Whats the history of the New Years Carnival?
The Carnival’s roots reach back more into the colonial era. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the New Year was by far the most important holiday for everyone, slave and free. Coming during the southern summer, it was a time when slave-owning whites took time off to visit their friends and family. They commonly allowed their slaves to do the same thing; it was their only holiday. This was a relaxed and lively time of the year, with the warm weather bringing people of all sorts out into the streets to enjoy the festive mood. Slaves were an important part of Cape Town’s musical life. Wealthy slave owners often gloried in small orchestras composed of their slaves, and accounts from the era tell us that the slaves performed European classical and popular music at a high level. Slaves also played for themselves, drawing on Asian and African musical traditions. These enslaved musicians were in the process of creating a unique musical culture that borrowed from, reconfigured, and imp
