Boer History1659 at the Cape of Good Hope: First Wine, Namaqua Trek, and Doman’s War
First Wine — 2 February 1659
On Sunday 2 February 1659 the commander recorded that wine had been made for the first time from Cape grapes — new must fresh from the vat. The fruit was mostly Muscadel and other white, round grapes, “very fragrant and tasty.” Spanish grapes still hung quite green on several vines, though thick enough to promise a first-class crop later. Three young vines planted two years earlier had yielded about twelve quarts of must; how it would fare with maturing remained to be seen. Van Riebeeck noted that return fleets would put in annually just in time for new must and well-matured beer, when fruits were at their best — a small domestic triumph in a year that would soon turn to war. [1] [3]
Theal later summarised the same event: the manufacturer was the commander himself, the only person in the settlement who knew how the work should be done. There is no contemporary list of vine-stocks from Spain, but the observation that Spanish grapes were not yet ripe while thriving has long been linked to the hanepoot tradition. Other plants enter the record only in passing. Rose and tulip bloomed in Cape gardens; olive and mulberry were said to thrive; currant bushes of three varieties died. As much thought went to ale as to wine: barley and malt did well, but hops failed again and again. Samples sent to Batavia and Holland soured on the voyage; heat, not want of effort, blocked export beer. [1] [3]
The first press was not yet an industry. It was a commander’s experiment on Company ground, timed to the vintage and written into the day-book beside island boat traffic and a runaway Guinea slave from his own farm. Within months the same settlement would measure success not by quarts of must but by draught oxen still alive on the Liesbeek line. The wine entry remains the year’s quiet opening chord — proof that European plants could fruit at the Cape even as European and Khoikhoi claims to the same pastures hardened into open conflict.
Namaqua Trek — 3 February to 7 April 1659
The Seventeen wanted the interior opened for trade. Van Riebeeck was instructed to offer premiums for discoveries of note. After repeated requests, seven men — all free burghers except one corporal still in Company service — came forward to seek the Namaquas, of whose wealth and civilisation Eva told wonderful stories. It was believed the people might be reached in twenty to thirty days. Their names and trades were entered in full: Christian Janssen of Hoesem (free huntsman, thatcher and carpenter), accepted as leader; Jochim Elberts of Amsterdam, free Saldanha trader; Hans Jacobssen Liskij of Danzig, free servant of the ensign; Pieter Jansen of Middelburgh, free servant of the miller; Gijsbert Arensen of Bommel, free mason; Dirck Rensckens of Maseyck, free mower; and Jan Francken of Arnhem, corporal in the Company’s service. [1] [3]
They left on the afternoon of 3 February 1659 with provisions on two sturdy pack-oxen for three months. Each man carried a firelock and a pistol with ammunition. The oxen bore a carefully listed cargo: 350 lb of bread, 80 lb of salted pork, cloths and beads, copper plate and wire, tobacco, powder, lead, flints, fishing gear, and spices offered as trade samples. Their memorandum named the tribes then known to the fort — Goringhaiqua (Kaapmans) under Gogosoa, Gorachouqua “Tobacco Thieves,” Cochoqua under Ngonnomoa and Oedasoa, and others farther north — and ordered them to note chiefs, clothing, religion, dwellings, and any sign of gold or the rumoured river Spirito Sancto. [1]
They travelled north about twenty days through thirst and the year’s worst heat, not knowing where to find water. They reached the Berg River near its mouth in St Helena Bay and saw the tide ebb and flow in the channel. Pack-oxen were worn out; they gave up going farther and turned home, arriving at the fort on the 7th of April without adding useful knowledge of the interior or contact with the Namaqua. The premium system had produced courage and a coastal limit, not Monomotapa. The same season that pressed the first must also proved how thin the map still was beyond the Berg. [1] [3]
Militia and Council Changes
Every burgher had to keep a gun and answer for military service. On 1 May 1659 the council, noting hostility among the Cape Khoikhoi and the beachrangers, formally enrolled the freemen as a militia company drilled like the fort garrison — one sergeant, two corporals, and a drummer. For the first year the council of policy chose the retiring burgher councillor Steven Janssen (Stephen Botma) as sergeant and commander of the corps, and the farmer Harman Remajenne and free miller Wouter Cornelissen Mostert as corporals. A council of militia — the two burgher councillors, the sergeant, and one corporal — was to handle petty military matters and yearly submit double lists for appointments, on the Batavia free-burgher model as far as local circumstances allowed. [1] [3]
