Dynasty building, family networks and social capital: alcohol pachters and the development of a colonial elite at the Cape of Good Hope, c. 1760-1790.

A hallmark of colonisation was extensive social reconfiguration, leading to the development of local elites which differed from the metropolitan and indigenous patterns. Historians of the Cape of Good Hope during the VOC era have identified the development of a local elite during the eighteenth century. The Cape gentry, consisting of grain and wine farmers in the hinterland of Cape Town, consolidated their power and influence over several generations through capital accumulation in the form of land and slaves, and through contracting endogamous marriages. This article contributes to this schol... Mehr ...