The Bo-Kaap Museum : challenges of community, identity and representation in a changing society

Abstract

The Bo-Kaap Museum is situated on the slopes of Signal Hill and is located in one of the oldest buildings in the area. The house was built in 1769 and is an example of early Cape Dutch architecture. To provide a brief background, the Bo-Kaap area developed from the 1780s and was an area that housed artisans from Europe and a number of people who were referred to as 'Free Blacks'. 'Free Blacks' was the name used for freed political prisoners (the majority of whom were from the Indonesian Islands), freed convicts and freed slaves. The 'Free Blacks' included many artisans and fishermen. With the emancipation of slaves many of the freed slaves moved into the Bo-Kaap area. So the history of Bo-Kaap is closely linked to the story of slavery at the Cape, the development of Islam, and the implementation of apartheid. Some of the literature on the history of Bo-Kaap suggest that the area was mainly Muslim by the middle of the 19th century and imply that it was the 'traditional home of the Cape Malays'. However, Fabio Todeschini challenges what he calls the 'orthodox historical view' that the Bo-Kaap was predominantly Muslim from around 1850. He points out that the respected historian Achmat Davids, himself a Muslim and Bo-Kaap resident, stated that Bo-Kaap's population had always been mixed and that 'the poor of all races had shared a common home there.' According to Todeschini, in the 1940s less than 40 per cent of Bo-Kaap's population was Muslim.