Slave Lodge

In front of you is one of the oldest buildings in Cape Town and perhaps the most uncomfortable. Its elegant early 19th-century facade hides what it was for more than a hundred years: the place where the Dutch East India Company locked up its slaves.

1A colony built on slavery

In March 1658 the ship Amersfoort sailed into the bay with around 170 people seized from a Portuguese slaving vessel, most of them from Angola. It marked the start of almost two centuries of slavery at the Cape. Enslaved people were brought from Madagascar, Mozambique, India, Sri Lanka and the Indonesian archipelago, and their languages, faith and cooking lie at the root of the city's culture.

Work on this building began in 1679. It was a single-storey structure around a courtyard, planned for some 500 or 600 people, and at times it held many more. Visitors of the period described the overcrowding, the damp and the lack of rest. The Company's own slaves lived here, working in the garden, the harbour and on public works.

“From human wrongs to human rights”: that is how the museum sums up its mission today.

2From confinement to courtroom

After the British occupation of 1806, most of the people living here were sold and the building became government offices. It went on to house the Supreme Court, a library, the post office and the upper house of the colony's first Parliament. In 1998 it took back the name Slave Lodge.

3What to look for

• The neoclassical facade by Louis Michel Thibault, added when it became offices.
• Anton Anreith's reliefs on the pediment.
• The ground-floor walls: according to descriptions of the time, the original building barely opened onto the street, to prevent escapes.