Jaap Durant Annual Lecture
Jaap Durant Chair on a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society
1 December 2025 – University of the Western Cape
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I believe that we as human beings are wired to collect identities (plural) and discard identities, from the day we are born to the day we die, and these go way beyond notions of race, ethnicity, colour and nation.
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I would like to thank the esteemed Jaap Durant Chair, Professor Emeritus Hein Willemse, for extending me the privilege and honour of giving the Jaap Durant Annual Lecture 2025. I also thank you all present today who represent thought leadership in our communities. I am nourished by the works of many of you who engage at the coalface of the vexing contemporary issues before us. I dedicate this opportunity to the memory of one of my mentors, our late Uncle Reg September, and I also pay tribute to that remarkable mensch and compatriot in struggle, the late Professor Jaap Durant.
At the outset, I must make note, on the subject of identity, that I believe that we as human beings are wired to collect identities (plural) and discard identities, from the day we are born to the day we die, and these go way beyond notions of race, ethnicity, colour and nation.
Another important observation to note is that although I will make note of useful genetical information, we all need to be aware that genetics does not indicate identity. Years ago, we were happy to note that here was a science that disproves race and ethnic theories. But, in time, we have seen that once more, European academics with their stereotypical thinking have dangerously toxified the science with flawed racial and ethnic overlays as well as a skewed historical and geopolitical eye. In Africa, instead of talking about DNA geolocation in southern Africa and western and central Africa, European geneticists use non-scientific terms like Khoisan and Bantu, and employ stereotypical speculative views of early peoples. This leads to the fuelling of ignorance and to the misreading of science, used to “prove” ethno-nationalist claims and politicised nonsense.
Autosomal DNA oversimplification by labs, who fail to also explain the snapshot limitations, have become a commercial identity industry, so much so that some scientists critique it as “genetic astrology”.1 Furthermore, I will quote from documents of the UN, ILO and other organisations and from special rapporteurs, but we must be careful not to put this on a pedestal and then not employ critique. Some of the work of these bodies, again European-dominated, is shoddy and uses unfortunate racial, ethnic, tribal, colourist and stereotyping language and conceptualisation. As with everything, we should always be critical and cautious.
At the heart of our subject today is our intertwined ancestral-cultural heritage rooted in indigenous and enslaved peoples. We broach the subject in a world of controversy about indigeneity, where European settlers in Israel claim to be indigenous people and are busy with forced removal and genocide of the Palestinian indigenes of Gaza and the West Bank. They have set up an indigenous people’s embassy in Jerusalem, and some of our own people under the banner of indigeneity are involved in that project. Lies and suppressed truths lie at the heart of this aberration.
My books – The lie of 16522 and The truth about Cape slavery3 – respectively highlighted that South African indigenous history does not start in the 17th century, and that the story of slavery at the Cape has been caricatured and reduced to project little about the identities, contributions and reality of slavery. While most applauded these explorations of historical distortion, its content also resulted in some from the white right and some of their fellow travellers from among our own people levelling attacks, personal vilification, death threats and threats to hold a mass burning of my books. When I was just 21 years old, two of my publications4 were banned under apartheid, and thus on my way to 70 years old I again experienced the shadow of apartheid ideology on my life. Restorative memory is a threat to many a vested interest.
Cape indigenous society, in all its diversity and with its multifaceted economic modes of living off natural bounty (I prefer this expression to that of “hunter-gatherers”), as well as from large-scale cattle ranching and husbandry and through rich agricultural endeavours, was projected by the Europeans in minimalist, primitivist framing. Our forebears’ cultures and technologies were branded as “uncivilised”, and today this branding and depreciation continues. And we were told that Africans had no history and civilisation before Europeans arrived. We were told that there was no multi-ethnic African society and that a largely empty land existed for the taking.
The roles of two indigenous historical figures – Xhore5 and Autshumao6, who travelled abroad and were multilingual founders of the town and port of Cape Town, which hosted over 1 000 ships and 120 000 travellers, with average stayovers of three weeks per vessel7 before 1652 – were airbrushed from history by European historians, so that their contributions were underrated and grossly distorted.
The over 2 000-year history of the ever-changing multi-ethnic occupation of South Africa was argued away in favour of a false “empty land” narrative, projecting a sudden invasion by so-called alien herders and agriculturalists of a southern African territory said to be solely inhabited – until the 14th century – by what was called a sub-human exotic species of people, branded as so-called “bushmen”, but who had been given some rudimentary skills by a lost white tribe of Israel who first dwelled here but are now extinct.8
The many distortions cover our truly great and complex precolonial and post-1652 history and heritage, in which our Cape indigene forebears and enslaved African-Asian forebears left an indelible footprint of development despite colonial erasure. Restorative memory demands that we un-erase this historical injustice. In so doing, we must craft restorative justice and the necessary restitution and reparation that the post-1994 South Africa has failed to acknowledge and to realise.
In this address, I will be making the case that at the heart of commemorating the resonance and echoes of African indigeneity and the rising up from enslavement as African-Asian captives, “restorative memory” is vital to the crafting of “restorative justice” and for celebrating identity and liberation.
I will also look at definitions of “indigenous”, “primacy” or “firstism”, “tribalism”, “nation” and “nationalism”, and ask whether these colonialist and imperialist redefinitions of our past enhance or detract from the celebration and commemoration of our ancestral-cultural heritage.
We are challenged to embrace decoloniality rather than embrace the very coloniality of our oppressors when we explore restorative memory to be able to craft a liberatory restorative justice. The Analects of Confucius9 notes: “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language is not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.”
Misnaming in African memory is not accidental. It is colonial and apartheid distortion, and it is repression of memory for the purpose of control – divide and rule. Mimicry of this colonial narrative, rooted in repression, today poses great danger for liberation. Ignorance should never be elevated to the status of bliss.
I would like to start off by paying tribute to my own ancestral continuum, who are an integral part of my syncretic faith and the life that I have lived. I know and am conscious of all my ancestors from the last 400 years, and I know them by name and know their stories10.
I pay tribute to my 30 known enslaved African-Asian ancestors, from a range of African and Asian locations and locally born. I also pay tribute to my eight Cape-indigenous ancestors rooted in the /Kamisons, Cochoqua, Damasqua and Gqunukwebe Xhosa.
