Capital and Coercion: Slavery after the 1807 Import Ban in the Cape Colony

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Igor Martins, Lund University

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  Datasets 09/15/2025 10:54:AM
  Figures 09/15/2025 11:15:AM
  Tables 09/15/2025 11:21:AM

Project Citation: 

Martins, Igor. Capital and Coercion: Slavery after the 1807 Import Ban in the Cape Colony. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2025-09-15. https://doi.org/10.3886/E237703V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary The 1807 Slave Trade Act banned slave imports across the British Empire, triggering a sharp supply shock. Using newly digitised tax censuses from the Cape Colony, this article examines how households in Stellenbosch and Graaff-Reinet adjusted. Despite stark ecological and institutional differences, both districts show similar post-abolition trajectories. This challenges models linking coercion to land–labour ratios, supervision costs, or frontier openness. Testing five frameworks, the paper finds the strongest support for the view of slaves as capital assets. Wealthier households continued accumulating slaves, suggesting slavery persisted not only as labour but as an asset strategy amid capital scarcity.
Funding Sources:  View help for Funding Sources Handelsbanken Research Foundations (P15-0159); Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (M20-0041)



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V1 [2025-09-15]

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