Five years after the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a revictualling station at the Cape for the Company’s fleet sailing to the East for silks and spices, the VOC granted a number of their employees the right to settle as farmers or free burghers. With this move came massive changes to the nature of the Cape station.
Suddenly there were settlers from Europe (the free burghers) living and working on Cape soil, work for which the burghers wanted slave labour. The Company commissioned a quantity of their ships as slavers for the sole purpose of carrying slaves to the Cape primarily from Indonesia, India/Ceylon, Madagascar and Mozambique. Among these slavers were the Voorhout, the Soldaat, the Peter and Paul, the Barneveld and the Brak between 1676 and 1742. This database includes the slave cargoes carried aboard each of these five VOC slave ships, between 1676 and 1742.
The data derive from records of slaving voyages made to northwest Madagascar, specifically to Magelage, Maningaar and Maringando (see details below). Also find more records on slaves through our growing database by Prof. Robert Shell called Changing Hands.
Voorhout (1676) with 281 entries (slaves purchased at Magelage and Maningaar 1676):
Primary archival source: The Hague, Algemene Ryksarchief, Overkomende brieven KA (old series) 3989, Archive Folios: 672-695
Secondary source: James C. Armstrong, “Malagasy Slave Names in the Seventeenth Century” Omaly sy Anio, 17-20 (1983-84): 45-51.
Soldaat (1696) with 122 entries (slaves purchased at Maringando 1696-1697):
Primary archival source: The Hague, Algemene Ryksarchief, Overkomende brieven KA (old series), 4014, folios: 1188-1203
Secondary source: James C. Armstrong, “Malagasy Slave Names in the Seventeenth Century” Omaly sy Anio 17-20 (1983-84): 52-54
Peter and Paul (1699) with 209 entries (Malagasy slaves purchased in Madagascar):
Primary archival source: Den Haag, Algemene Ryksarchief, Overkomende brieven, KA (old series) 4020, Archive Folios: folios 1116-1133
Journal Author Title Details: James C. Armstrong , “Malagasy slaves names in the seventeenth century”
Secondary source: Omaly sy Anio 17-20 (1983-84): 55-59
Barneveld (1720) with 28 entries (Malagasy slaves purchased in Madagascar):
Primary archival source: Western Cape Archives and Records Services (WCARS): C 338, Attestatien, folios: 753-761ff
Secondary source: G.C. de Wet (editor), Resolusies van die Politeke Raad, Deel 6 (12th March 1720): 26-27
Brak (1742) with 45 entries (41 slaves purchased in Madagascar and 4 in Delagoa Bay).
Primary archival source: Western Cape Archives and Records Services (WCARS): C 661, Scheeps en Andere Journalen, 1707-1753,folios: 235-326
Secondary source: Maurice Boucher, “The Voyage of a Cape Slaver in 1742” Historia 25, 2 (March 1979): 50-58 (especially list on pages 57-58)
Example of Slaver Ships Database entry.