My mother’s grandmother, Francina Dampies11, was born a direct descendant of a mixed Damasqua Khoe and Xhosa lineage, and married a British man at the Philipton mission in the Kat River settlement in the Eastern Cape in 1855. This is the same Dampies lineage of our esteemed late poet and voice of conscience, Adam Small12.
I celebrate within my identity the echoes of this indigeneity and those who rose up from slavery, and I am proud of it. I also pay tribute to my ancestors from seven European countries, particularly those who broke with colonial norms and crossed the colour line in contributing to the Camissa African identities that emerged from this African-Asian-Euro mix of peoples. At the Camissa Museum13, which some of us established at the Castle of Good Hope, you will be able to see the story of the 195 roots of origin that we are able to celebrate through restorative memory.
At root, the cornerstone of our identities today, as South Africans, are three African Indigene Foundation Peoples – San aboriginal peoples, and the later Khoe and Kuvale-Kalundu-Urewe cultures. The oldest coming together of San-language speakers and Ntu-language speakers is manifest in Khwe-Kuvale-Kwepe genetic admixtures in ancestry, dating back to 2 300-3 000 years ago in south-western Angola14. The western Ntu-speaking cultures are referred to as Kalundu cultures, after the Kalundu Hill district of Zambia spreading south-west and south. Urewe cultures spreading westward and southward take their name from Lake Ukurewe, also known as Lake Victoria.
The slow migratory drifts and the ancient mixing of Ntu-speaking, Hadzabe, Sandawe and San cultures did not first occur in modern times when Europeans arrived. They are ancient, and much is likely still to emerge from research15. Today, genetic studies also show Tswana, Sotho and Xhosa people with up to 24% ancestry related to southern African early peoples associated with San and Khoe, and up to 66% ancestry sub-Saharan related to Ntu-speaking Kalundu-Urewe16, while people labelled “coloured” who did DNA testing showed up to 20-36% sub-Saharan readings associated with Ntu-speaking Kalundu-Urewe ancestry and up to 32-43% southern African DNA readings associated with San and Khoe17. Testing also shows significant south Asian, Southeast Asian, Eurasian and European lineage admixture. Genealogy research and social history support these genetic findings. The “coloured” testing varies regionally, with the lowest San and Khoe results on the Cape Peninsula and the highest in the northern and central Cape.
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All the research information that we have today should caution any claims among us of being “First” or having exclusive claims to ethnic roots, or of some having primacy over others.
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All the research information that we have today should caution any claims among us of being “First” or having exclusive claims to ethnic roots, or of some having primacy over others. We have many more ties that bind us through our three shared African Indigenous Foundation Peoples and later admixtures, than elements of our past that divide us. This must inform all discourse about indigeneity. Our history of descendancy from the African-Asian enslaved must also be integrated with our celebration of indigeneity.
What stands out in the ties that bind us, is a history of diverse indigenous African peoples, colonised by European imperialism, who together faced a range of adversities and traumatic experiences, including ethnocide, genocide, slavery, dispossession and apartheid. What also stands out is that together we fought against adversity and rose above it. This is what our celebration of indigeneity and rising up from slavery is rooted in – not narrow ethno-nationalism.
As I deliver this talk, know that this is not just an important academic exploration. For many, the issues raised are also a personal and collectively personal celebration of rising up from the adversities of colonialism and slavery – a celebration of indigeneity and survival from overwhelmingly traumatic roots.
We need to be aware that colonial and imperial ideologies are still with us, and we are still under assault. That assault and the divisive imperial strategies involve European notions of “nations”, “tribes”, “supremacy” and “primacy”, Christian nationalist ideology – which is better known by its nickname, apartheid – and all false claims to racial and ethnic exclusivity, touted by various group-think platforms who wave these flags. These have no place in celebrating indigeneity and a rising up from slavery.
Liberation has nothing to do with exclusiveness and has everything to do with celebrating the “ties that bind us in our diverse makeup” as the people of Mzansi. We are the inheritors of so many common threads, and the greatest common thread is the shared experience of fighting severe oppression and surviving this. This is the cornerstone beyond ethnicity in our ancestral-cultural heritage. And as Maya Angelou18 said, still we rise! This is who we are.
It is also important to emphasise and celebrate that we are Africans, just as former president Thabo Mbeki once proudly proclaimed in his “I am an African” speech to Parliament on 8 May 199619.
When invoking the term “African”, for the sake of restorative memory I note that the first to self-identify as Africans in the early Cape – before any other – were the mixed offspring of African-Asian enslaved and Khoe, who can be traced to the progenitor of the black Orlam Afrikaner clan, Oude Ram Afrikaner, in the 1690s, and his sons Klaas Afrikaner and Afrikaner Afrikaner, who died in incarceration on Robben Island20. These are the true roots of black Afrikaner or African heritage and of the Afrikaans language, despite the claims by the organisation established and primarily influenced by two mid-19th century Netherlands-born immigrants, Arnoldus Pannevis and Casparus Hoogenhout, who, together with their students Stephanus and Daniël du Toit, established the Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners in 187521. For restorative memory, we rightly ask, “Wie was die verkeerde Afrikaners?” (Association of True Africans? Who were the false Africans?)
The first modern political organisation in South Africa, black or white – in 1883 – which used the name Afrikaner or African in their title was not the Afrikaner Bond, but rather the Kimberley Afrikaner (African) League22, which was followed by the African People’s Organisation in 190223, both with a membership predominantly of people whose descendants from 1910 on were classified as “coloured” when this was formalised. Yes, once we were proud to call ourselves Africans. That is restorative memory.
On the international stage, Alice Alexander Kinloch24, a Camissa African woman from Kimberley and formally labelled “coloured” from 1911, became the founding mother of the international organisation known as the African Association in 1897, and was a founder personality of the first Pan African Conference in 1898, also held in 1900. She played this role along with advocate Henry Sylvester Williams from Trinidad and Zacharia Perigrino from Ghana, both of whom played a role in Cape politics25. All were of multi-ethnic African ancestry. In founding the Pan African Movement, its founders recognised an inclusive definition of African indigeneity that placed a common experience of people rooted in Africa who were victims of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, displacement and a global system of white supremacism and its hierarchy of race, as the defining framework for their identity. In the African diaspora, any person with at least one forebear indigenous to Africa was seen as African.
