1658
First school for enslaved children established
Pieter van Stael began a school intended to teach enslaved children Dutch and Christianity.
In 1658, after the arrival of large groups of enslaved people at the Cape, sick-comforter Pieter van Stael opened a school for enslaved children. Its stated aims were to teach Dutch and the Christian religion. The school was short-lived, and the surviving institutional record says much more about official intentions than about the children's experiences.
Significance
The school provided some access to reading, language instruction and Christian teaching at a time when formal education was limited even among free children. Because attendance and curriculum were controlled by slaveholders and Company officials, education also served religious conformity and the management of an enslaved population. Both functions belong in the account; “forced assimilation” is an interpretation of that coercive setting rather than the only stated purpose of the school.
Why it matters
The short-lived school introduced formal Dutch literacy and Christian teaching to enslaved children, but did so within slavery and according to objectives chosen by the VOC and church rather than the pupils.