¹ A. Blakely, ‘Remembering slavery in the U.S.’, and S. Drescher, ‘Commemorating slavery and abolition in the United States of America’, in G. Oostindie (ed.), Facing Up to the Past: Perspectives on the Commemoration of Slavery from Africa, the Americas and Europe (Kingston, 2001), 102–8 and 109–12, respectively.

² L. Sansome, ‘Remembering slavery from nearby: heritage Brazilian style’, in Oostindie (ed.), Facing, 83–9.

³ Notably at Liverpool and Greenwich. For debates over the 2007 commemorations, see the ‘Slavery abolition “commemorations” are a farce’ thread on www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1070 (accessed May 2007).

⁴ G. Oostindie (ed.), Het Verleden onder Ogen: Herdenking van de Slavernij (The Hague, 1999); R. Daalder (ed.), Slaven en schepen (Amsterdam, 2001).

⁵ Bruner, E., ‘Tourism in Ghana: the representation of slavery and the return of the black diaspora’, American Anthropologist, 98 (1996), 290–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Osei-Tutu, B., ‘African-American reactions to the restoration of Ghana's “slave castles”’, Public Archaeology, 3 (2004), 195–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶ Academic revisionist study of Cape slavery was heralded by J. Armstrong, ‘The slaves, 1652–1795’, in R. Elphick and H. Giliomee (eds.), The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1820 (1st ed., Cape Town, 1979), 75–115, which was followed by three key monographs: R. Ross, Cape of Torments (London, 1983); N. Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa (Cambridge, 1985); and R. Shell, Children of Bondage: A Social History of the Slave Society at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652–1838 (Johannesburg, 1994).

⁷ Ward and Worden, ‘Commemorating’, 203–4. On the ghoemaliedjies, one of the most notable elements of a slave oral culture, Winberg, C., ‘Satire, slavery and the “Goemaliedjies” of the Cape Muslims’, New Contrast, 19 (1991), 78–96.Google Scholar

⁸ APO ‘Straatpraatjes’ column, 4 Dec. 1909, translated in M. Adhikari (ed.), Straatpraatjes: Language, Politics and Popular Culture in Cape Town, 1909–1922 (Pretoria, 1996), 61–2.

⁹ M. Adhikari, Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community (Athens OH, 2005).

¹⁰ Ward and Worden, ‘Commemorating’, 206.

¹¹ L. Witz, Apartheid's Festival: Contesting South Africa's National Pasts (Bloomington, 2003), 178–9.

¹² S. Jeppie, ‘Historical process and the constitution of subjects: I. D. du Plessis and the reinvention of the “Malay”’ (BA Honours dissertation, University of Cape Town, 1986–7). Du Plessis's The Cape Malays (Cape Town, first published 1944) was widely circulated and reprinted between the 1940s and 1970s. In the 1980s, in reaction to apartheid terminology, the Malay Quarter became known as the Bo-Kaap. Objections were raised in 1999 to attempts to reverse this, on the grounds that it evoked apartheid but also that it ‘smacked of opportunism … aimed at currying favour with the Malaysian authorities’. ‘“Malay” stirs Bo-Kaap tempers’, Saturday Argus, 4–5 Sept. 1999.

¹³ This was in parallel to the emphasis of revisionist academic historical writing about South Africa at this time. Such themes were dominant, for example, in the seminal conferences and publications of the University of the Witwatersrand History Workshop movement and in the New Nation newspaper articles of the 1980s which contested apartheid educational history curricula. [No ed.], New Nation, New History (Johannesburg, 1989).

¹⁴ Michael Weeder recalls the sense of embarrassment that accompanied the singing of ‘Ons bruin mense, seuns van slawe’ (Us brown people, the sons of slaves), a variation of the ANC song ‘Mayibuye’, at a trade union rally in the 1980s. Personal communication, 25 Oct. 2008. See also Ross, Cape of Torments, 120, for reference to this song.

¹⁵ Ward and Worden, ‘Commemorating’, 207.

¹⁶ Eldridge, M. and Seekings, J., ‘Mandela's lost province: the African National Congress and the Western Cape electorate in the 1994 South African elections’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 22 (1996), 517–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ Adhikari, Not White Enough, 178.

¹⁸ ‘Rather Khoi-Khoi than toyi-toyi’. Cited in S. Jackson, ‘Coloureds don't toyi-toyi: gesture, constraint and identity in Cape Town’, in S. Robins (ed.), Limits to Liberation after Apartheid: Citizenship, Governance and Culture (Oxford, 2005), 212–13. The toyi-toyi was a marching step used by anti-apartheid protestors and is here seen as characteristically African.

