Gewone lesers aan die Kaap, c. 1680 tot 1850

Abstract

Hierdie artikel ondersoek die leeskulture van vroeë Kaapse gewone lesers (slawe, vryswartes, en arbeiders ná vrystelling in 1838) met die oog daarop om aan te toon hoe hulle geletterdheidspraktyke gebruik het om hulself en hulle wêreldbeskouings voor te stel. Dit is ’n nog onontwikkelde terrein en die artikel open ’n veld van ondersoek wat meer volledig nagevors kan word. Michel de Certeau (1984) se idees omtrent strategieë en taktiek verskaf ’n gerieflike teoretiese raamwerk om magsverhoudings in leeskulture te ondersoek. Sy idees suggereer egter ’n sterker kontras tussen strategieë en taktiek as wat in die praktyk bevestig word. Die getuienis in hierdie artikel dien as toets vir sy teoretiese raamwerk. Primêre en sekondêre bronne soos inventarisse, veilingslyste, sensusse, amptelike rekords, ’n slaaf se aantekeningboek, en gedokumenteerde studies wat met die onderwerp van die artikel verband hou, word benut. Data uit hierdie bronne word ontleed, geїnterpreteer en in tabelle aangebied om die doelwitte van die artikel te ondersteun. Ons het tot nou nie ten volle begryp hoe gewone lesers geleer lees het, wat hulle gelees het, waarom hulle gelees het, hoe hulle gelees het, waar hulle gelees het en die tale waarin hulle gelees het nie. Hulle leeskulture was verskuil agter hulle status en die skoolopleiding in die vroeë koloniale Kaapstad, die onderdrukking van die uitruil van idees deur elites van die VOC en die Britte, en hulle voortgaande ekonomiese uitbuiting. Ten spyte van sulke strategieë het gewone lesers verskillende taktieke gebruik om alternatiewe wêreldbeskouings te skep. De Certeau se leesstrategieë en -taktieke tree in wisselwerking met mekaar om verskillende leeskulture te kweek wat deur tyd en plek gevorm is.

This article examines the reading cultures of Cape Town’s slaves, free blacks, and labourers (after emancipation in 1838) as common readers. It covers the period from about 1650 to 1850 and reveals how these common readers used literacy practices to represent themselves and their world views. The history of reading is still undeveloped terrain in South African scholarship, and the article aims to introduce common readers and their reading cultures as areas of inquiry that should be investigated further. Michel de Certeau’s (1984) ideas about strategies and tactics provide a useful theoretical framework to examine power relations in the reading cultures of common readers. Examples of literacy strategies and their relations with literacy and reading tactics are identified and discussed. Evidence from the period under study suggests that De Certeau’s contrast between strategies and tactics are perhaps too stark and that, in fact, they tend to act upon each other more strongly in practice. The article therefore also raises questions about this aspect of his theoretical framework. Primary and secondary sources draw on inventories, auction lists, censuses, official records, a slave’s notebook, and documented studies relating to the topic. Data from these sources are analysed, interpreted and presented in tables to support the aims of the article. A special methodological feature is the use of records of organisations and institutions that provide evidence of reading. The Dutch East India Company (DEIC or VOC), a Slave Lodge school, Muslim religious schools, missionary societies, and book and tract societies proved fruitful for finding this evidence. The notebook of a slave teacher, Johannes Smiesing, sheds light on the kind of literacy and numeracy instruction taught in the Slave Lodge school. The notebook contains sections on personal and family information, writing and reading, examples of arithmetic, a morning hymn, and medical remedies in Tamil. The focus for the purposes of this article is, however, the reading and writing uses of the notebook, and the way in which the VOC combined religious and secular elements in its education policy for the slave lodge children. We have not fully understood how common readers learned to read, what they read, why they read, how they read, where they read, and the languages in which they read. The evidence gathered for this article begins to explain some of these literacy practices, as well as how common readers responded to attempts to guide and control their intellectual development. Religious competition contributed to a general improvement of basic literacy skills among Cape Town’s common people. They developed their own reading cultures and shaped alternative world views, which helped them to claim their own identities in Cape society. Their reading cultures were hidden behind their status and schooling in early colonial Cape Town, the suppression by VOC and British elites of the circulation of ideas, and their economic exploitation. Despite the literacy and reading strategies of these powerful elites, common readers used tactics to represent themselves and create their own accounts of their histories. The elites could not control all the communications and circulation of ideas. On the other hand, their world views helped to shape the alternative world views of common readers. This shows how De Certeau’s reading strategies and tactics act upon each other to nurture distinctive reading cultures shaped by time and place.