The Origins of Racial Discrimination in the South African Labour Market

The genesis of racial discrimination in the labour market in South Africa can be found in the earliest years of the Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. ¹ From the beginning there was a shortage of labour of all types and the first Commander Jan Van Riebeeck was soon suggesting to his employers, the Dutch East India Company, the merits of importing Chinese labour or slaves from the Dutch East Indies (17, p. 15). The Company had from the outset of the settlement ruled against the creation of a permanent colony. For them the Cape was expected to remain a convenient refreshment station to provide fresh meat and vegetables to the company’s fleets sailing between Holland and the Dutch East Indies. Officials were carefully briefed against widening their contacts with the indigenous Khoisan peoples, Bushmen and Hottentots, as they were called by the whites. Nevertheless the settlement was slowly to evolve into a colony at first peopled by former Company employees and with the help of imported slaves.