals, white and black, to publish their ideas and struggles.

1900 Cape Town has a population of about 15,000 European settlers

1795 Britain seizes control of the Cape from the Dutch East India Company

1817 Many free black women begin to enter the money exchange system

Women in Society

Women and Economics

Sexualizing Women

Created for GHS 210 at Butler University

1756-1763
During the Seven Years' War many French and British ships visit the Cape. Visitors begin referring to the port as "Cape Town"

1803
Britain gives up control of the cape to the Batavian Republic under the Treaty of Amiens

1807
Slave trade ends in Cape

1822
Slave and black popular culture rises. This occurred on the outskirts of Cape Town and included men and women. Slaves would come together at night to dance and play instruments from their home tribes

1834
Slavery and controlled labor ends in Cape

Built-in 1679 the slave lodge was the second oldest building in South Africa. Utilized until 1834, it housed about 9000 slaves throughout its time.

1806
Britain regains control of the Cape. By this time most of the western Cape remains under control by Dutch farmers

1824
The free press is established enabling free individuals, white and black, to publish their ideas and struggles.

1900
Cape Town has a population of about 15,000 European settlers

1795
Britain seizes control of the Cape from the Dutch East India Company

1817
Many free black women begin to enter the money exchange system