BACKGROUND
The Cape of Good Hope Panel is a series of annual tax censuses (or opgaafrolle) collected by the colonial authorities in the seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Cape Colony. The censuses contain information not only about the complete settler population – by the end of the period, a total of more than 50 000 individuals – but also the enslaved and indigenous Khoesan population that lived and worked within the colonial economy.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (The establishment, growth and legacy of a settler colony: Quantitative panel studies of the political economy of Cape Colony – Dnr: M20-0041), the purpose of this project is to transcribe the full series of tax censuses, match households across censuses, match census households to other sources (like probate inventories and auction rolls) and match census households across generations (using genealogical records). This would allow us to investigate questions about the evolution of living standards and economic development, inequality and social mobility, networks and elite formation and slavery and labour coercion.
We aim to, ultimately, combine the wealth of data with innovative techniques to analyse and understand the economic development of this pre-industrial, colonial society.
THE TEAM

Erik Green
Department of Economic History, Lund University

Johan Fourie
Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University

Ann Carlos
Department of Economics, University of Colorado Boulder

Jeanne Cilliers
Department of Economic History, Lund University

Kate Ekama
Department of History, Stellenbosch University

Katherine Eriksson
Department of Economics, University of California Davis

Calumet Links
Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University

Igor Martin
Department of Economic History, Lund University

Anne McCants
Department of History, Massachusetts Institutes of Technology

Auke Rijpma
Department of History, Utrecht University

Robert Ross
Department of History, Leiden University

Dieter von Fintel
Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University
ADVISORY BOARD

Emmanuel
Akyeampong
Harvard University

Wayne
Dooling
SOAS University of London

Joseph
Ferrie
Northwestern University

Laura
Mitchell
UC Irvine

Sheilagh
Ogilvie
Oxford University

Jan Luiten
van Zanden
Utrecht University
DATASET
The transcribed annual tax censuses (opgaafrolle) will be made available during the course of the project.
RESEARCH

CONTACT US
Madeleine Jarl
Research secretary
Lund University
PARTNERS
We are grateful to the following supporters, without which this project would not be possible: