Inboekstelsel was a system of indentured child labour instituted by Europeans in Southern Africa during the 18th and 19th centuries.^[1] The word is derived from the Dutch verb inboeken (register; literally "in-book"), referring to the requirement of entering the names and details of the inboekeling, or apprentices, in the Landdros's register.^[2]

The system had its origin in the Cape Northern Frontier during the second half of the 18th century, when settlers would capture Khoi and San children, and force them to work as indentured labourers until adulthood.^[3]

When Boer trekkers migrated into the Transvaal during the 1840s, they brought the inboekstelsel system with them.^[4] Inboekelinge children were captured during raids, or handed over by their parents in return for land or goods.^[1] In some cases they were sold to other burghers, in what became known as the trade in "black ivory".^[5]

In the Transvaal, the inboekelings numbered about 4,000 in 1866, nearly one for every ten settlers.^[2] In 1869 the synod of the Dutch Reformed Church adopted a resolution condemning the practice, but rescinded it two years later on the grounds that the system no longer existed.^[5] In the Transvaal, legislation required that males be released from indenture at the age of 25, while females were released at 21, but the law was not always observed in remote frontier districts.^[1]

British attitudes towards the Inboekstelsel system were ambivalent. The British administration of Transvaal between 1877 and 1881 did not affect it.^[6]