Echoes of Slavery - Jackie Loos

Echoes of Slavery evokes the voices of the past through a series of portraits and descriptions of incidents. Many of these descriptions first appeared as weekly columns in the Cape Argus. They bring forcefully to us the everyday realities of life in bondage. Slaves may have been powerless but they were certainly not silent.

Hundreds of illiterate slaves and ex-slaves found ways to address the authorities on subjects of vital interest. Their words translated into English from the Cape Dutch vernacular and reworded in accordance with official phraseology still throb with barely suppressed indignation, anxiety or remorse.

Jackie Loos has worked extensively from primary and secondary archival sources, concentrating on the last 30 years of slavers; from the second British occupation of the Cape in 1806 to the proclamation of freedom in 1834. For South Africans liberating themselves from historical myths, including millions who are descended from slaves, she has created a poignant record of the past and a reminder of the legacy of slavery.