Burgher councillors were still nominated by the freemen in a body while numbers were small. In 1659 they put forward Jan Reyniers, Jacob Cornelissen, Wouter Mostert, and Jan Rietvelt; the council selected Jan Reyniers to take the seat vacated by Stephen Botma, keeping one experienced councillor beside the new man as the standing rule preferred. [1] [3]
In the ordinary council of policy a heavier change had already fallen. On the evening of 18 February 1659 Ensign Jan van Harwarden died — only months after promotion by the admiral and broad council of the return fleet, and still the man who had led the 1658 Little Berg trek. His duties — general superintendence of works, military command, and oversight of Company grain — were split. Fiscal Abraham Gabbema received voice and vote and left the secretaryship to clerk Gijsbert van Campen. Pieter Everaert (Everaerts of Cruijssaert), provisionally in charge after Harwarden’s death, was confirmed sergeant at twenty guilders a month and took his seat as head of the military. The board that would vote war in May was already reshaped by a single February death. [1] [3]
Family life at the fort continued under the same strain. On 26 February 1659 the commander’s eldest daughter Maria — born 18 June 1657 and still unbaptised after more than a year without a visiting minister — was christened in the fort’s forehall by Dominee Daniel Brouwerius. A second daughter, Elisabeth, named for Van Riebeeck’s mother, was born on 25 September. Pieter van der Stael helped with the boys Lambertus and Abraham. Private household space inside the fort remained thin; the new house rising at Bosheuvel was meant to give the family room the walls could not. [2]
War Opens — Pasture Lost and Doman
Early in 1659, when the Kaapmans (Goringhaiquas) moved with their herds onto the peninsula, they found large tracts at Wynberg and Rondebosch dotted with settler houses. They could no longer graze the rich herbage at the mountain foot as before. Hostility hardened. Few in number, the settlers held weapons too destructive for open attack; systematic plunder seemed a way to drive them out. Kaapmans and Gorachouquas came on farmers’ kraals at night and drove cattle away; by day they were not to be found. [3]
One night Doman left the fort, abandoned his European clothes, and was next recognised as leader of a plunder party. He had been to Batavia, knew Dutch ways, and — as the council later recorded — had taught his people that wet weather spoiled matchlocks because a matchcord would not stay alight. He chose rainy days and nights for cattle-lifting. Eva confirmed the design: Gogosoa had urged peace, but at Doman’s instigation the Kaapmans disregarded him and meant never to leave the settlers quiet again. [1] [3]
The journal marks the climb. On 4 May Kaapmans drove off seven Company draught oxen from behind Table Mountain; Corporal Pieter Cruijthof pursued with ten soldiers. On 7 May free farmers — among them Hendrick Boom, Harman Remajenne, Jacob Cloeten, Sijmon in’t Vel, Jan Reyniers, and others — petitioned the commander: tobacco, crops, harrows, plough-iron, and above all cattle and sheep were being stolen daily. That same day Van Riebeeck, from the top of Bosheuvel, saw the Kaapmans retreating with all their cattle toward the Steenbergen and the little Tent River; and he learned that his own farmstead on Bosheuvel had been burnt out by a fire that started inside the house. [1] [2]
Harassed farmers pressed for leave to take revenge. Van Riebeeck met them on the Company’s Rondebosch farm. Directors’ orders forbade harm to the natives; he also blamed freemen’s negligence — cattle sometimes sent out without a herder, men left unarmed contrary to instructions. He warned that the Company would not give a second start or pay war losses. The burghers preferred risk to insecurity. They asked for soldiers, or leave to avenge themselves, and affirmed they would make no claim on the Company for what war might cost them. [1] [3]
Council sat on 19 May 1659 with burgher councillors present: Van Riebeeck, secunde Roelof de Man, Sergeant Pieter Everaert, Hendrik Boom, Jan Reyniers, and fiscal Gabbema (granted a vote for the weight of the matter). They recorded a desire for peace, judged messengers would be read as weakness, and resolved by unanimous vote to fall suddenly on the Kaapmans with a strong force, seize cattle and men, avoid needless bloodshed, and hold hostages so those who escaped might be checked — not for booty or private revenge, they wrote, but for quiet and so that exploring parties might continue. They prayed God’s blessing on the design. [1] [3]
Simon in’t Veld and Panic
The resolution was not an hour old when news came that all Brinckman’s cattle — at least thirty head — and more than seventy sheep had been taken, with the rest of Vasagie’s and Van Roon’s cattle as well. Brinckman’s comrade Sijmon in’t Vel (Simon Janssen, nicknamed to mark him among other Janssens without surnames), after firing on the attackers, had been overpowered and murdered with assegais — seven wounds. A slave was wounded. Doman, among the raiders, picked up Simon’s gun and made off; seven free burghers pursued but could not overtake him. Four farms stood ruined in the ploughing and sowing season. [1] [3]
