ABSTRACT

The protracted colonisation of southern Africa's Cape created conditions of extreme prejudice and violence. Slaves, the unwilling migrants to the Cape, comprised a mixed group of individuals from the Dutch and British colonies: people with Malay, Malagasy, East and West African heritages. They combined to form the labour force for the colonial project, along with indigenous Khoe-San trafficked within an illegal domestic unfree labour economy. Escaped or ‘runaway’ slaves joined forces with groups of ‘skelmbasters’ (mixed outlaws), who themselves were descended from San-, Khoe- and Bantu-speaking Africans (hunter-gatherers, herders and farmers). Together, they mounted a stiff resistance that held up the colonial advance for many decades from the late eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth century. Engaging in guerilla-style warfare, they raided colonial farms for livestock, horses and guns. The ethnogenesis of such raiding bands is increasingly coming to the attention of archaeologists encountering the images they made of themselves in rock shelters, as well as the spiritual beliefs that they held in connection with escape and protection. The ‘reverse’ or ‘entangled gaze’ provided by this painted record gives us the perfect opportunity to view something of the slave and indigenous resistance from outside the texts of the colonial written record.

摘要

南部非洲海角的旷日持久的殖民化创造了极端偏见和暴力的条件。奴隶是不愿意迁往开普敦的移民，由荷兰和英国殖民地的混合人群组成：马来人，马达加斯加人，东非和西非文化遗产。他们与在非法的国内无自由劳动经济中被贩运的土著Khoe-San一起组成了殖民项目的劳动力。逃跑或“失控”的奴隶与一群怪人联手”（混合的不法分子），他们本身是讲桑，San语和班图语的非洲人（狩猎，采集者，牧民和农民）的后裔。从18世纪后期到19世纪中叶，他们共同抵抗了殖民地，发展了数十年。他们从事游击式战争，突袭了殖民农场的牲畜，马和枪支。这种袭击乐队的民族起源正日益引起考古学家的注意，他们遇到他们在岩石掩体中所拍摄的图像，以及他们与逃生和保护相关的精神信仰。这张涂色记录所提供的“反向”或“纠缠的目光”为我们提供了一个绝佳的机会，从殖民地书面记录的文本之外查看奴隶和土著抵抗。