Shades

Slavery was outlawed by the western world midway through the 19th century. It would soon arise once more in South Africa, however, but in ways that looked perfectly legal.

Labouring on the gold mines was such a form of neo-slavery. So was prostitution.

Gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand in the Transvaal Republic in 1886. Although the Transvaal was a Boer Republic, the mines quickly fell into the hands of British capitalists.

In the days before machines, the work had to be done by hand. Because labourers were always in short supply (and the death rate on the mines was high), cunning methods had to be employed to recruit a never-ending supply.

One such method was to recruit the amaXhosa of the Eastern Cape, poverty stricken as a result of constant drought and the rinderpest.

Labourers were offered lucrative rewards and pleasant working conditions. Once on the mines, however, they were trapped.

Barbaric practices were then employed and wages were poor. Inhumane conditions, however, were winked at by the authorities in the face of lucrative rewards for the capitalists and the governments.

At the same time, of course, the Black people tended to be regarded by those capitalists as only slightly better than animals.

Yet it was not only Black people who were trapped by the neo-slavery. Poor Whites, especially unprotected women, were also enticed through false promises of wealth and a better life.

The most common means, still in practice today, was to offer lucrative wages under fictitious promises of good jobs. The women then found themselves trapped into prostitution from which their poor situation made it impossible to escape.

It can be argued therefore that the prostitutes at the brothel frequented by Victor and his friends were also slaves. They were working class women (like the wheelwright's daughter) who were enticed to Johannesburg by the offer of attractive work but, once there, wages were never enough to enable them to buy their freedom.