South Africa

As early as the 17th century, Dutch traders imported enslaved Africans from present-day Mozambique, Madagascar, and parts of the Indian Ocean to the Cape Colony. Along with the Indigenous populations of the San and Khoi people, enslaved Africans provided the labor necessary to build Dutch trade networks and construct settlements. These tasks included domestic labor, agricultural labor in the colony’s wheat and wine fields, construction, and fishing. The British Empire took over the Cape Colony in 1815 and abolished slavery in all of its territories in 1838. However, colonial governments in South Africa continued to exploit people of color, passing a complex set of laws and practices that restricted property ownership, regulated movement through the pass system, and prevented them from controlling the terms of their own labor. After the abolition of slavery in 1834, discriminatory laws and practices not only persisted but were reinforced and extended across South Africa, laying the groundwork for institutionalized racism. These colonial legacies of expropriation, racial oppression, and inequality directly influenced the development of apartheid in the 20th century, as apartheid codified the racial segregation and economic exploitation rooted in the earlier era of slavery, reinforcing white supremacy and systemic inequality in South Africa

Interviews conducted for The Unfinished Conversations Series feature farmworkers, activists, and educators in Cape Town and the Western Cape. They spoke about how the legacies of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid continue to shape South Africa’s present. Interviewees drew links between the exploitation of Black laborers under these systems and the poor working and living conditions, violence, and structures of control and racial domination that impact farmworkers today. Others discussed how they harness visual art and poetry to reckon with the past and reinterpret family histories through a lens of resistance. For many participants, understanding slavery and its afterlives helps inform visions of a freer South Africa defined by equal land access, better working conditions, and an end to racial inequalities.