03-16-2010, 06:56 AM
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Many of those sold in the Cape, however, had not been slaves at all in India, but domestic servants, bonded or otherwise. The Reverend William Wright, a missionary in the Cape of Good Hope in the 1830`s, wrote of the slaves: "Some are natives of Bengal and other parts of India, who came to the colony as free servants, and were bartered or given away to the colonists."
In fact, there is reason to believe that many of the slaves - far too many of them were children, even less than ten years old - had been kidnapped in India. Warren Hastings, the British Governor-General of India, wrote in a Minute on May 17, 1947: "... the practice of stealing children from their parents and selling them for slaves, has long prevailed in this country, and has greatly increased since the establishment of the English Government in it... Numbers of children are conveyed out of the country on the Dutch and specially the French vessels..."
In 1706, a Dutch political prisoner, Jacob van der Heiden, was confined in a dungeon in Cape Town with Ari, an Indian slave charged with serious offences. He found that Ari had been kidnapped as a child while playing with other children on the Surat beach. He had been sold from one master to another and had been treated so harshly that he had run away. He joined other fugitive slaves and lived on stolen food until he was caught.
Many of those sold in the Cape, however, had not been slaves at all in India, but domestic servants, bonded or otherwise. The Reverend William Wright, a missionary in the Cape of Good Hope in the 1830`s, wrote of the slaves: "Some are natives of Bengal and other parts of India, who came to the colony as free servants, and were bartered or given away to the colonists."
In fact, there is reason to believe that many of the slaves - far too many of them were children, even less than ten years old - had been kidnapped in India. Warren Hastings, the British Governor-General of India, wrote in a Minute on May 17, 1947: "... the practice of stealing children from their parents and selling them for slaves, has long prevailed in this country, and has greatly increased since the establishment of the English Government in it... Numbers of children are conveyed out of the country on the Dutch and specially the French vessels..."
In 1706, a Dutch political prisoner, Jacob van der Heiden, was confined in a dungeon in Cape Town with Ari, an Indian slave charged with serious offences. He found that Ari had been kidnapped as a child while playing with other children on the Surat beach. He had been sold from one master to another and had been treated so harshly that he had run away. He joined other fugitive slaves and lived on stolen food until he was caught.