Whilst the Cape Colony might well have possessed slaves, the establishment of Port Elizabeth came at the culmination of the emancipation efforts by the British government. Hence the prevalence and practice of slavery was not of such great importance as it was closer to Cape Town.
In 1807 the British government banned the sale of slaves to all her colonies, including the Cape. This meant that no more slaves (from any destination) could be sent to work in the Cape. However, those who were already in the Cape continued to work as slaves until 1834 when all slaves in the British Empire were to be emancipated. Many of the slaves chose to remain on with their owners while some started a new life in and around Cape Town working as tradesmen. Gradually these people became absorbed into the Cape community.
Main picture: The reality of slavery
A family connection
In his Tax Return of 1824, my great-great-grandfather, the Rev. Francis McCleland of No. 7 Castle Hill fame, reveals that while residing at Clanwilliam in the Western Cape, he possessed a young female slave who presumably acted as the family maid. As no further information is available, I am unable to provide such information as her nationality, home language or whether she was born from slave parents. What is interesting to note is that the Rev. McCleland would only have purchased her after his arrival with the 1820 Settlers in May 1820, id est, after the abolition of the slave trade but before their emancipation in 1834.
Prize Negro
The fact that Francis brought out a servant from Ireland, Mary Robinson, a 24-year-old unmarried woman, is indicative of his status in Ireland as very few settlers were accompanied by their servants. William Parker was amongst the few who also brought out a servant. Certainly, by the 15th of January 1824 when Francis wrote to Bishop Waterford complaining that “for the want of a servant [to cook] or mechanics to build, we are frequently obliged to cook our own victuals [whilst] exposed to such burning sun” implies that Mary had long since left his employ. No trace can be found in the records of the fate of young Mary. Of all the possibilities, the most likely one is that she married one of the many unmarried settler men.
Francis then implores the Bishop to “greatly increase their comforts” by providing his family with “one Prize Negro as a servant and a small house”. Moreover, we are aware that by the time of the census for tax purposes in 1824-1825, Francis declared that amongst his possessions was one female slave over the age of 16 years. So presumably, Elizabeth no longer cooked Francis’ “victuals”.
Interestingly, in correspondence with a superior, he makes a formal request for a “prize Negro” slave. A search of the literature reveals that slaves in the Cape Colony originated in India, Indonesia and the east coast of Africa but not from South Africa per se. In that case, the term Negro probably refers to a black slave as opposed to an Asian slave.
Slaves in Port Elizabeth
The same census that my great-great-grandfather completed in Clanwilliam, indicates that Port Elizabeth at the same time had 64 slaves but that refers to slaves within the boundaries of the town. The effect of this definition meant that slaves on rural property were excluded from this census. From the work performed at the Stellenbosch University, they calculate based upon opgaafrolle that the number of slaves in in the Uitenhage District which encompassed Port Elizabeth amounted to 1399.
It is unclear who owned these slaves but as the vast majority of the people recorded in this census had in fact only arrived in Port Elizabeth after the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 had been passed, this implies that these slaves must have been brought in from other areas in South Africa and were not recent imports. This supposition is buttressed by Government Gazette records in the early 19th century which indicates that several of the wealthier, well-established residents in Port Elizabeth bought slaves in the Cape and shipped them to the Bay. Colin Urquhart notes that “the sealing brig George IV, smelly as she must have been, sometimes carried passengers, and in 1826 it was recorded that she transported several slaves to Algoa Bay for Frederick Korsten and J.O. Smith. The 1820 Settlers were not permitted to own slaves”.
Slaves on Bushy Park
In 1818, when Alcock purchased Klaas Kraal, the Opgaaf showed a total of 24 draught oxen and 86 breeding cattle. In that year the harvest of wheat was 200 muids and 60 bushels of barley but the opgaaf did not reflect that he possessed any slaves. By 1818 the Opgaafrol indicated that there were six slaves on the farm. At this point, Hernry Lovemore purchased Klaas Kraal and renamed it Bushy Park. During the early years of Henry Lovemore’s ownership of Bushy Park, there were no slaves listed on the opgaaf. Henry Lovemore had clearly not purchased the slaves from Alcock.
On 21 September 1831 Henry Lovemore’s name was entered in the ‘Appraisement of Slaves for the District of Uitenhage’. On that date the male slaves Spanjer and Sevier were registered as being in his service; they had been taken over from Bernardus Rens, a Dutch landowner who at the time of emancipation in 1833 had upwards of a dozen slaves on his extensive farmland.
