Hendrik Albertus and his ex-slave Mey: A drama in three acts

Abstract

In the early spring of 1832, Mey, a slave belonging to Hendrik Albertus van Niekerk, initiated a series of events that, in quick succession, saw him beaten by his master's son, Hendrik, Jr., whipped again by his master's own hand, and unconditionally freed by old Hendrik barely ten days later. It is a remarkable story, probably without parallel in the history of the Cape Colony, and worth telling if only for that reason. But the story also deserves the historian's attention because in determining why events passed as they did, some light can be shed on previously obscure areas of South African history.