The price of status: Findings from Cape auctions

In early modern societies, auctions were a means not only of allocating goods but of revealing who held power and who aspired to it. This paper investigates the relationship between social hierarchy and price formation at estate auctions held in the Cape Colony between 1700 and 1825. Drawing on a newly digitised dataset comprising nearly 50,000 transactions from more than 1,400 auctions administered by the Orphan Chamber, we examine how formal status shaped bidding behaviour. The results show that social groups differed systematically in their willingness to pay for particular categories of goods. Militia officers consistently paid premiums for oxen, while Company officials and high-status free burghers were more likely to pay above-market prices for enslaved men and women. These group-specific preferences suggest that auctions functioned in part as arenas for the display of social status, with different goods serving as signals for different segments of colonial society. We also document a robust first-lot premium: items auctioned early in the order of sale fetched significantly higher prices. However, we find no evidence that elite status was associated with a greater likelihood of bidding early. These findings contribute to wider debates on the role of market institutions in reproducing social hierarchies.