Jacob and Lotje, slaves on the farm Langverwacht between Stellenbosch and Kuilsriver. They were owned by the De Waal family.
The colonists feared a massive labour shortage but, as a levelheaded observer, H. Calderwood, remarked in December 1838, ‘[I]t is ridiculous to talk of them [the freed slaves] refusing to work when they know very well they must either work or starve.’ Many stayed with their masters but as many left them for a day or permanently. Perhaps a thousand or two built makeshift homes on government land on the outskirts of towns and villages, and another thousand may have gone to live at missionary stations. Since the government made no land available for small-scale farmers, the majority had little option but to remain lowly labourers.
Emancipation did produce some subtle changes in labour relations on the farms. The days of complete submission had gone. A.J. Louw, a wealthy farmer from Koeberg, complained in December 1838: ‘They come to the field after the sun has risen and if we look sour about it, they go away and abandon work.’ Workers tended to shun long-term contracts. A correspondent explained to De Zuid-Afrikaan: ‘[They] have been in many cases so accustomed to harsh treatment, and have seen their race suffer so much from bad masters, that they are unwilling to extend their services, until they ascertain the character of their masters.’ The correspondent added that masters had been ‘too familiar with the whip, the cat and the samboc’.
Masters had to employ day labourers, a practice they disliked, but cash wages remained very low and workers were paid mostly in food, wine (perpetuating the ‘tot’ system of slavery in which abundant liquor was supplied), clothes, housing and stock. While under slavery some had received land for garden plots and pasturage for their cattle, and in the aftermath of emancipation this developed into a system of labour tenancy. Masters continued to clamour for a vagrancy law to secure a cheap and docile labour force, but the government refused.
The fears about economic ruin for the agricultural sector did not materialise. Between 1834 and 1842 wheat and barley production dropped by a third, but then went up to earlier levels. Wine production was little affected. By the mid-1840s arable production was back at its pre-emancipation levels.
