New Estimates of Settler Life Span and Other Demographic Trends in South Africa, 1652–1948

The institutional literature emphasizes local conditions in explaining divergent colonial development. We posit that this view can be enriched by an important supplyside cause: the skills with which the settlers arrive.The Huguenots who arrived at the Cape Colony in 1688/9, we argue, possessed skills different from those of the incumbent farmers, and this enabled them to become more productive wine-makers. We demonstrate this by showing that this difference is explained by none of the standard factors of production, nor by any institutional differences between the French and the Dutch. We observe that a group of Huguenot descendants from wine-producing regions maintained their advantage in wine-making at the Cape over several generations.This disparity cannot be satisfactorily explained as resulting from first-mover advantage or social capital. Specialized skills gave the Huguenots from wine-producing regions a sustained competitive advantage. Our results show that colonial institutions are shaped not only by whether immigrants settle or not, which legal system they adopt, or their language, religion, or beliefs, but by the set of skills, knowledge, and experience brought from their country of origin. As such, crosscountry comparisons may blur much of the detail when we analyse the effect that settlers have on the destination country.

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“…We confirmed this with an alternative, genealogical dataset provided by Cilliers and Fourie, ‘New estimates’.…”

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confidence: 74%

Settler skills and colonial development: the Huguenot wine‐makers in eighteenth‐century Dutch South Africa

Fourie

Fintel

2013

The Economic History Review

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“…First, we note that any bias introduced by missing information on death dates should at least be consistent over time given that the percentage of non-recording remains stable across the sample period. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, there is a very close correlation between the growth in the number of genealogical records and the estimated growth of the population of European descent (Cilliers and Fourie, 2012). More importantly, the difference between our sample size and the available population estimates-mostly due to missing information on death-is fairly constant over time.…”

Section: Selection Issuesmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…6 We make use of the latest version of the genealogical dataset, available from the Genealogical Institute of South Africa (2008). 7 Upon comparison of the number of observations in the genealogical registers and the available population size estimates recorded by Company officials during the eighteenth century, as reported in Van Duin and Ross (1987), there is a close correlation between the number of observations in the genealogical dataset and the estimated size of the settler population until the mid-nineteenth century (Cilliers and Fourie, 2012). From the midnineteenth century onwards, however, the genealogical records are incomplete and might under-represent the total population.…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 84%

“…Using the same dataset,Cilliers and Fourie (2012) show that settlers in the Cape Colony had an average life span similar to that of the middle class in rural Holland, from which many of the VOC employees were likely to originate. To the extent that wealth and longevity are correlated, the evidence of relatively long life spans in the late 18th century seems to confirm recent hypotheses that the settlers of the Cape Colony attained living standards similar to those of Dutch or English citizens(Fourie 2013;Fourie & Uys 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The transmission of longevity across generations: The case of the settler Cape Colony

Piraino¹,

Muller²,

Cilliers³

et al. 2014

Research in Social Stratification and Mobility

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Evidence on long-term multigenerational dynamics is often inadequate as large datasets with multiple generations remain very uncommon. We posit that genealogical records can offer a valuable alternative. Rather than exploring the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status, we rely on birth and death dates of eighteenth and nineteenth century settlers in South Africa's Cape Colony to estimate the intergenerational transmission of longevity. We find that there is a positive and significant association between parents' and offspring's life duration, as well as between siblings. Although these correlations persist over time, the coefficients are relatively small. While the effect of grandparents' longevity on that of grandchildren is insignificant, the cousin correlations suggest that inequality in longevity might persist across more than two generations. We suggest that family and environmental factors shared by cousins, beyond grandparental longevity, can explain these results.

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“…These genealogical registers include records of all known families that settled in South Africa and their descendants until 1910, and contain vital information on over half a million individuals over a period of 200 years. 7 The registers were compiled by professional and amateur South African genealogists, from inter alia, baptism and marriage records of the Dutch Reformed Church archives in Cape Town, marriage documents of the courts of Cape Town, Graaff-Reinet, Tulbagh, Colesberg, collected from a card index in the Cape Archives Depot, death notices in the estate files of Cape Town and Bloemfontein, registers of the Reverends Archbell and Lindley, voortrekker baptismal register in the Dutch Reformed Church archive in Cape Town, marriage register of the magistrate of Potchefstroom, and other notable genealogical publications including: C.C. de Villiers (1894) "Geslacht-register der oude Kaapsche familiën", D. F. du Toit and T. Malherbe (1966) "The Family register of the South African nation", J.A.Heese (1971) "Die herkoms van die Afrikaner, 1657-1867", I. Mitford-Baberton (1968) "Some frontier families", and vari-ous other genealogies on individual families.…”

Section: Data and Transcriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The shaping of a settler fertility transition: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South African demographic history reconsidered

Cilliers

Mariotti

2018

European Review of Economic History

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Using South African Families (SAF), a new database of settler genealogies, we provide for the first time, a description of female marital fertility in South Africa from 1700 to 1909. We find high and stable levels of fertility up to the mid-nineteenth century, typical of a pre-transition population, after which fertility declines. The usual correlates of a decline in fertility, namely, later starting and earlier stopping of childbearing, together with increased spacing between births, can be seen from the second half of the nineteenth century. The South African fertility transition mirrors to a large extent the pattern found in other settler communities, as well as the European experience despite the somewhat different economic and social circumstances of the country, in particular relative to Europe.

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New Estimates of Settler Life Span and Other Demographic Trends in South Africa, 1652–1948

Cited by 10 publications

References 13 publications

Settler skills and colonial development: the Huguenot wine‐makers in eighteenth‐century Dutch South Africa

Settler skills and colonial development: the Huguenot wine‐makers in eighteenth‐century Dutch South Africa

The transmission of longevity across generations: The case of the settler Cape Colony

The shaping of a settler fertility transition: eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South African demographic history reconsidered

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