Pan African consciousness was the antithesis of European ideas of nationalism, primacy or firstism, and tribalism. This is fundamental to understanding restorative memory.
I am reminded of the classical philosophical concept of “double negation”, which is simply expressed as, “It is not the case that it is not raining,” which effectively means that “it is raining”26. In modern-day South Africa, we change meanings of words and embrace false historical roots of terms, as well as double-speak, while simultaneously saying that we are opposed to the colonial oppression of our forebears. We often embrace the very colonialism that we say we reject. In so doing, we negate what we have negated.
Restorative memory challenges us to look and see with different eyes. Elna Boesak, in a radio programme series so entitled, implored us to examine “Os geskiedenis tussen die kraake”. We can never craft restorative justice without restorative memory. The result would be a corruption of the very justice that we seek for our people, and opportunism based on falsehood will replace any just outcome.
Let us look at definitions and histories of terms.
Firstly, it is important to note that there is no formal or legal definition for “indigenous people”. After attempting to come up with a binding definition for over three decades from the 1980s to 2010, the UN, ILO, AU, ACHIPR and Working Group of Indigenous Peoples finally concluded that, given the widely different views on this term, it was undesirable to have a definitive legal definition27. However, the UN, with the support of all these international bodies, has in the Annexure of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples28 provided a clear and nuanced framework and parameters, which can be used as a reference by marginalised indigenous communities and states as a tool for crafting restorative justice.
What also does exist is a broad dictionary definition of indigeneity, and alongside old definitions there is a modern formulation that frames the challenge to be addressed. And then there is Article 1 of the ILO Convention, No 16929, which does not define but instead elaborates on coverage.
The simplest traditional dictionary definition of the word indigenous, or specifically indigenes (as related to people), derives from “native” and is: “Indigenes or indigenous people are those who or those descended from people who inhabited a place from early times, and especially a place that was colonised”30. This definition, which the UN proceeds from, has strong reference to pre- and post-European colonisation rather than distant ancient times, as is elaborated on by the UN commission study on the Doctrine of Discovery – or “empty land” theory – and who all were in a territory when Europeans imposed this doctrine31 of the “empty land”.
The modern UN emphasis, however, is about focusing on those facing marginalisation and discrimination, and while proceeding from the dictionary definition, it rather focuses attention on “non-dominant societies descended from the inhabitants of territories before the arrival of colonists”, as per what is referred to as the Jose Martínez-Cobo approach32.
Using the term “non-dominant” recognises that some indigenous peoples are today minorities “who face marginalisation and discrimination by more powerful dominant societies” and who may or may not be indigenous in the frame of nation-states. It is important to understand this nuance when we invoke the term “indigenous”, which is not about primacy of claims to territory, nor othering of fellow peoples in a territory, nor secession – concepts that are rejected and carry caution in the United Nations and other declarations – that of the African Union, in particular – on defending and upholding the human rights of indigenous peoples.
The UN declaration states up front, right in the beginning, that it affirms that in focusing on rectifying marginalisation, discrimination and the right to self-determination of indigenes, this must be founded on respect for the fact that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness of civilisations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage of humankind33.
The AU Commission’s Working Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities on Human and People’s Rights is even more specific:
(We recognise) that some are in a structurally subordinate position to the dominant groups and the state, and this leads to marginalisation and discrimination …. It is, of course, important that the term “indigenous peoples” is not used as a chauvinistic term with the aim of achieving rights and positions over and above other ethnic groups or members of the national community, nor as a term to nurture tribalism or ethnic strife and violence.34]
The UN and ILO declarations, though they carry no legal weight, recognise that there are five groupings of societies in South Africa who are “non-dominant indigenous peoples that face marginalisation and discrimination”. These are the three San aboriginal peoples, and then the Korana, Nama and Griqua, and the Cape Khoe35. This framing informs the South African government’s position and that of the South African Human Rights Commission.
I believe there are several other societies in South Africa that can be found hidden and marginalised within dominant indigenous societies, and which could have similar claim, and likewise with the broader majority underclasses of communities whom I refer to as Camissa Africans. Understanding this nondoctrinaire framework to indigeneity is important for exercising restorative memory and restorative justice.
Moving on, let us examine terms like “tribes”, “nations”, the feudalist monarchy ideology of “kingdoms”, and the nationalist ideology that drives the use of these terms.
“Tribe” is a term which has been globally rejected as derogatory but remains vogue in South Africa in ethno-nationalist circles, as a relic of our colonial and apartheid past. Let me quote from an excellent 2013 paper from David Wiley36 at the African Studies Center of Michigan State University:
“Tribe” is a concept that has endeared itself to Western scholars and journalists for a century, and is primarily a means to reduce the complexity of the non-Western societies of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the American plains. It is no accident that the contemporary uses of the term “tribe” were developed during the 19th-century rise of evolutionary and racist theories, to designate alien non-white peoples as inferior or less civilised and as having not yet evolved from a simpler, primal state.
“Tribe” and “exotic primitivisation” are insulting colonial terms that belittle indigenous societies. Africa has civilisations, societies and social groups like every other people of the world. The modern disparaging European term “tribes” hides and represses our history as Africans in South Africa, where these 19th-century names were given to people by British and German academics, who then repressed and covered over the many other indigenous names that existed before modern times.
The hereditary hierarchical feudal monarchy overlays on Cape indigenous peoples like the San and Khoe, is a 21st-century invention, rooted in substantial speculations by European writers and academics. Titles like chiefs, kapteyns, kings and so on were European terms, which they depended on in their paradigm of thinking, and which they overlaid on indigenous people. There is no evidence of use of these terms or concepts by indigenous people. I deal with this in my books, but here it suffices to show that Dr Yvette Abrahams, Bernadette Muthien and others note that San and Khoe societies had their own titles and customs, no hierarchical political structures, no patriarchal dominance, no armies and no class system or substantial stratification37. Their approach was advanced and preceded the European embrace of democratic principles.
