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from Part II - The Problem of Unfreedom
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 March 2025
We explore the limits of conservative reform by unpacking the efforts of bonded labourers in the Cape between 1823 and 1826 to mobilise the Commission of Eastern Inquiry against the elaborate rules that governed the lives of people of colour. Hundreds of unfree people called on the commissioners to complain of systemic and personal abuse – more than any other colonial inquiry. And the commissioners opened their doors, recording unfree testimony and following up on most of the complaints that came before them. In the process, they performed a very important function of commissions everywhere – as emissaries of the king intimately supervising colonial governments and forging connections with new and old imperial subjects. Though they went to extraordinary efforts to follow up bonded complaint, Eastern Inquiry into the Cape failed, until extremely late in the day, to report their findings.
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