Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/242686 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
African Economic History Working Paper Series No. 57/2021
Publisher: 
African Economic History Network (AEHN), s.l.
Abstract: 
Agricultural output fluctuated worldwide after the emancipation of slaves. The usual explanation is that former slaveholders now lacked labor. This is not the full story: slaves were not just laborers but capital investments to support production. Using databases covering more than 40 years from Stellenbosch in the British Cape Colony, this study measures changes in output before and after emancipation to determine the role of slaves as factors of production. Large shortfalls in compensation paid to slaveholders after the 1833 Abolition Act reveal that slaves were a source of capital that strongly influenced production levels, an important reason for the output variation.
Subjects: 
slave emancipation
slave trade
agricultural history
labor coercion
Cape Colony
JEL: 
J47
N37
N47
N57
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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