Dr. Kate Ekama is a Senior Researcher at Stellenbosch University and the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa's Past (LEAP). Her work addresses aspects of the lived experience of colonialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries across the Indian Ocean World. Kate’s research contributes to better understanding the transformative period of emancipation in the Cape Colony and its legacies. Dr. Ekama leads the brand-new Project 1834, which relates to Stellenbosch University's broader transformation policy and efforts toward research, restitution, and social justice.
Project 1834: Slavery, Emancipation and legacies in Stellenbosch
Project 1834 brings together credible historical research, to inform public history and contribute to Stellenbosch University’s visual redress. This talk focuses on two parts of the project – reconstructing the domestic slave trade in the nineteenth-century Cape Colony; and investigating SU’s links with historical slavery. The Slave Registers are the foundation of both endeavours. The Slave Registers are fine-grained, individual-level records of enslaved people across the Cape Colony which were dynamic (updated at moments of change) and reveal forced and chosen enslaved mobilities. Large-scale transcription of these records now makes it feasible to shift between macro and micro levels of analysis, highlighting patterns of colony-wide trade and illuminating specific slaveholdings at moments in time. The project aims to promote credible local history, relevant in global conversations, and underpinning collaborative public projects.
Note
This public lecture is part of the Masterclass: Social Histories of Dutch Colonialism in the Indian Ocean World.
