ABSTRACT

This article examines the meanings of apprenticeship in the Cape colony in the wake of emancipation. It focuses on a small group of white child labourers brought to the Cape from England in the 1830s by a London-based philanthropic organisation, the Children’s Friend Society. The paper highlights how these children’s apprenticeships were described and understood in relation to other groups of labourers at the Cape. The children were compared with formerly enslaved people as they entered the period of apprenticeship after emancipation, as well as with indigenous Khoe and San labourers. The children’s status was difficult to define as they were neither free labourers nor enslaved people. Integrating this case study into discussions of apprenticeship at the colonial Cape highlights multiple understandings of apprenticeship circulating in that context. Further, a focus on age sharpens understandings of apprenticeship in the Cape and beyond.

摘要

本文探讨了解放后开普殖民地学徒制的含义。它关注的是 1830 年代由伦敦慈善组织儿童之友协会从英格兰带到开普敦的一小群白人童工。这篇论文重点介绍了如何相对于开普敦的其他劳工群体来描述和理解这些儿童的学徒制。这些儿童在解放后进入学徒期时被与以前被奴役的人以及土著 Khoe 和 San 劳工相比较。孩子们的地位很难界定，因为他们既不是自由劳动者，也不是奴隶。将此案例研究整合到殖民地开普敦的学徒制讨论中，突出了在这种背景下流传的对学徒制的多种理解。