¹⁹ Under the Restitution of Land Rights Act of 1994, land compensation claims could only be made by individuals or communities that had been dispossessed since 1913. This was the date of the notorious Land Act that restricted black land ownership rights to 7 per cent of the country.

²⁰ www.dti.gov.za/ccrd/ip/policy.pdf (accessed 7 Dec. 2008).

²¹ For fuller discussion of these issues, see N. Worden, ‘The forgotten region: commemorations of slavery in Mauritius and South Africa’, in Oostindie (ed.), Facing, 48–54.

²² ‘Slavery a complex issue say leaders’, Daily Dispatch, 4 June 2001.

²³ ‘New group out to woo Coloureds’, Cape Times, 9 Oct. 1996.

²⁴ ‘Gang bosses and poets turn out as new Coloured group meets’, Cape Argus, 2 Dec. 1996.

²⁵ Letter from Geoffrey Mamputa to Cape Times, 23 Oct. 1996; ‘The “children of slaves” gather together’, Weekly Mail and Guardian, 18–24 Oct. 1996.

²⁶ Report of a National Conference of the UNESCO Slave Route Project hosted by the Interim Forum held at Robben Island, 24–26 Oct. 1997, circulated to delegates.

²⁷ Thabo Mbeki, Debates of the Constitutional Assembly (Hansard), (Cape Town, 1996), cols. 422–7.

²⁸ Republic of South Africa, National Heritage Resources Act, No. 25 of 1999, Clause 3 (3) (i).

²⁹ ‘Reflecting on our history and heritage of slavery’, Western Cape Provincial Honours citations, Genadendal, 18 Dec. 2005.

³⁰ Cornell, C., ‘Whatever became of Cape slavery in Western Cape museums?’ Kronos, 25 (1998/9), 259–79Google Scholar.

³¹ Shell, Children of Bondage, ch. 6; H. Vollgraaff, The Dutch East India Company's Slave Lodge at the Cape (Cape Town, 1997).

³² Helena Kingwill, ‘Dark secret of slavery in SA finally out in the open’, Big Issue (Sept. 1998), 7.

³³ Cornell, ‘Whatever became of Cape slavery?’, 271–5. For slave plantations in the US South, see in particular J. Eichstedt and S. Small, Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in Southern Plantation Museums (Washington, 2002).

³⁴ Phylicia Oppelt, ‘A piece of our historical picture is missing’, Sunday Times, 13 Jan. 2002. An exhibition about the excavations and the site itself were displayed to the public shortly after the work was completed in 1990, but was subsequently neglected and the site was grassed over. For the archaeological discoveries, see Markell, A., ‘Building on the past: the architecture and archaeology of Vergelegen’, South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 7 (1993), 71–83.Google Scholar

³⁵ C. Le Fleur, ‘The Khoe and San and the politics of identity, nationally and globally’ (C. R. Swart lecture, University of the Orange Free State, 23 Aug. 2006). Bredekamp started using the name Jatti in preference to his previous first name, Henry.

³⁶ G. Abrahams-Willis, ‘Breaking the chains of silence: excavations at the Slave Lodge’, publicity brochure, Slave Lodge, Feb. 2000; David Yutar, ‘Testimony of the spade reveals our slave history’, Cape Argus, 2 Mar. 1990.

³⁷ Malan, A. and Schrire, C., ‘Milking the system: the identification of the “Painted Slave Lady” at the Slave Lodge, Cape Town’, Quarterly Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa, 55 (2000), 16–19.Google Scholar

³⁸ The exhibition includes a video for which academics provided research, a partial reconstruction of the slaving ship Meermin, a large revolving wheel with the names of slaves from the Slave Lodge data base, and story boards based on the writings of academic researchers. There are almost no material artefacts on display.

³⁹ G. Abrahams-Willis, ‘City dig “breaking chains of silence”’, Cape Argus, 1 Dec. 2000. The article was published on Emancipation Day.

⁴⁰ These include the musicals Rosa (1996) and Ghoema (2005), the play Salaam Stories (2003) and the dance and drama performance Cargo (2007). Ghoema drew strongly on academic research about slave contributions to the musical history of the Cape and was also performed overseas, while Cargo utilized transcriptions of slave archival records to evocatively represent the experience of Cape slaves.

⁴¹ A selection of the columns was revised and published as J. Loos, Echoes of Slavery: Voices from South Africa's Past (Cape Town, 2004). Other books aimed at a general readership included R. Jacobs's novel The Slave Book (Cape Town, 1998, republished in 2007), and A. Mountain, An Unsung Heritage: Perspectives on Slavery (Cape Town, 2004), aimed at a tourist market.

⁴² R. E. van der Ross, Up from Slavery: Slaves at the Cape, Their Origins, Treatment and Contribution (Cape Town, 2005), p. iii.