It is simply not true that transhumance pastoral societies, and societies living from natural bounty, had different stratified classes and class-based hierarchies as per feudal monarchy systems, with kings, queens, princesses, princes, emperors and such. It is opportunistic and disparaging of indigene heritage to claim otherwise. We need only look at our neighbouring countries of Namibia and Botswana, where strong social infrastructure and customary oversight still exist among San, Nama and Damara, to see the real traditional social structures, social group names and titles38. It is one thing to demand recognition of marginalised indigenous leaders – GAOBS and GAOS/GAOTARA – equal and equivalent to that of the traditional leaders of dominant societies who use monarchic feudal titles, but it is terribly wrong to be adopting the copying of those titles and structures, and in so doing killing off an important part of indigene heritage. That could be seen as a self-deprecation of indigenous cultural heritage.
Nations, nationalism and popular sovereignty are an 18th-century, European ideological set of constructs39 deeply attached to racism, and have no place in our indigenous history, heritage or belief systems.
In 1885, this paradigm of thinking was imposed on Africa by the European imperialists who carved up Africa as their colonial possessions, creating countries as nation-states at the Berlin Conference40. The imposition of the European notion of “nations” on Africans remains the greatest insult and form of oppression for indigeneity, not only in Africa but across the imperial and colonial footprint in the world.
Then there is the terminology of primacy-firstism, which is cousin terminology to supremacism. I will focus on South Africa, but the subject is pertinent to India and many other places, too.
Primacy-firstism in South Africa is deeply embedded in the European concept of “terra nullius” or the empty land doctrine41. This doctrine emerged from the Roman Catholic Church and was also adopted by Protestantism, but only became popular with European historians under British rule in the Cape during the Eastern Cape 100-year war against the Khoe and Xhosa. It basically said that there was no people or civilisation in any territory if the “beings” found there were not Christians. This is why indigenous societies were destroyed between the hammer of colonial military conquest and the anvil of the Christian civilisation mission.
The early proponents of the ideology of “firstism” saw indigenous peoples as subhuman – exotic creatures, part human and part beast. Mary Barber, who is an icon in the social sciences for white people as a founding figure in several academic disciplines in South Africa, referred to the aboriginal San people as bushmen, defining them as being “just one step up from their relations swinging in the trees”42 and as requiring the patronage of the Europeans, who she saw as having first claim to South Africa under the terra nullius doctrine. Among her many racist theories, she introduced “firstism” and argued that a lost tribe of white Jews were the first people and had taught skills to the client bushmen. Historians – Holden and Theal – propagated that the Khoe and Xhosa were recent alien invaders who had arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries. This is the root of distorted “firstism” claims which has, with variations, continued to this day. The erroneous concept was, over time, cloned for use by descendants of the very people that the original developers disparaged. Today, as earlier noted, we know that the San, Kalundu and proto-Khoe coexisted together as neighbours in the Eastern Cape for 1 000 years before the Europeans turned up, and they did not practice apartheid segregation.
“First people” is a term legitimately used globally, but differently to its ethnically narrow South African usage. Abroad, it has a precise meaning as: “All indigenous communities, collectively, who existed in a territory before European colonial occupation and dispossession”43. This means that not just one or two ethnicities, but all ethnicities indigenous to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, are the “first peoples” in terms of global meaning. This meaning is fundamental to restorative memory, especially today when the old, false, historical doctrines of Barber, Holden and Theal, arguing that barbarian black aliens invaded and colonised South Africa, are once more becoming popularised by Verwoerdian ethno-nationalism and racism.
Today, we know that both the proto-Khoe and the Kalundu Ntu-speakers were in the Eastern Cape long before the Europeans, and settled alongside the !Ga!ne (Gqanqe) from 650 CE44 after migratory drifts through South Africa over the previous 400 years, from western Zimbabwe and the Limpopo region. Likewise, the proto-Khoe had reached the Western Cape as far as Cederberg and Kastielberg sometime between 600 and 1000 CE45, long before European arrival. Indigenous Africans did not practise apartheid and did not maintain pure, separate ethnicities. In fact, ethnic groups evolved, changed over thousands of years and proliferated, producing ever new naming identities, with some also naturally dying out. It can further be shown through genetic science that several San and Khoe peoples are a mix of Ntu-speaking and San-speaking cultures that go back to at least 3 500 years ago, to the Kuvale-Khwe mix in southern Africa46.
Genetics, linguistics and archaeology today show us much more about the East African roots of proto-Khoe cultures and the West and East African roots of Kalundu-Urewe cultures, which lay at the foundation of all of South Africa’s diverse African societies, and that the San aborigines are the cement that binds us together in ancient history and heritage. This has ancient roots and is certainly not something that first emerged in the 15th century when the Europeans arrived in southern Africa, which was not an empty land with only one local ethnic group – regarded by the Europeans as being exotic, subhuman half-people.
To some degree, my work – The lie of 1652 – goes into this in some detail, but already over the last five years since publication so much more has been revealed. Most in South Africa are still unfortunately locked into the colonial narrative, and even express these flawed narratives as though they are progressive anticolonial views supportive of indigeneity.
Through post-apartheid and postcolonial critical approaches to genetics, archaeology, palaeontology, rock art, anthropology, linguistics, social history and oral history, we today have a better informed window on our past, and this empowers restorative memory, with new evidence about our ancestral-cultural past that challenges much of the indoctrination all of us suffer from.
Many liberally use the erroneous term “Khoisan” and talk of a “Khoisan” people, rather than San and Khoe. This term and concept only came into being in 1928, based on a despicable track record earlier, in 1904-1909, in the genocide in Namibia against the Nama, !Kung and Herero; it was made by Leonhard Schultze-Jena, a man who advocated the extermination of the !Kung and Nama47. The San aboriginal people are not an appendage of the Khoe who first emerged 2 000 years ago. The Schultze-Jena colonial formulation continues as an assault on restorative memory and justice to this day, even though as far back as a conference in Namibia in 1996, San representatives and the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa, the KURU Family of Organisation and the South African San Institute gave clarity on why this word and other derogatory terms should not be used. Argument on this misrepresentation is made in the only book produced by a collective of 17 San people, assisted by editors – Voices of the San48. There was consensus that only for common interest concerns, and not as a term describing people, the term “Khoe hyphen San” followed by the word “Matters”, both with capital letters, could be reservedly used.
