{"id":2846,"date":"2009-11-06T18:15:04","date_gmt":"2009-11-06T18:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=2846"},"modified":"2012-03-24T18:52:37","modified_gmt":"2012-03-24T18:52:37","slug":"no-such-thing-as-a-mulatto-slave-legal-pluralism-racial-descent-and-the-nuances-of-slave-womens-sexual-vulnerability-in-the-legal-odyssey-of-steyntje-van-de-kaap-c-1815-1822","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=2846","title":{"rendered":"‘No Such Thing as a Mulatto Slave’: Legal Pluralism, Racial Descent and the Nuances of Slave Women’s Sexual Vulnerability in the Legal Odyssey of Steyntje van de Kaap, c.1815-1822"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘No Such Thing as a Mulatto Slave’: Legal Pluralism, Racial Descent and the Nuances of Slave Women’s Sexual Vulnerability in the Legal Odyssey of Steyntje van de Kaap, c.1815-1822<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Fiona Vernal<\/strong>
\nDepartment of History
\nUniversity of Connecticut<\/em><\/p>\n

Slavery & Abolition
\nVolume 29, Issue 1
\nJanuary 2008
\npages 23 – 47
\nDOI: 10.1080\/01440390701841034<\/p>\n

In 1815, a contentious case came before the Court of Justice in the Cape Colony<\/a>. Steyntje Van de Kaap, a creole slave, claimed manumission<\/a> for herself and four children based on her status as a concubine<\/a>. Harkening back to the Dutch period at the Cape, her suit resurrected a little-known 1772 statute, which, upon the death of slave owners, granted freedom to their concubines and any children from such unions. So indicative was the case of sexual relations at the Cape that one contemporary observer declared that the outcome could threaten one-third of the local slave property<\/strong>, while a Privy Councilor<\/a> in England who heard the case on appeal, predicted grave consequences if the case should set a precedent. The protracted suit became enmeshed in the nineteenth-century struggle between slaveholders, abolitionists and colonial administrators at the Cape, and in Great Britain. On the eve of amelioration<\/a> in British colonies like the Cape, Steyntje’s case demonstrated how white paternity and the status of concubine became legal grounds for freedom. This article explores how one woman’s sexual relations with her masters transcended the boundaries of her personal life to challenge the local system of matrilineal descent<\/a>, to complicate the issue of consent in slave-master sexual relations, and to invoke the worst fears of slaveholders as they confronted a new imperial legal regime interested in reforming slavery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘No Such Thing as a Mulatto Slave’: Legal Pluralism, Racial Descent and the Nuances of Slave Women’s Sexual Vulnerability in the Legal Odyssey of Steyntje van de Kaap, c.1815-1822 Fiona Vernal Department of History University of Connecticut Slavery & Abolition Volume 29, Issue 1 January 2008 pages 23 – 47 DOI: 10.1080\/01440390701841034 In 1815, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,1467,8,6940,520,10],"tags":[201,81,1007,1008,20756,1009],"class_list":["post-2846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-law","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-south-africa","category-uk","tag-creoles","tag-england","tag-fiona-vernal","tag-slavery-abolition","tag-south-africa","tag-steyntje-van-de-kaap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}