former slaveswere apprenticed to their former owners, they became legally
free in 1838. By that time, the concept of freedom had been given a new
meaning in the Cape Colony as -a result of a struggle concerning the
Khoikhoi.
During the reactionary period after 1807, the colonial government sys-
tematically defined the status of the "Hottentots"
for the first time. In
1809, the governor issued a proclamation that sought to safeguard them
against such abuses as wage deductions and withholdings but also applied
legal constraints that had previously been used to control slaves. A "Hot-
tentot" was to have a fixed "place of abode," registered at the landdrost's
office, from which he was not to move without a pass signed by his em-
ployer, veldkornet, or landdrost. Three years later, a further proclamation
provided that a Khoikhoi child who had been maintained by his parents'
employer up to the age of eight years should be apprenticed to him for a
further ten years-a
provision that had the effect of binding the parents,
too. Because few Khoikhoi still possessed land inside the colony and be-
cause the mission stations and the Cape Regiment had places for only a
small proportion of the Khoikhoi population, these laws bound most of
them to compulsory servitude to white landowners.V