Counter Power and Colonial Rule in the Eighteenth Century Cape of Good Hope: Belongings and Protest of the Labouring Poor.

by Nicole Ulrich, 2011

Framed by an anarchist reading of Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker’s The

Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of the

Revolutionary Atlantic (2000), this study examines the dynamic nature of colonial and

class rule in the eighteenth-century Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa, and the

forms of belonging and traditions of political protest developed by the labouring poor.

This study draws on archival material from national and international repositories,

focusing on government records, criminal court trials, and travellers’ accounts.

Colonial rule, the under-class, and resistance in the Cape are located in a global

context, with special attention being paid to changes associated with the ‘Age of

Revolution and War’ and rise of the modern world. Breaking with the tendency to

treat different sections of the motley (many-hued) labouring poor in the Cape as

discreet, often racially defined, and nationally bounded population groups, segmented

also by legal status, this study provides a comprehensive study of labour in the Cape

that includes an examination of slaves, servants, sailors, and soldiers recruited, or

imported from, Asia, Europe, and other parts of Africa.

The Many Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, and the Atlantic Working Class in the Eighteenth Century

by Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, LibCom

(This article is also available in pdf here.)

Introduction

Through the harsh winter of 1740-41, as food riots broke out all over Europe, a motley crew of workers met at John Hughson’s waterside tavern in the city of New York to plan a rising for St. Patrick’s Day. The conspirators included Irish, English, Hispanic, African, and Native American men and women; they spoke Gaelic, English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Latin, Greek, and undoubtedly several African and Indian languages.