Schultze-Jena was later supported by UCT academic Isaac Schapera, who promoted the term “Khoisan”, which made it go viral in several social sciences, and from there it became a much abused word in ethno-nationalism.
Colonialism and apartheid-constructed identities are underpinned by falsities, and we need to be careful that this does not distort the celebration today of the echoes in our lives of our ancestral roots. The ancestors of our evolved societies today did not practise apartheid separation, but mixed freely across ethnicities. Restorative memory cannot ignore the “ties that bind us” in South Africa, which have deep ancient roots to be celebrated. History does not start in 1652.
Colonial and apartheid social engineers in 1910 and 1950 reduced over 100 African societies to 10 so-called linguistic “Bantu nations”, and over 40 African societies to seven pseudo ethnic classifications under an umbrella label “coloured”. When investigated and stripped down, this social engineering shows our suppressed, real roots to be in indigenous African communities and African-Asian slavery.
Today, public discourse forgets that nobody was specifically classified as “coloured”. The term was a broad category encompassing multiple classifications, and not a stand-alone term. Between 1950 and 1991, there were only three official apartheid categories – White, Coloured and Black (previously Native and then Bantu).
The actual classifications were Cape coloured, Malay coloured, Chinese coloured, Indian coloured, Griqua coloured, Other coloured and Other Asiatic coloured. What happened was that in 1963, when the apartheid regime accepted that the UK did not recognise British Indians, they established a South African Indian Affairs department, but the classification remained as Indian coloured. Up until 1904, however, there were many more of these ring-fenced groups, which would after 1911 be collectively labelled as Coloured. Besides those already mentioned, these included bushmen, Nama, Korana, Hill Damara, Cape Hottentots, Masbiekers, Turks, Manilas, Saints, Caribbeans, etc. The numbers of each who self-identified, and where they lived, are included in the 1904 pre-Union of South Africa Census49. We forget so much today, and we project a skewed version even of apartheid in our lifetime. Restorative memory speaks to addressing this as well.
The non-indigenous doctrines of primacy claims, race claims, nation claims, “colouredism” claims – even sometimes dressed in primacy-indigenous clothing – proceed from repressed memory and falsehoods overlaid on indigeneity, and this is a threat to both restorative memory and restorative justice, as much as colonialism and apartheid were such a threat.
Our ancestral-cultural heritage, rooted in African-Asian slavery and indigenous slavery at the Cape, known as the Inboekelingstelsel50 (or Registered Labour System, miscast as apprenticeship by Anglo academia), is a huge part of our ancestral-cultural identities. Contrary to popular belief, many San, Khoe and Gqunukhwebe Xhosa were enslaved at the Cape alongside other African-Asian enslaved.
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There are many false historical assertions about slavery at the Cape and more broadly in South Africa, including about when it really ended – the 1880s, rather than the official date of 1834, which we commemorate today on 1 December as Emancipation Day
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There are many false historical assertions about slavery at the Cape and more broadly in South Africa, including about when it really ended – the 1880s, rather than the official date of 1834, which we commemorate today on 1 December as Emancipation Day. There is always a strong but erroneous assertion that indigenous Africans across South Africa were not enslaved under chattel slavery. There is also the falsehood that the form of enslavement in South Africa was mild or benevolent, and that the enslaved were Malay slaves. There are many other skewed accounts.
The African-Asian enslaved in our ancestral-cultural heritage were from 112 locations around Africa and Madagascar, South Asia, Southeast Asia and China. Of the 80 593 first generation enslaved51, over 50 046 were from other African countries and are part of our bloodlines, as verified by the high showings of the DNA haplogroup readings associated with Ntu-speakers, where studies show just slightly lower readings than the DNA readings associated with San and Khoe, in those tested who self-identified as “coloured”52. There were also over 16 301 from India and 14 255 Southeast Asians and Chinese among the first generation enslaved.
The total number of enslaved due to intergenerational births and the extension of slavery in the Boer Republics reached up to 200 000 by the end of the system in 1885. This full story is seldom told. How can we really know our ancestral-cultural identity if we do not honestly approach this subject and restore what has been covered over?
In a dumbing down of the contribution of our enslaved forebears, Helen Zille frequently repeats the lie that infrastructure and technology in the Cape and South Africa is owed to the Europeans. For 170 years, when the modern era foundational infrastructure was established, notwithstanding older technologies and economic and social infrastructure, only 1% of the European colonists were professionals and artisans, and even less the labour force. Over 25% of African-Asian enslaved were professionals and skilled artisans53, and they made up most of the town and farm labour. Indigene animal husbandry was integral to the success of European livestock farming. In 1717, the VOC stopped aiding the immigration of Europeans, largely, according to documentation, because they were workshy.
Restorative memory involves uncovering the roles and contributions of the enslaved. Note that I do not talk of our ancestors as slaves. This is part of the indoctrination with skewed memory. Our forebears were enslaved people.
I also do not prefix the term enslaved with the word or identity of Malay. No ethnic Malays or Javanese were enslaved by the Dutch, who forbade this by a legal Plakkaat54, as there were delicate relations between the elite, powerful Muslim societies and the Dutch in Indonesia. Most Southeast Asian enslaved brought to the Cape were from fringe indigenous societies across the smaller Indonesian islands, China, Vietnam, Siam and elsewhere, and were trafficked through the ports of Malakka and Java, particularly Batavia. The embracing of Islam by enslaved largely occurred here at the Cape.
Some of the greatest existing farms across the Drakenstein and the Cape Peninsula were not started by the French Huguenots, despite the Frenchified make-overs. They were started by free African-Asian blacks who had been formerly enslaved. Up to one third of the 66 farms across the Drakenstein had black roots before the Huguenots arrived55. The teaching profession at the Cape is also strongly rooted in the Cape enslaved. The oldest teaching book that we have as an artefact goes back to a brilliant teacher who was enslaved, Jan Smiesing56, born into a family of enslaved teachers at the Cape.
