Emancipation Day

The enslaved people of the Cape were legally freed on 1 December 1834. Referencing archival records and evoking the historical imagination of what that particular experience of freedom might have been like, the Museum has collaborated closely with the Prestwich Place Project Committee and other organisations over the years, to mark this significant but often forgotten day in the history of Cape Town. 

Locals setup a candle vigil to commemomorate the freeing of slaves on 1 December 2025 in Spin Street, Cape Town (Copy right District Six Museum | photographer: Courtney Haas))