The purpose of this research is to examine the development of racial order at the Cape as discussed by Elphick and Giliomee. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which racial order emerged at the Cape, and then to discuss the most significant aspects of such order, including how and why such aspects changed on one hand, and he extent to which British efforts aimed at resolving conflicts created by the racial policies either reinforced or dismantled the notion of "order" as applied to race.
The background of the concept of racial order at the Cape includes an appreciation of two elements of South African society that were fundamental to the working out (to a degree) of racial policy by the British. The two elements are the long term presence of slavery in South Africa and the concept of both slavery and race as reflected in the Dutch colonial policy of the region. This context is important because it sets the stage, in part, for the British response to issues revolving around race.
As Armstrong, Elphick, and Giliomee explain, an important basic policy of Dutch colonialism was that of slavery, both inside Dutch colonies and outside, in Dutch sponsored slave trade. Thus, when Jan van Riebeeck founded the city of Cape Town and the Dutch East India Company did not effectively oppose slavery as a mainstay of commerce, what was really happening was that the stage was being set for racial prejudice that marked European colonization of Africa. As Armstrong notes, by 1795, the slave population exceeded that of the free population. Meanwhile, the Dutch East India Company did not interfere with the slave trade, which in this period included mutilation and torture.1 Giliomee and Elphick also note the pattern of European enslavement or killing of blacks by new settlers on the eastern frontier, in the Namaqua tribe area around the Fish River. Basically, the European settlers were left to their own devices by colonial go...