Part 1 Introduction: gender, family and British slave emancipation. Part 2 Gender, family, and the ending of Cape slavery 1823-1838: familial boundaries and Cape slavery; gender, sexuality and amelioration; apprenticeship and the battle for the child. Part 3 Liberating the family? - 1838-1848: landscapes of emancipation; labouring families. Part 4 Sexuality, race and colonial identities 1838-1853: marriage and family in the post-emancipation era; rituals of rule - infanticide and the humanitarian sentiment; rape, race and the sexual politics of colonial identity; conclusion - family histories, slave emancipation and gender history.