Liberated Africans in Cape Colony in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

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Periodical article

Title:	Liberated Africans in Cape Colony in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century
Author:	Saunders, Christopher
Year:	1985
Periodical:	International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:	18
Issue:	2
Pages:	223-239
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	The Cape South Africa
Subjects:	abolition of slavery colonialism History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/217741
Abstract:	From 1808 Africans aboard slave ships bound for the Americas were seized by the British navy off the West African coast and taken to Freetown, where they were adjudged 'prizes' of His Majesty and their human cargoes released. There are vivid accounts of what happened to the Liberated Africans on the Freetown, peninsula, and how a Creole society evolved there. That about five thousand Prize Negroes were taken into service at the Cape over the four decades after 1808 however has never drawn much attention in the literature. These Prize Negroes played a not unimportant role in the transition from slave to 'free' labor following the end of British involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The author describes here what happened to these Liberated Africans at the Cape in the post-slave trade period and in the post-emancipation years of the Colony. For most blacks in the colony, the benefits of the transition from slavery to freedom were marginal, and certainly far less than scanty literature on emancipation at the Cape usually suggests. - Notes.