Okay….so history nerd is going to come out here so please bear with me.
Location; Corner of Adderly and Wale Street, CBD.
Opening hours: 9-5 every day (except Sundays: closed)
Entry: R30.
So. The title of this blog kind of what this building used to be. It was where the Dutch East India Company used to keep their slaves before deporting them. As with many of these lodges the conditions were next to awful to say the least! After its horrible beginning this building became a court house as well. Ironic I think.
So you walk into an open space with 5 walls with the overarching explanation of slavery in the Cape. It also interestingly goes into the modern day international equivalents.
You start on left side, with a film that goes through the basic history, the room next door discussing the archaeology of the building: what they found and as a result what they were able to deduce from this.
As you move through, you find the drawings and etchings to Brookes Ship and other slave ships, the conditions. Even this mock up (see above) of the ships itself – this is not to scale. Various documents are featured throughout explaining how slaves were treated and what the conditions were on the ships. Ships logs and reports are just one way of explaining the situation that occurred on these ships.
As you walk through you follow the story of these slaves, the different places they went to, and/or came from. The exhibitions are spacious and easily laid out to understand everything. It is a nice place to meander through and read as much or as little as you would like.
The image above was one that was poignant to me, these are the name of those slaves that died that we know the name of. There of course millions more, thrown from boats, never named, disappeared, and many more reasons. To see their names and the diversity of their names jut proves how many countries were involved in this part of history. Named after the months they were sold, or they arrived, surnames of their first masters, who knows where some of the names came from.
The image above is a calendar. They found people with the surnames of each month, and brought them together. Something amazing has happened to these people they are proud of their surname, that their ancestors have been such a large part of history. They see themselves as the reminders of what has been and therefore what shouldn’t be repeated. Such an extraordinary exhibit.
As you move through the different rooms. You get to see cases of other artefacts that have landed in Cape Town, from all of over the world. Demonstrating the reach of this port and the number of people that used to come through this “rest” and refuel station.
After doing the downstairs, you are best moving upstairs where there are temporary exhibition spaces. At the moment, they have one of ancient Egyptians and another for apartheid music alongside their permanent spaces for the collection of silver – most from the colonial period. Surprise surprise.
The music during the Apartheid exhibition caught my eye and therefore I m going to focus on this, rather than do a little on all of them. I hope you don’t mind.
Apartheid… now to me the first thing I think of is not music. Apparently I am wrong in this assumption – who knew.
Music was a massive way of rebellion in South Africa, throughout this exhibition they display songs and the ways that audible media helped to fight Apartheid. The headphones are great way to connecting with the voices of the part. Older generation radios play a playlist of old songs and rebellious songs.
As I turned the corner out of the singing for freedom exhibition, I am faced with this wall of record slips. I follow the flow to the opening and as I walk through to come to a piano. It conjured all sorts of thoughts and feelings at the time. It is quite surprising and yet so well placed.
This museum on the whole is one of my highlights. It goes through history of the Cape from Slavery on 19th century to modern discrimination. The interactivity of this museum helps you to learn on your own terms, how works best for you. Not just reading pages and pages of text which is not to everyone tastes.
Helpful Haz 