The history of the global economy cannot be told without telling the story of the slave trade. And while many people believe that the trans-Atlantic slave trade began in 1619 when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African ashore in the British colony of Jamestown in the American state of Virginia, it had in fact started more than a century before. The Portuguese began trading with African slaves from as far back as the 1440s.
During this time, Africans were enslaved on Portuguese islands like Madeira, where they were forced to work in agriculture. Americans borrowed the slavery blueprint from Europeans and perfected it. By the time the trans-Atlantic slave trade was at its height, most African slaves were being transported to the Caribbean and the Americas – with many being made to work in the plantations of South America.
We are taught that the British and Americans officially abolished their slave trade in 1807. In reality, the trade continued to flourish up until the 1850s. The last known slave ship, which carried captives to Cuba, sailed from Africa in 1866. One thing that is true is that economies of the richest nations in the world were built on this slave trade.
Slavery is woven into the fabric of American and European histories and without it, their economies could not have become as massive as they are. One would think that such a lesson belongs in the history books – that the world has moved past an age where economies are built on the violations of black people.
But in 2022, in the black-majority country that is SA, the racialised and white monopolised economy continues to be built on black sweat. Reminiscent of colonialism and apartheid, it continues to be built through the annexation of black land.
A week ago, the Western Cape High Court interdicted the R4.5bn development at the River Club site in Observatory, Cape Town. The interdict was brought against the local and provincial government of the Western Cape, as well as property developers, by the Observatory Civic Association (OCA) and Goringhaicona Khoi Khoi Indigenous Traditional Council (GKKITC ).
Having been granted, the interim interdict will remain in place pending a review of the relevant environmental land use authorisations for the development on the historically and culturally significant floodplain. In her ruling, Western Cape deputy judge president Patricia Goliath stated that the fundamental right to the culture and heritage of indigenous groups, particularly the Khoi and San, was under threat because they had not been properly consulted.
This is one of many court challenges that have been brought by indigenous peoples of SA against the government and private property developers. Across the Wild Coast in the Eastern Cape, communities have approached the courts to fight against mining exploration, seismic blasting and other activities that not only destroy the natural environment but also seek to displace black people from their lands.
While most of these cases have ended in victories for the indigenous communities, the fact that in a democratic dispensation, indigenous people must continue to fight for the right to their heritage, land and livelihood generation, is indicative of the world’s refusal to stop building economies on the violations of black and indigenous people. It is a continuation of the story of slavery.
And just as African kings and chiefs played a role in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, selling millions of black people to Americans and Europeans, in modern-day SA, the government is aiding and abetting a crime in the name of development.
But any development that is built on the foundation of violation and oppression is about money, not human beings. And until human beings are at the centre of development, then it is slavery by another name.
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