Abstract
False Bay, described by Bartolomeu Dias as a “gulf between the mountains,” is well known for manifestations of British and Dutch naval heritage. This study focuses on Simon’s town, a small seaport in the Bay that represents the continued presence of the South African Navy for the past 200 years. Cultural connections to other parts of Africa and the Far East are an equally important, but a more ephemeral part of the historical narrative and naval identity of the False Bay. Kroomen from West Africa who served on British naval vessels often retired in the town and surrounds. Slaves, fishers, whalers, and port workers, who supported the naval community, were deserters from American ships or originated from the Indonesian and the Swahili coastline. Drawing upon an array of data sets including interviews with Kroomen descendants and traditional fishermen, naval gravestone markers, and architectural heritage, this chapter examines the maritime cultural landscape and legacy of this maritime landscape.
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Notes
- 1.
Kaffirs or Natives was a term used to refer to African laborers from within the Cape Colony in the 1890s. Ethnic tension, especially in dockyards led to the creation of a mixed ethnic intermediary status of locals, many who were descendants of slaves from Africa, Indonesia, Madagascar, and West Indies as Colored. The 1904 census listed the Cape population in three groups: Europeans, Africans, and Coloreds (Bickford-Smith 1995:451, 460).
- 2.
Rainbow nation is a term coined by Archbishop Tutu to describe postapartheid South Africa after South Africa’s first fully democratic election in 1994. The phrase was used and elaborated upon by President Nelson Mandela in his first month of office.
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Harris, L. (2017). “A Gulf Between the Mountains”: Slavers, Whalers, and Fishers in False Bay, Cape Colony. In: Harris, L. (eds) Sea Ports and Sea Power. SpringerBriefs in Archaeology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46985-0_3
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