At Bushy Park Spanjar was employed as a gardener. He had been born in Mozambique and was aged 45 and three months in September 1831. Sevier was a house servant, born in the Colony in 1800 or there-abouts. These two were not the first slaves, or ex-slaves, to have been employed at Bushy Park. The opgaaf for 1825 showed that in that year – and in that year alone – there was one female Prize Negro on the farm but there was no information on how she was employed. Probably she was a domestic servant, but not being a slave by definition, her name in not included in the Slave Register. Nothing is known about her, nor how she came to be included in the Bushy Park opgaaf.
Henry Lovemore acquired a third male slave, Jacob, on 5 July 1833, and on 19 April 1834 a female, Cathryn, with her eight-month-old son Piet. Jacob was classified as a husbandman in one register and domestic servant in another. Cathryn was a domestic servant and gave birth to a daughter, Delia, who was automatically registered under Henry’s name on 27 October 1834. Finally Marie, aged 23 ½ with her 4 ½ year old daughter Rachel, came to work at Bushy Park on 5 June 1835.
In terms of English legislation, the Crown was not permitted to expropriate property without compensation. As slaves bore a value, monetary compensation for the loss of slave labour was provided for in the Act.. The Compensation Court sat for the first time in May 1834 to assess claims submitted by slave owners. Henry Lovemore’s valuations are shown in the Remarks column of the extract from ‘The Appraisement of Slaves for the District of Uitenhage’. The total was £827 10s 0d. Good female domestically-trained slaves were the most highly valued, mainly because they were likely to be entrusted with the care of children, and had additional skills such as cooking and needlework. The Compensation Court completed its sittings in 1836, fixing compensation at £75 for each adult slave; in practice the Court did not consider itself bound to that figure and awarded employers less than that and considerably less than the amounts claimed. Henry Lovemore received £275 7s 6d. How long Spanjer, Servier, Jacob, Cathryn and Marie remained at Bushy Park we do not know, nor how much training they received. They may have stayed for a while to work at Bushy Park or Preston Park and then moved on in their own time.
There are two final points before we leave slavery behind us. Among Henry Lovemore’s grandchildren and great grandchildren, particularly the boys, some outbuildings at Bushy Park were commonly referred to amongst themselves as ‘the slave houses’. At one time the outbuildings were probably used as such. Preston Park has its own slave memorabilia. Outside the two former houses of Robert Henry, occupied at the end of the 20th century by Mr. Russell Lovemore (1967 – ), hangs a brass bell always referred to as ‘the slave bell’. Another hangs outside the home of Mr. James Lovemore (1934 – ), his house being that originally built by Henry Robert Lovemore One cannot be certain if these bells were there in the 1830s; at most, only one or two slaves were likely to have worked at Preston Park and then only for a short period. After emancipation, former slaves might have been included among the farmhands and the bells may have associations with them. It is quite possible that the bells were originally slave bells and were acquired at some later date by one of the Lovemores. When Mr. Brian Lovemore was young and growing up on the farm, the bells were used to call staff to meals and to summon them at milking time.
Final abolition
On Friday 1st August 1834, slavery was officially abolished by Britain. Legally these slaves were now ex-slaves or free men, but it was a subterfuge. For the next four years, their bondage took another form euphemistically known as an “apprenticeship.” This meant working for their former owners on an unpaid basis. It was only subsequent to the expiration of this period that they could elect to remain with their former owners as a paid employee, seek employment elsewhere or return home. Surprisingly, or maybe not so unexpectedly, many slaves opted to remain with their former owners as they had known no other life. With the power dynamic tilted more in favour of the employee, treatment improved, and the level of abuse declined markedly.
Abolition of slavery was one of the catalysts for another monumental event in South African history, The Great Trek. Having relied on the feudal system of slave labour, the Boers were displeased with the new dispensation. The largest group to leave the Colony came from the Alexandria district under the leadership of Karl Landman.
Capt. Evatt’s campaign
In the local community resided a man who, apart from being the Fort Commandant, took an inordinate interest in civic affairs. One of Captain Francis Evatt’s numerous hallmarks was that of being a staunch abolitionist.
