B.D. Crous (Benjamin)

Benjamin Crous is a socio-economic historian interested in the life trajectories and narratives of enslaved and other coerced labour groups in colonial South Africa. He completed his undergraduate studies at Stellenbosch University, South Africa where he graduated cum laude for his dissertation on the memorialization of the 1766 enslaved uprising on the Dutch slaver, Meermin. His M.A. research, also conducted at Stellenbosch University, examined the life courses of formerly enslaved people brought to the Cape Colony after 1807 by anti-slavery vessels as part of the global effort to abolish the oceanic slave trade. These liberated or recaptured Africans were 'freed' from slavery and into apprenticeships which at the Cape lasted fourteen years.

His current research focuses on the horizontal and intergenerational inheritance practices among formerly enslaved people in 18th and 19th century Dutch and British colonial South Africa and the consequences on the lives and opportunities of their core and extended families