ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a response to the curious muteness that surrounds the history of slavery at the Cape. I trace the reasons offered by Nigel Worden, Pumla Dineo Gqola, and Gabeba Baderoon respectively for the scarcity of commemorations of the enslaved in Cape Town and South Africa. By narrating the story of Susanna van Bengal, I outline the conceptual categories underpinning archival entries on enslaved people. On the basis of this analysis, I propose that the commemoration of slavery by itself does not speak to the restitution called for in postapartheid South Africa, but that the conceptual frameworks that enabled the enactment of colonial violence need to be acknowledged. Narrations of the history of slavery are likely to remain parochial until the world produced by colonialism, including its archives, is critically addressed. Such critiques might allow us to prise open the racialised demarcation of this history, make palpable its resonances for South Africans as we forge postapartheid identities, and recognise the ways in which it shapes the intimate repertoires of our lives.
