297pp., hardback, Routledge, Abingdon & New York, 2025
ISBN: 9781032954714
An inclusive history of the founding of colonial newspapers and magazines at the Cape that challenges us to consider the complicated history of press freedom in South Africa, given that several founding journalists and printers were slave owners and advertised slaves as regular “property” in their publications.
The “slave press” was a label originally attached to The Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser when it was founded in 1880 by Alexander Walker and John Robertson, a pair of British private wholesale merchants and slave traders.
Gawie Botma is Associate Professor and researcher in the Journalism Department at Stellenbosch University, where he is the PhD programme coordinator.