Freedom at issue: Vagrancy legislation and the meaning of freedom in Britain and the Cape Colony, 1799 to 1842

Elbourne, Elizabeth

doi:10.1080/01440399408575129

Cited by 41 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…In criminalizing nomadic behaviour, the designation ‘Hottentot’ subsumed a range of Khoe/San identities and their roles in colonial servitude. ‘Vagrants’ were those who transgressed this category by failing to work, and became synonymous with primordialism, mobility and danger (Elbourne 1994). The figure of the vagrant featured as a foil in administrative efforts to ensure a supply of labour for the colony and generate stability on the Cape's frontier.…”

Section: The Vagrantmentioning

confidence: 99%

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In praise of outlaws

King¹

2018

Arch. Dial.

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Abstract‘Outlaw’ is not a common category of archaeological thought but it is perhaps more useful than meets the eye. ‘Outlaws’ are typically viewed as contingent on legal and capitalist systems; they are, I suggest, also material, affective phenomena that draw our attention to how transgression, dissent and disorder are conceived through archaeological thinking. Here, I outline some ways in which ‘outlaw’ figures are ‘good to think with’, particularly for historical and colonial contexts but also for broader, more global frontier situations. Through three sketches of archetypal ‘outlaws’ in southern Africa's recent past, I consider where these disruptive figures draw attention to how mobility, violence, rebellion and state imagination (and the limits thereof) have been imagined through material misbehaviours.

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Section: The Vagrantmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To be a vagrant was to be something ‘empty’ and primordial, abrogating one's place in society. As one Khoe/San man put it, ‘I fear a vagrant is something like a dog, you may knock him on the head and no notice will be taken of it’ (quoted in Elbourne 1994, 140).…”

Section: The Vagrantmentioning

confidence: 99%

In praise of outlaws

King¹

2018

Arch. Dial.

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“…13 With regard to nineteenth-century Natal, Stephen Peté further outlines how distinctions between convict and free labourers were confused in practice, and how this impeded the maintenance of discipline on the colony's public works. 14 These contributions notwithstanding, further systematic research is needed into the relationship between convict labour, the "labour question", and violence under settler colonialism; this is particularly relevant concerning Namibian history. While there have been some forays into the study of forced labour in GSWA's concentration camps, convict labour has been largely neglected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Violence and Work: Convict Labour and Settler Colonialism in the Cape–Namibia Border Region (c.1855–1903)

Herzog

2021

Journal of Southern African Studies

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This article focuses on convict labour in the Namibian-Cape border region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It situates this form of unfree labour within broader trans-colonial discussions on the "labour question" and compulsion after the abolition of slavery. The article demonstrates that convict labour was a flexible and steadily available labour force, which officials used on both sides of the Orange River to manage, in part, the fluctuating labour demands of public and private employers.While local Cape officials utilised it to meet re-occurring labour deficits at short notice, their German counterparts followed the long-term objective of "educating" Africans to work by means of compulsion. At the same time, colonisers on this shared frontier of the Cape Colony and German Southwest Africa lamented the weak deterrent effects of convict labour, as this potentially undermined their claimed authority and control over convicts as well as African labour more broadly, partly unsettled by convicts' own actions. Ultimately, this article argues that officials conceived of violence as a key measure to counter these subversive tendencies, but that it had equivocal consequences which further complicated the "labour question" on the ground. By analysing the debates on and (violent) practices of enforcing convict labour, the article also opens a window into the contentious formation of settler colonialism on the ground.

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‘Appetite comes with eating’: Of Raiding and Wrong-Doing

King

2019

Outlaws, Anxiety, and Disorder in Southern Africa

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Freedom at issue: Vagrancy legislation and the meaning of freedom in Britain and the Cape Colony, 1799 to 1842

Cited by 41 publications

References 4 publications

In praise of outlaws

In praise of outlaws

Violence and Work: Convict Labour and Settler Colonialism in the Cape–Namibia Border Region (c.1855–1903)

‘Appetite comes with eating’: Of Raiding and Wrong-Doing

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