Cape slave historiography and the question of intellectual dependence

Abstract

Since the appearance of Peter Novick‘s influential study on American historical writing,’ historians have been driven back to consider the nature of their craft, but more significantly, also to take stock of recent historiography. Most of all, Novick has made us look at what historiography is and how history is produced, which has sparked a vigorous methodological debate. His book appears to have added impetus to Colin Bundy’s recent evocative essay, which compares historical writing in the United States (US) and South Africa2 Bundy’s purpose was to compare equivalent historiographical schools in order to elucidate their ideological contexts and highlight the particular contribution of social history in these respective historiographies. His contribution is singular in its attempt to offer a synthesis, in contrast to the more limited scope and aims of the other articles. In this, Bundy went beyond a mere comparison for comparison’s sake, to a profound exploration of how history is produced in particular situations. It is remarkable, however, that American slave historiography was omitted from Bundy’s analysis, especially in view of the sheer size and intellectual weight of scholarship on the history of slavery in the US since the 1950s. One explanation for this omission may be that Bundy does not consider the swelling historiography on Cape slavery to be of equal significance.