⁴³ www.cape-slavery-heritage.iblog.co.za/about/ (accessed Aug. 2008).

⁴⁴ www.capefamilyresearch.com (accessed Mar. 2007).

⁴⁵ The project was run by three academics with a specialization in slave history: myself, and Andrew Bank and Susan Newton-King, both of the University of the Western Cape.

⁴⁶ Ebrahim Rhoda cited in ‘Going back to my slave roots’, UCT Monday Paper, 20 (23–29 Apr. 2001), 4–5. Ebrahim Rhoda subsequently completed an MA thesis based on this research, entitled ‘The founding and development of the Strand Muslim community, 1822–1928’ (MA diss., University of the Western Cape, 2006).

⁴⁷ C. Cornell, Slaves at the Cape: A Guidebook for Beginner Researchers (Cape Town, 2000).

⁴⁸ Minutes of Cultural Sites and Resources Forum Seminar, UCT, 2 July 2003. I am grateful to Antonia Malan for this reference.

⁴⁹ Ebrahim Manuel, ‘The Slavery and Heritage Project at the Cape Archives on Simon's Town’, unpublished papers, June 2002.

⁵⁰ Mehru Jaffer, ‘South Africans of Indonesian descent back home’, Jakarta Post, 19 June 2000.

⁵¹ P. Faber, Group Portrait South Africa: Nine Family Histories (Cape Town, 2003), 156–79.

⁵² ‘Authentic proof and genuine evidence to our ancestors (Tuans) in Pemangong – Sumbawa – Indonesia established on 7.9.1999’, in Manuel, ‘The Slavery and Heritage Project at the Cape Archives on Simon's Town’.

⁵³ ‘Ebrahim Manuel traces his roots’, Simon's Town Historical Society Bulletin, 21 (July 2001).

⁵⁴ A permanent display on Simonstown's Muslim community was opened in 1997. The Museum runs an oral history project (Project Phoenix) which focuses especially on those forcibly removed from the town. www.simonstown.com/museum/stm_phoenix.htm (accessed Sept. 2006).

⁵⁵ ‘Simon's Town returning to its integrated past’, Sunday Independent, 30 Dec. 2001.

⁵⁶ J. Jonker, ‘The silence of the dead: ethical and juridical significances of the exhumations at Prestwich Place, Cape Town, 2003–2005’ (M.Phil. diss., University of Cape Town, 2005); Blakey, M., ‘The New York African burial ground project: an examination of enslaved lives, a construction of ancestral ties’, Transforming Anthropology, 7 (1998), 53–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁷ Melanie Gosling, ‘Thousands protest at Oudekraal’, Cape Times, 16 Sept. 1996.

⁵⁸ Letter by Yaghah Adams, PRO, Muslim Judicial Council, Athlone, Cape Argus, 23 Dec. 1999.

⁵⁹ Green, L. and Murray, N., ‘Burial grounds: sacred sites and heritage in post-apartheid Cape Town’, Journal for Islamic Studies, 24 & 25 (2004–5), 4–16.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ For example, Gill Moodie, ‘The people underfoot’, Sunday Times, 3 Aug. 2003.

⁶¹ Luke Stubbs, ‘The spirit of Lydia lives on’, Cape Times, 1 Dec. 1999; Hilary Benjamin, ‘A proud church history reflects apartheid diaspora’, Atlantic Sun, 28 Nov. 2002.

⁶² Michael Weeder (sermon at commemorative service, St. Philip's Church, Cape Town, 1 Dec. 2002).

⁶³ From a poem by Zenzile Khoisan read at a vigil at the site on Sunday 5 Oct. 2003.

⁶⁴ Melanie Gosling, ‘Skeletons halt V&A building’, Cape Times, 29 Oct. 2003.

⁶⁵ ‘Funeral march for Cape slaves’, news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/3647825.htm (accessed Apr. 2004).

⁶⁶ Bonita Bennett, ‘The Prestwich Place project’ (lecture given at Commemoration of the Slave Revolt of 1808 Colloquium, Iziko Slave Lodge, 25 Oct. 2008).

⁶⁷ Bonita Bennett, ‘Reburial insensitive’, letter to Cape Times, 9 Oct. 2003.

⁶⁸ Commemorative brochure, Western Cape Provincial Honours, Reflecting our History and Heritage of Slavery, Genadendal, 18 Dec. 2005.

⁶⁹ Michelle Jones, ‘Zille unveils slavery memorial erected on Church Square’, Cape Times, 25 Sept. 2008.

⁷⁰ Email from ‘M. Hartley (slave master surname)’ to Lucy Pharma, Events Office, City of Cape Town, 17 Sept. 2008, copied to all those invited to the opening.