Who could be trusted in a deeply unequal, cosmopolitan society? This project looks beyond colonial paper realities to reconstruct bottom-up social networks in the 18th-century Cape Colony and how these were performed vis-a-vis formal institutions.
“A friend in the court is better than a penny in the purse” was a common proverb in the early modern period. But where did people with small purses find trustworthy friends to vouch for them in times of need? What role did gender, religion or kinship play in crafting support networks within highly asymmetrical colonial societies? And how did their inhabitants strategically deploy these ties of trust before courts of law, church councils and notaries? By scrutinizing the roles, interactions, and in/exclusion of witnesses in court, church and credit records of the Dutch Cape Colony, Economies of Trust aims to identify the social bonds that shaped society from below, and how these were performed vis-à-vis colonial institutions. Ultimately we will determine if and how these horizontal systems of support intersected with the vertical social categorizations propagated by colonial legislation.
Lived practices of trust-making
Rather than viewing colonial society solely through the lens of institutional structures, the project focuses on the lived practices of trust-making: witness testimonies, baptism applications endorsements, and interpersonal credit relationships. It asks how social ties functioned in a society where formal equality was absent but mutual dependence often necessary. The research pays special attention to the ways in which individuals strategically positioned themselves within both informal networks and formal institutions, negotiating loyalty, credibility and access to justice.
International collaboration
This project combines the hands-on expertise in colonial life course analysis of the Radboud Group of Family History (Nijmegen) with the track record of the Bonn Center for Slavery and Dependency Studies in researching strong asymmetrical dependencies that include but are not limited to slavery, and the academic reputation of the Ghent University in studying social relations and structural inequalities in the long run. The core team includes Dries Lyna, Eva Marie Lehner and Wouter Ryckbosch and three postdocs, supported by local student-assistants in Cape Town.
Critical engagement
This project is both highly relevant and timely. It not only deepens our understanding of colonial history - both within Europe and South Africa - but also illuminates how bureaucratic classifications have shaped societal structures in these regions. In a moment when public debates in both South Africa and Europe are increasingly focused on rigid racialized identities, this historical project determining what connected rather than divided people in the past has the potential to critically engage with these narratives in the present. Its insights could foster a more nuanced conversation about identity beyond entrenched perspectives.