There is much stereotyping of the enslaved and slavery at the Cape, and denial about its spread across South Africa and its multi-ethnicity. There is a great wealth of memory about cuisine, music, language development, apparel, antique history, architecture history, faith evolution and so much more that remains buried, involving San, Khoe, Xhosa, Sotho and Tswana roots and the hybridity between these communities, who did not practise racial and ethnic exclusivity and apartheid separateness. This involved integration with the African-Asian enslaved, who go back to 112 communities across Africa and Asia. Without restorative memory, how on earth can we even begin to craft a comprehensive approach to our ancestral-cultural heritage within a broader South African or Mzansi identity. How can we craft restorative justice?
Restorative memory as echoes of the past – indigenous and enslaved – finding resonance in solution-finding and positive expression of identity in the present is a challenge. As we exist today in the 21st century, we cannot recreate living in the 6th century, 14th century, 17th century or 19th century. We are challenged to find positive ways of celebrating the resonance, or echoes, of our past – in word, deed and culture – in the present 21st century to leave a positive legacy for future generations. Echoes of the past in our present must be informed by restorative memory, and this would be meaningless if we did not address marginalisation, discrimination and the erasure of memory experienced by descendant communities. The big question is, how do we do this?
Again, only restorative memory can tell us why we have marginalisation, discrimination and the range of social deprivations, unemployment, gangsterism, substance abuse, gender-based violence, mass homelessness and generationally transmitted trauma experienced by communities today, and what must be done transformatively to realise restorative justice, which includes restitution and reparation. This cannot be allowed to happen piecemeal and opportunistically. Our poor, dispossessed communities are squeezed out of being stakeholders in every city, town, village and farm across South Africa.
We are challenged to shift from the noise of ethno-nationalism, “othering”, colonial indoctrination with distorted histories, exclusivism and primacy, to focus rather on:
- a holistic, integrated approach to indigeneity and slavery in our heritage,
- clearly articulating what marginalisation is occurring,
- clearly articulating what discrimination exists,
- clearly articulating invisibility on the South African stage for some communities,
- clearly articulating dispossession and loss of stakeholdership,
- clearly articulating history, heritage and cultural erasure, and
- clearly championing the addressing of the challenges and needs of the poorest and most traumatised in our communities.
These together constitute a liberatory approach and self-determination that demands restorative justice. This is what is muted and not being heard amid the noise, which is a detraction and distraction from celebrating our indigeneity roots and paying tribute to our enslaved forebears, who rose up against and over slavery. The detracting noise and distortion camouflages and wipes out our real ancestral-cultural heritage and inheritance.
If we cut off, deny or repress any of our 195 roots of origin as a modern African people today, or if we cut off the “ties that bind us” as the people of Mzansi in all of our diversity, we are selling ourselves short and not honouring our ancestral-cultural heritage, and we are embracing insult and colonialism rather than rejecting them. Ignorance is not bliss – it is an embracing of the antithesis of what Marcus Garvey (and later Bob Marley) urged us to do, after centuries of European colonial indoctrination: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery – none but ourselves can free our minds”57. Restorative memory is vital to crafting restorative justice.
Embracing and mimicking colonial views, descriptions and practices that project our indigenous and enslaved ancestors in a narrow paradigm is a huge mistake, and particularly so when we perpetuate colonial “divide and rule” strategies that involve separatism and “othering”. We can be proud of our indigenous heritage and our African-Asian enslaved heritage, without indulging in angry distortions and the “othering” of our compatriots, most of whom we are related to in shared ancestral ties – if we look at our comprehensive, older history from before colonialism came and distorted our history and memory.
A final practical picture of what happens when restorative memory does not underpin restorative justice is, when District Six residents – the 70 000 (and their more than half a million descendants who were victims of ethnic cleansing) – were told after 1994 by the government to come forward with their title deeds of property ownership, if they wanted the restorative justice of restitution and reparation. Restorative memory tells us that the vast majority were tenants and not title deed landowners, so there was no restorative justice for the victims – no liberation.
And still we rise. Os is! We are! Is ja!
I thank you.
1 Raff, J. (2019) “Genetic astrology: When ancient DNA meets ancestry testing”, Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferraff/2019/04/09/genetic-astrology-when-ancient-dna-meets-ancestry-testing/
2 Mellet, PT. (2020) The lie of 1652 – A decolonised history of land. Tafelberg NB, Cape Town.
3 Mellet, PT. (2024) The truth about Cape slavery – the foundations of colonial South Africa. Tafelberg NB, Cape Town.
4 Mellet, PT. (2022) Cleaners’ boy: A resistance road to a liberated life. Tafelberg NB, Cape Town. Page 96.
5 Cope, J. (1967) King of the Hottentots. Howard Timmins.
6 Mellet, PT. (2019) “Autshumao: Between what is said and what is kept silent”. Herri – journal of the Africa Open Institute, issue 1. https://herri.org.za/1/patric-tariq-mellet/
7 Gaastra, FS, and Bruijn, JR. (1993) “The Dutch East India Company’s shipping 1602-1795 in a comparative perspective”, Ships, sailors and spices: East India Companies and their shipping in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. NEHA, Amsterdam. Pages 93-120 and 177-208. https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/retroboeken/das/#page=0&accessor=toc&view=homePane; read with Knox Johnson, R. (1989) “The Cape of Good Hope: A maritime history”. Hodder & Stoughton, London. Page 56; read with Bruijn, JR, Gaastra, FS, Schöffer, I, Vermeulen, ACJ, and Van Eyck van Heslinga, ES. (1987) “The Dutch East India Company's shipping between the Netherlands and Asia 1595-1795”, Dutch Asiatic shipping database of ships’ logbooks (8194 voyages). (Edited.) Huygens Instituut. https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/das/voyages?clear=1
8 Holden, WC. (1866) “The past and future of the kaffir races”. The author. Retrieved from https://library.si.edu/digital-library/book/pastfutureofkaff00hold; read with Marks, S. (1980) “South Africa: The myth of the empty land”, History Today, volume 30; read with Crais, C (1991). “The vacant land: The mythology of British expansion in the Eastern Cape, South Africa”. Journal of Social History, volume 25, no 2, pages 225-75.
