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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Strangers ashore: sailor identity and social conflict in mid-18th century Cape Town
Author:Worden, NigelISNI
Year:2007
Periodical:Kronos: Journal of Cape History
Issue:33
Pages:72-83
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:seamen
social conflicts
military personnel
group identity
trading companies
history
1700-1799
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41056582
Abstract:The 1730s saw the highest number of voyagers on VOC vessels travelling between Europe and Asia and coming ashore in the harbour of South Africa's Cape Town. Such temporary sojourners make their presence felt in the documentation of the Council of Justice, usually when they were involved in fights in the taverns and streets of the settlement. This paper argues that petty criminal cases point to a distinctive identity among sailors, who were the deadly enemies of the soldiers who were also aboard the VOC vessels. Their rivalries were transplanted on to land once the ships arrived in Cape Town. The paper pays attention to the solidarity among these sailors; the pejorative way in which they were viewed by other Company employees; fights between sailors and soldiers of the Cape Town garrison; sailors' interactions with other similar outcasts, the slaves; and 'drosters' (runaways). Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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