In his excellent book, “Algoa Bay in the Age of Sail (1488 to 1917) – A Maritime History, Colin Urquhart records that “in 1823, Captain Francis Evatt, decided to take action under the Act against a ship’s captain whom he suspected of clandestinely importing two child slaves into the colony. He had noticed the captain of the Cape-owned schooner Stedcombe boarding the vessel in Algoa Bay accompanied by a small black boy. On further investigation, he learnt that the boy belonged to a Mr. Chabaud and that there was also a nine-year-old girl aboard whom the captain had reportedly purchased in Mozambique. Captain Evatt, tried in vain, at his own expense to have those involved prosecuted, going so far as to declare the schooner a ‘prize of war’. He sent her to Cape Town where he hoped the Admiralty Court would take action. Amid some embarrassment, the court declined, and the two children were duly handed over to the vessel’s owner, Nesbit & Co, for whom they became ‘domestic servants in a state of freedom’.
It is believed that Evatt’s actions and efforts over the next four years through the Royal Commission of Enquiry to establish why no action was taken and to recover his expenses (all £135’s worth), went some way to ending the illegal importation of slaves to the Colony. It most certainly marked Port Elizabeth as a port which slave traders would want to avoid”.
Slaving ship and an eponymous Jetty
While slavery might well have been abolished in the British Empire, it was still flourishing in the rest of the world. Such is the process of death. It lingers for a while, the victim thrashing but with ever-decreasing strength until the Grim Reaper overwhelms its victim. To accelerate slavery’s demise, in 1839 the Royal Navy utilised its ships stationed at Simon’s Bay, as it was then known, to suppress the slave trade.
It was while the HMS Curlew, on 26th April 1840, was patrolling just off Port Conducia at the far northern end of the Mozambique Channel – having the previous month sunk the Arab dhow, the Yaruga, suspected of being a slave trader – that it encountered the Dom Pedro Duque de Porto, flying the Portuguese colours. When boarded by men of the Curlew, her captain, Lavachaude Talacchaude, denied that she was a slaving ship. Instead he claimed that they were en route from Rio de Janeiro to Mozambique seeking cargo. This ruse did not deceive Lt Ross of the Curlew. As well as being armed and having a false deck, a search of the brig uncovered copious supplies of water and rice, well in excess of what the crew alone would require for their journey. The game was up. The Dom Pedro was seized. Under a scratch crew including two slaves from the dhow Yaruga, she set sail for the Royal Navy Base at Simon’s Bay under the command of Second Master Lt. H.C. Lew.
While en route down the southern African coastline, the Dom Pedro encountered a severe gale off the Eastern Cape coast. Badly damaged, being dismasted and with her sails blown out, she limped into Algoa Bay some eight days later. Instead of repairs being attempted, in early June her provisions were auctioned off and she was declared a condemned hulk. Her final fate would unfold on the 10th August 1840 when she was run ashore south of the landing place which lay between the North Jetty at Jetty Street and the mouth of a sluggish stream, known as the Baakens River, so-called after a beacon which previously marked the landing point.
Having stripped the brig of all valuable items, at the end of August, J.O. Smith & Co offered what remained of her for sale. There were no takers. Smith had even removed the cannons which he placed outside his house on the hill as hitching posts. With the passage of time, these cannons have vanished, and no trace can be found of them.
The slaver might have met an ignominious end as a rotting hulk embedded in the sand, but for the following 50 years, with its carcass exposed, it remained a stark reminder of the horrors of the slaving days. Early in 1899, work commenced on an iron-piled wooden-decked jetty south of the Baakens River close to this hulk. A later addition to this 486-metre jetty, was named the Dom Pedro Fishing Jetty. Little did most users of this facility realise the sordid history of the vessel after which this jetty was named.
‘Humane’ replacement
The actions to suppress slavery were now all at sea with British warships of the Cape Station patrolling the Mozambique Channel. The abolition of slavery had throttled the supply of cheap labour where it was needed. As a result, Britain introduced a more “humane” system known as “indentured labour.” This contemptible practice would never infect Port Elizabeth. It too, in the fullness of time, would be seen for what it was, an abuse of people, and scrapped.
Note: No photos or drawings of slaves in Port Elizabeth can be found. All such images relating to slaves used in this article relate to the Western Cape or elsewhere.
Sources
http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa
Algoa Bay in the Age of Sail 1488-1917 – A Maritime History by Colin Urquhart (2007, Bluecliff Publishing, Port Elizabeth)
http://thecasualobserver.co.za/port-elizabeth-yore-growth-population/>
The Lovemore Story by Bernard Johnson Privately published