Home of Freed Slave Armosyn Van Der Kaap, (on Parliament Street)

Freed slaves, such as Armosyn Claasz Van Der Kaap, lived in Church Square located off Parliament Street (originally Grave St). In the late 1690s, prior to her release from slavery (1704), Armosyn was matron at the Slave Lodge. She had lived behind the Lodge in Parliament Street on a property which was given to her in June 1708. She was the 3rd free black woman to be granted a title deed at the Cape. In her will, she left part of the wealth that she had earned as a free woman, to the poor in Cape Town. She thus stands out as the first black philanthropist of Cape Town.