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Patrimonialism, Imperialism, and Colonialism at the Cape of Good Hope under Dutch East India Company Rule, c.1652–1795

Patrimonial Capitalism and Empire

ISBN: 978-1-78441-758-1, eISBN: 978-1-78441-757-4

Publication date: 31 March 2015

Abstract

This chapter explores the implications of patrimonial politics in the Dutch East India Company empire in the context of establishing a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa in the mid-seventeenth century. The Cape extended the reach of Company patrimonial networks with elite Company officials circulating throughout the Indian Ocean empire and consolidating their familial ties through marriage both within the colonies and in the United Provinces. These patrimonial networks extended to the Cape as elite Company officials created families locally or married Cape-born women. As the colony grew, the Company created a class of free-burghers some the wealthiest of whom were tied directly into elite Company patrimonial networks. But from the early eighteenth century onwards these elite Company networks came into conflict with the evolving free-burgher patrimonial networks with which they were in direct competition. This paper argues that local patrimonial networks can evolve in a settler colony that challenge the elite patrimonial networks of the imperial elite.

Keywords

Citation

Ward, K. (2015), "Patrimonialism, Imperialism, and Colonialism at the Cape of Good Hope under Dutch East India Company Rule, c.1652–1795", Patrimonial Capitalism and Empire (Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 28), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 91-113. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-871920150000028004

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited