The subject of African land ownership is and will continue to be a highly emotional issue of great importance in the new South Africa. Africans and Afrikaners alike have strong historical ties to the land. Thousands of Africans owned land outside the Reserves before 1948. These landowners included large numbers of Africans who purchased over 3,000 farms and lots between 1913 and 1936 in the Transvaal, Natal, and even the Orange Free State (plus uncounted African buyers in the Cape Province). Individuals, tribal groups, or people organized into partnerships owned land. In the 1990s Africans complain bitterly about land losses, especially after 1948 as a result of the apartheid policy of forced removals which aimed to eliminate the so-called “black spots” from white areas. In addition, some Africans point to the problem of land losses between 1913 and 1948, and others resent the severe restrictions resulting from the Natives Land Act, Act No. 27 of 1913, which prevented Africans from freely buying land in three of the four provinces of South Africa after 1913.

On 8 November 1994 the South African Parliament passed the Restitution of Land Rights Act, a law which is intended to allow Africans to reclaim their lost land. Claims by former owners or their descendants will be buttressed by legal documents of one type or another. Some of these legal documents have an interesting and unintended use, however: historians can take advantage of them to build an understanding of African land ownership before and after apartheid began in 1948.

It is generally recognized that during the period from ca. 1450 to 1900, when commercial relations between sub-Saharan Africa and the outside world were extended and strengthened, a wide range of systems and institutions for mobilizing labor were in use in different regions. I speak here of those operating beyond the primary locus of household and lineage. Such means of labor production and control ranged from chattel slavery to pawnship, corvées, various kinds of patronclient relations, bride service, cooperative labor, and also, in more and more contexts over time, wage labor. Slavery, of course, has received the attention of many scholars, as have some of the other categories. However the study of wage labor in precolonial times is still in its infancy.

For those wishing to pursue research on precolonial wage labor in Africa the lack of documentary sources has proved to be a significant barrier. The nature of proletarianized or semi-proletarianized wage labor in colonial societies or societies closely tied into the capitalist system usually demands of researchers that they look to sources of an official or institutional nature. For example, one can think of the records of companies, trade unions, benefit societies, colonial governments, courts, commissions of inquiry, and so on. But for precolonial Africa these types of documentary sources usually do not exist. This has led many scholars to say that the concept of wage labor is itself not useful when contemplating African labor systems before the onset of colonization. They point to the lack of a cash currency, continuing ties to the land, the temporary nature of much work, the absence of a bourgeoisie, apparent lack of worker consciousness, and so on. But there are other difficulties less related to such theoretical conceptions and generalizations about the supposed non-existence of wage labor which have severely taxed the most resolute historian, and help explain the dearth of written sources.

During a violent storm the Danish-Norwegian frigate Fredensborg was wrecked on 1 December 1768, at Tromøy, an island outside Arendal in southern Norway. The long journey in the triangular route was nearly completed when the crew of 29 men, three passengers, and two slaves managed to save their lives under very dramatic conditions. The Captain, Johan Frantzen Ferents, and the Supercargo, Christian Hoffman, saved the ship's logbook and other journals. These, together with other documents which are in the national archives in Denmark and Norway, make it possible for us to follow the course of the frigate from day to day, both during the journey and after the wreck.

The Fredensborg was built in 1752-53 by the Danish West India-Guinea Company in Copenhagen. On its first journey in the triangular trade, and during five subsequent journeys to the West Indies, it sailed under the name of Cron Prins Christian. In 1765, when the Guinea Company replaced the West India-Guinea Company, taking over the forts on the Gold Coast and all trading rights and ships, the name was changed to Fredensborg, after the Danish-Norwegian fort at Ningo. At that time Denmark-Norway owned the islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix in the West Indies and their need for slaves was growing.

They weighed anchor in Copenhagen on 24 June 1767 with 40 men on board, and anchored in the road at their main fort Christiansborg on the Gold Coast 100 days later, on 1 October 1767. Because of an inadequate supply of slaves, the Fredensborg remained in the road for 205 days. This had a very adverse effect on the health of the crew, with 11 deaths, including that of the Captain, Espen Kiønig. One of the deceased had drowned.