Episode 61 – British Governor Lord Caledon launches the pass law system in the Cape in 1808
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Show notes
This is episode 61 and the English are back in Cape Town.
This was a momentous moment for southern Africa. Gone was the VOC and its chaos, in its place a world superpower had arrived and it was going to exploit the region in various ways over the next century.
This led much later in the 19th Century to what became known as the Scramble for Africa.
In January 1807 David Baird who’d seized the Cape made the great mistake of sending an expedition under Brigadier General Beresford and Commodore Sir Home Popham against Buenos Aires without the approval of the authorities in England. As soon as this became known, Baird was court-martialled and hustled back to Britain handing over the reigns of power to Irish Peer, Du prez Alexander, second Earl of Caledon.
While the Governors were playing 19th Century musical chairs, in the eastern Cape at Uitenhague the new landdrost Jacob Cuyler was beginning to improse himself. As an embittered loyalist who’d been forced to flee his homeland of America during the revolution, he was going to seek conflict immediately with the missionaries at Bethelsdorp
On November 1st 1808, Caledon offered a compromise in dealing with the issue of labour, and the Khoekhoe. It offered the Khoekhoe the full protection of the law,and at the same time, tried to satisfy the demand for labour. From that date onwards, Khoekhoe employed by farmers had to be given written contracts that stipulated their wages.
Caledon’s law, which became a kind of Magna Carta for the Khoekhoe, stipulated further that the contract had to be for a year, and farm workers could not be forced to stay on longer because of debt or because of any other subterfuge. As with all laws, however, there was a catch. The Khoekhoe at the same time had to stop wandering around like their ancestors and settle down. Their nomadic lifestyle, shattered already by the arrival of colonialism, was now prescribed.
