Inequality in the Cape Colony, 1685–1844

Abstract

South Africa has one of the highest levels of inequality globally. This paper shows that such inequality is not a recent development. Using several newly transcribed data sets from the seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century Cape Colony, I calculate historical wealth inequality across different groups and regions. The sources – including tax censuses, probate inventories and slave valuation rolls – offer rare insight into the structure of pre-industrial society, allowing for comparisons over time and across settler, enslaved and Khoe households. The results reveal persistently high levels of within-group inequality and highlight the concentration of productive resources across all groups with available data. While direct comparisons with modern income or wealth measures are not possible, the evidence suggests that severe economic inequality has long been a defining feature of South African society.

Significance:

• I show that the Cape Colony in the late seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries experienced severe income and wealth concentration.
• By using newly transcribed tax censuses, probate inventories and slave valuation records, I found severe levels of inequality within settler, enslaved and Khoe groups.
• These findings engage with global inequality debates, demonstrating that severe inequality is not a modern phenomenon but has historical foundations.