Inequality in the Cape Colony, 1685–1844
Year: 2025
Type: article
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.
Source: South African Journal of Science
Author: Johan Fourie
Institution: Stellenbosch University
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4416566486