Early VOC settlers questioned the hidden costs of slavery

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 19

T2015 HE VAN Riebeeck Society for the Publication of South African Historical Documents (VRS), has recently posted its annual volume, An Entirely Different World: Russian Visitors to the Cape 1797-1870, to subscribers scattered throughout the world:

It’s virtually impossible these days to assemble a complete set of the society’s 96 highly regarded publications, and when a scarce volume does surface, it invariably commands a high price.

The VRS now offers paperback digital reprints of some of its own publications, allowing a new generation of historians and writers to own copies of vital source documents. For further information, see: www.vanriebeecksociety.co.za.

Volume 1 was reprinted in 2008, 90 years after it appeared in 1918. Its title: The Reports of De Chavonnes and his Council, and of Van Imhoff, on the Cape, gives little hint of the interesting material within, including the question of whether “European farm hands and agriculturists would be less expensive than slaves”.

This was the query posed by the Lords Seventeen in the Netherlands to Governor Maurits Pasques de Chavonnes and his Council of Policy in June 1716, when the VOC settlement was 64 years old.

It’s important to remember that the motivation for the inquiry was economic rather than humanitarian. Would the refreshment station show more of a profit if the VOC employed whites to do its menial work?

The commander of the garrison, Captain Dominique Marius Pasques de Chavonnes, certainly thought so. He cited the example of the Huguenot settlers at Drakenstein, whose children helped them in their work, and wrote: “These wage earners all contribute to the revenue of the Company, and the welfare of the country. The money spent on slaves goes out of the country to its loss…”

If slaves were phased out, escapes and fears of rebellion would become things of the past. Chavonnes estimated that 250 European pioneers would be able to do the daily work of 500 to 600 slaves and emphasised the hidden costs of slavery: “The old slaves, the pregnant and nursing slaves, and also the children, can do practically no work, and yet, year after year, they cost the Company 23 000 to 27 000 guldens, exclusive of the expense occasioned by death, runaway slaves, the long sea voyage necessary to obtain the slaves, the interest on the capital, the clerk of the slaves, the overseer, the school-master, school mistress and the midwife, for all these involve additional expense.”

A well-chosen force of white labourers and apprentices should include 110 horticulturalists, 11 male nurses, 17 builders, 18 quarrymen and brickmakers, 22 stevedores and 66 farm servants accustomed to working with rakes, wheelbarrows, shovels, spades and scythes.

Despite his glaring lack of compassion, the captain made some good points, but what did his fellow-councillors think?

More next week.