During most of the eighteenth century, the Cape was a society that relied heavily on slave labour. The first slaves arrived in the Cape in 1658 from a captured Portuguese slave ship that was on its way from Angola to Brazil.[34] However, it was only at the beginning of the eighteenth century that slave imports became preferred over European immigrants. European servants called Knechts were employed, but the VOC soon preferred to import slaves to keep input costs low so they could get the produce at low prices from the farmers. The slaves came primarily from four main destinations: the
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