One of the most exciting projects that I am currently involved in is the transcription of the British Cape Colony's slave emancipation records. In 1834, more than 780 000 men, women and children were emancipated from their slave status across the British Empire. An estimated 36 000 of them resided at the Cape. In a large project, funded by the National Research Foundation,the Elite Fund at Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences and the Andrew W. Mellon-funded Biography of an Uncharted People project, we* have transcribed the emancipation record of each these former slaves. Several students are now working on understanding their life trajectories before and after emancipation; PhD student Lisa Martin hopes to match these records to other sources, tracing the economic mobility of the former enslaved across time. Postdoc Kate Ekama will investigate the process of compensation payments to the former slaveholders. As more data becomes available, more questions will be tackled.
Legacies of loss
Legacies of loss
Legacies of loss
One of the most exciting projects that I am currently involved in is the transcription of the British Cape Colony's slave emancipation records. In 1834, more than 780 000 men, women and children were emancipated from their slave status across the British Empire. An estimated 36 000 of them resided at the Cape. In a large project, funded by the National Research Foundation,the Elite Fund at Stellenbosch University's Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences and the Andrew W. Mellon-funded Biography of an Uncharted People project, we* have transcribed the emancipation record of each these former slaves. Several students are now working on understanding their life trajectories before and after emancipation; PhD student Lisa Martin hopes to match these records to other sources, tracing the economic mobility of the former enslaved across time. Postdoc Kate Ekama will investigate the process of compensation payments to the former slaveholders. As more data becomes available, more questions will be tackled.