9 Confucius. (nd) “The analects” (chapter 13, saying 3). The analects of Confucius (J Legge, translated). Public domain.
10 Mellet, PT. (2025) “Conversations with my ancestral mothers”. Anthology of stories about the lives of my African-Asian enslaved and Khoe forebears and the Europeans impacting their lives. Dibanisa – Cape Town.
11 Ibid, pages 9-18.
12 Cleophas, F. (2012) “Adam Small: Familiegeskiedenisse, aanlope en vroeër invloede” (“Adam Small: Family histories, beginnings and earlier influences”). Tydskrif vir Letterkunde, 49(1):19-39. Retrieved on 28 November 2025 from http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0041-476X2012000100004&lng=en&tlng=af.
13 Camissa Museum, Castle of Good Hope, corner Sir Lowrey Road and Buitenkant Street, Cape Town. https://camissamuseum.co.za/
14 Coelho, M, Sequeira, F, Luiselli, D, Beleza, S, and Rocha, J. (2009) “On the edge of Bantu expansions: mtDNA, Y-chromosome and lactase persistence genetic variation in south-western Angola”. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 9(80). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-9-80
15 Fehn, A-M, Amorim, B, and Rocha, J. (2022) “The linguistic and genetic landscape of southern Africa”. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 100, pages 243-65.
16 Pakendorf, B, and Stoneking, M. (2021) “The genomic prehistory of peoples speaking Khoisan languages”. Human Molecular Genetics, 30(R1), R49–R55. Page 5.
17 Wit, Erika, Delport, Wayne, Chimusa, Emile R, Meintjes, Ayton, Möller, Marlo, Helden, Paul, Seoighe, Cathal, and Hoal, Eileen. (2010)” Genome-wide analysis of the South African coloured population in the Western Cape”. Human Genetics, 128. Pages 145-53. 10.1007/s00439-010-0836-1
18 Angelou, M. (1978) “And still I rise”. Poem. Random House. https://allpoetry.com/poem/8511437-Still-I-Rise-by-Maya-Angelou
19 Mbeki, T. (1996) “I am an African”, statement of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki on the occasion of the adoption of the Constitutional Assembly, The Republic of South Africa Constitution, Bill 1996, Cape Town, 8 May 1996. Parliament of South Africa. https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/history/MEDIA/ANC.PDF
20 Wannenburgh, A. (1980) "Forgotten frontiersmen", Howard Timmins, London; read with “Camissa Museum”, Jager Afrikaner of the Orlam Afrikaners (1760-1823). https://camissamuseum.co.za/index.php/7-tributaries/5-maroons-orlam-drosters/jager-afrikaner-of-the-orlam-afrikaners
21 Willemse, H. (2015) “The hidden histories of Afrikaans”. Mistra. https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/45/willemse_mistra-20151105-2_2.zp80127.pdf; read with South African History Online. (2017) “Genootskap vir regte Afrikaners / Fellowship of true Afrikaners”. https://sahistory.org.za/article/genootskap-vir-regte-afrikanersfellowship-true-afrikaners
22 Van der Ross, R. (2015) In our own skins: A political history of the coloured people. Jonathan Ball. Page 34; read with Lewis, G. (1987) Between the wire and the wall: A history of South African “coloured” politics. David Philip, Cape Town. Page 10.
23 Ibid, pages 17-8.
24 De Azevedo, R, and Vanneste, T. (2024) “The very soul must be held in bondage!”: Alice Victoria Kinloch’s critical examination of South Africa’s diamond-mining compounds. International Review of Social History, 69(3):383-410. doi:10.1017/S002085902400097X
25 Ngcukaitobi, T. (2018) The land is ours: South Africa’s first black lawyers and the birth of constitutionalism. Penguin Random House. Pages 41-72; read with Lewis, G. (1987) Between the wire and the wall: A history of South African “coloured” politics. David Philip, Cape Town. Pages 16-20.
26 Von Plato, J. (2013) Elements of logical reasoning. Cambridge University Press; read with Spencer, L, and Krauze, A. (1996) Hegel for beginners. Icon Books.
27 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2004) “Defining indigenous people: The concept of indigenous people”. Workshop on data collection and disaggregation for indigenous peoples (New York, 19-21 January 2004). DESA – Division for Social Policy and Development Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. PFII/2004/WS.1/3 https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/workshop_data_background.doc; read with UN Durban WCAR Conference. (2002) “World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance”, Declaration and Programme of Action https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Publications/Durban_text_en.pdf, page 122.
28 United Nations Declaration. (2007) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 13 September 2007, 61/295. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – Annex. https://www.un.org/development/desa/Indigenouspeoples/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2018/11/UNDRIP_E_web.pdf
29 International Labour Organisation (ILO). (1989) “C169 – Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No 169)”. https://normlex.ilo.org/dyn/nrmlx_en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169
30 Merriam-Webster, Inc. (2019) “Indigenous”. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary.
31 United Nations Economic and Social Council (2010). “Preliminary study of the impact on indigenous peoples of the international legal construct known as the Doctrine of Discovery”. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Ninth Session – Report of the Special Rapporteur. New York, 19-30 April 2010.
32 Martínez-Cobo, JR. “Study of the problem of discrimination against indigenous populations”, volume 5, Conclusions, proposals and recommendations. UN document symbol E/CN.4/Sub.2/1986/7/Add.4; read with United Nations. (2010) “State of the world’s indigenous people”. Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/SOWIP/en/SOWIP_introduction.pdf; read with
African Union. (2005) “Report of the African Commission’s Working Group”. African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). https://iwgia.org/images/publications/African_Commission_book.pdf
33 United Nations General Assembly. (2007) “Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 13 September 2007, 61/295”. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/61/295
34 Mellet, PT. (2020) The lie of 1652: A decolonised history of land. “De-Africanisation”, page 287. Reference to AU Report of the African Commission Group of Experts on Indigenous Populations/Communities 2003.
35 Stavenhagen, R. (2005) “Addendum to the report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people: Mission to South Africa”. UN Commission on Human Rights. https://www.refworld.org/reference/mission/unchr/2005/en/57451
36 Wiley, D. (2013) Using “tribe” and “tribalism” to misunderstand African societies. African Studies Center, Michigan State University. Page 1.
37 Abrahams, Y. (1994) “Resistance, pacification and consciousness: A discussion of the historiography of Khoisan resistance from 1972 to 1993 and Khoisan resistance from 1652 to 1853”. (Thesis). University of Cape Town, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Historical Studies. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8489; read with Muthien, B. (2008) “The Khoe San and partnership beyond patriarch and violence. MA thesis, Department of Political Science, Stellenbosch University. https://scholar.sun.ac.za/server/api/core/bitstreams/5299ccd9-cb35-4edf-877028a98ede9bee/content
38 Gairiseb, A. (2016) Customary law ascertained, volume 3: The customary law of the Nama, Ovaherero, Ovambanderu and San communities of Namibia (MO Hinz, ed). University of Namibia Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh8r0cv
39 Miller, D. (1998) The evolution of nationalism. In “Nation and nationalism”. In The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Taylor and Francis. Retrieved 29 November 2025 from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/nation-and-nationalism/v-1/sections/the-evolution-of-nationalism. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-S039-1
40 Rodney, W. (2018) How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Verso Books, Chicago; read with MacKenzie, J. (1983) The partition of Africa 1880-1900 and European imperialism in the 19th century. Methuen, London/New York. https://sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files/john_mackenzie_the_partition_of_africa_1880-1900bookza.org_.pdf
41 Nyangaga, JO. (2022) “The doctrine of occupation through ‘terra nullius’ as a right of self-determination of peoples and the legal status of ‘Liberland’ territory under international law”. Open University of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam. Beijing Law Review, 2022, 13, 119-32. https://www.scirp.org/pdf/blr_2022031416032556.pdf
42 Hammel, T. (2019) “African farmers and medicinal plant experts”, in Shaping natural history and settler society. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Pages 236-8. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/d2d853ca-0897-43f1-87e5-9992f5c8e373/1007127.pdf
43 Dictionary.com. (2025) “First peoples – all, collective”. Generally used plurally.
44 Steele, J. (2001) “Revisiting nomenclature: Early Iron Age or First Millennium-Agriculturalist or what?” Southern African Field Archaeology 10:35-45. 2001; read with Nogwaza, T. (1994) “Early Iron Age pottery from Canasta Place, East London district”. UJ Press Journals. https://journals.uj.ac.za/pdf/safa/1994_2%20UJ%20FIELD%20Archive/03_103-106%20Nogwaza%201994%20Early%20Iron%20Age%20pottery%20from%20Canasta%20Place.pdf
45 Fauvelle-Aymar, F-X, Sadr, K, Bon, F, and Gronenborn, D. (2006) “The visibility and invisibility of herders' kraals in southern Africa, with reference to a possible Early Contact Period Khoekhoe kraal at KFS 5, Western Cape”. Journal of African Archaeology, 4(2):253-71; read with Sadr, K. (2013) “Chapter 44: The archaeology of herding in southernmost Africa” in Mitchell, P, and Lane, P (eds). Oxford handbook of African archaeology. Oxford University Press.
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199569885.do#.UeqzRW1m9JI
46 Sadr, K. (2004) “Feasting on Kasteelberg? Early herders on the west coast of South Africa”. Author; read with Fauvelle-Aymar, F-X, Sadr, K, Bon, F, and Gronenborn, D. (2006) “The visibility and invisibility of herders' kraals in southern Africa, with reference to a possible Early Contact Period Khoekhoe kraal at KFS 5, Western Cape”. Journal of African Archaeology, 4(2):253-71; read with Sadr, K. (2013) “Chapter 44: The archaeology of herding in southernmost Africa” in Mitchell, P, and Lane, P (eds). Oxford handbook of African archaeology. Oxford University Press. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199569885.do#.UeqzRW1m9JI
47 Olusoga, D, and Erichsen, CW. (2010) The kaiser's holocaust: Germany's forgotten genocide and the colonial roots of Nazism. Faber & Faber. Page 205.
48 Le Roux, W, and White, A (eds). (2004) Voices of the San: Living in southern Africa today. Kwela Books.
49 Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). Census Office. (1905) “Results of a census of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, as on the night of Sunday, the 17th April, 1904”. Government Printer. https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Results_of_a_Census_of_the_Colony_of_the.html?id=i-w1AQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y
50 Eldredge, EA, and Morton, F (eds). (1994) Slavery in South Africa: Captive labor on the Dutch frontier (1st edition). Westview Press; University of Natal Press. Pages 187, 261.
51 Mellet, PT. (2024) The truth about Cape slavery: The foundations of colonial South Africa. Tafelberg NB, Cape Town. Page 110.
52 Wit, Erika, Delport, Wayne, Chimusa, Emile R, Meintjes, Ayton, Möller, Marlo, Helden, Paul, Seoighe, Cathal, and Hoal, Eileen. (2010) “Genome-wide analysis of the South African coloured population in the Western Cape”. Human Genetics, 128:145-53. 10.1007/s00439-010-0836-1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/44618878_Genome-wide_analysis_of_the_South_African_Coloured_population_in_the_Western_Cape
53 Shell, RC-H. (1997) Children of bondage: A social history of the slave society at the Cape of Good Hope 1652-1838. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg. Pages 102, 188.
54 Reid, A. (1983) “‘Closed’ and ‘open’ slave systems in pre-colonial Southeast Asia”, in
Anthony Reid (ed), Slavery, bondage and dependency in Southeast Asia. St Lucia, University of Queensland Press. Page 41.
55 Mellet, PT. (2002) Erasure: The black roots of the Cape vine. Dibanisa, Cape Town. https://patrictariqmellet.home.blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/erasure-the-black-roots-of-the-vine.pdf
56 SAHO. (2019) “Biography Jan Smiesing”. https://sahistory.org.za/people/jan-smiesing
57 Garvey, M, and Nnamdi, A. (2019) “Emancipated from mental slavery: Selected sayings of Marcus Garvey”. The work that has been done (speech 1937). Independently published.
See also:
’n Ware profeet het ons ontval – ’n dankbare terugblik op die lewe en werk van JJF (Jaap) Durand
Die Kaapse slawe, 1652–1838: ’n Kultuurhistoriese perspektief by Eunice Bauermeester: book review