Beachrangers and Kaapmans near the fort fled Table Valley with women and children. Timid burghers moved families to the fort or the stone redoubt Corenhoop. Hendrik Boom set the example of fortifying the best building at the Cape. The same men who had clamoured for revenge fell into confusion; each wished his own way, and the commander could not use them as a militia corps. A loss inventory listed Reijniers’s company short twenty-four cattle, Brinckman’s nineteen cattle and sixty-seven sheep besides Simon’s death, Vasagie’s seventeen cattle, and so on down the line of partner farms. [1] [3]
The council released enslaved men from chains for operations against the Khoikhoi and had assegais made under their direction. Burghers who had stopped ordinary work formed a paid corps at tenpence a day plus rewards — a hundred guilders for Doman alive and fifty dead; twenty alive and ten dead for other marauders; women and children at half those sums. Soldiers stiffened farms still held; ambushes were laid. A day of fasting and prayer was kept. Matchcord was so short that men were told to spare it and keep charcoal embers ready. The enemy stayed as hard to reach as birds in the air. [1] [3]
Böeseken’s reading of the same months stresses the freemen’s frayed nerves: knife fights among carpenters, desertions to English ships, drinking debts, and Jan Reiniersz forced into Company credit after his trek and milch cattle were stolen. Prices for fish, meat, dairy, vegetables, oil, vinegar, salt, and fruit stayed low, yet coin was scarce and the Company’s purchase rates for farm produce did not clear the debts of the first hard years. Many of the earliest free farmers lost heart — some sought re-enlistment as officials, others tried to slip away with the fleets. [2]
Stock Plague and Wednesday Prayers
A virulent sickness struck horned cattle and sheep; in some flocks four of five died. On Robben Island only thirty-five sheep remained of five hundred. Stall-fed animals perished too, so famine was not the cause. The fiscal brought carcases from the island for diagnosis after young animals had died with a paralysis of the legs “as if it were beriberi.” The council read the plague as divine punishment and ordered a prayer meeting every Wednesday at four o’clock for withdrawal of wrath and help against enemies. War and murrain together emptied kraals faster than barter could fill them. [1] [3]
Oedasoa, Harry, and Failed Strikes
Worn by fruitless pursuit, the council thought of Harry on Robben Island as a guide to secret retreats. Great rewards were to be offered; the record notes they did not mean to keep the promises. A boat went for him with clothes and a friendly message — then affairs changed. Oedasoa of the Cochoquas, enemy of the Cape clans, camped across the bay with many thousands and offered firm alliance. The council agreed at once. Eva and thirteen Europeans went with presents to discuss ruining Kaapmans and Gorachouquas together. When Harry’s boat reached the jetty, he was sent straight back into exile. [1] [3]
What the Dutch wanted of Oedasoa was guides only. He gave promises and little more, though his council of old men is repeatedly mentioned in the interviews. A large Indiaman supplied twenty-five extra soldiers; another lent eighty for a country expedition. A Gorachouqua spy, forced under threat of death and interpreted by Harry brought again from the island, was to lead a night march on the Kaapman camp. Rewards included a share of cattle, forty gulden a prisoner, twenty a kill, and a hundred gulden for Doman. The enemy slipped away; Harry said sentinels stood on every hill. [3]
Soon after, fiscal Gabbema with three horsemen met five Khoikhoi by chance, killed three, and wounded two — one of them Doman, who escaped; the other was taken to the fort. A fortnight later Corporal Elias Giers and eleven soldiers broke a beachranger camp (3 August in the journal’s later reference), killing three and wounding many. Beachrangers then sought peace and were allowed back to Table Valley; Kaapmans and Gorachouquas left the neighbourhood for some months. Harry returned to Robben Island with the captured spy. One night the prisoners launched an old leaky boat, were driven ashore below Saldanha Bay, and escaped — Overhagen on the island had failed to lock the oars indoors as ordered. [1] [3]
By mid-December Eva brought word from Oedasoa that the Kaapmans hankered after peace but dared not approach the fort. Doman’s shoulder wound had healed, yet his arm was paralysed; he feared hanging if he came in. Oedasoa had shown them only a fraction of the stolen stock, given them his little flag for envoys, and refused to let them trek with him inland. The war’s military phase was sputtering out into negotiation that would only close in 1660. [1]
Liesbeek Watch-Houses and the Thorn Hedge
With the field empty, the council planned lasting defence. Van Riebeeck recalled thorn hedges in the Caribbee Islands. Digging long canals was judged too costly. Instead they deepened Liesbeek fords, built three watch-houses on the outer line, and raised a strong fence of stakes and cross-bars — like a Fatherland cattle-mart barrier — through which stock could not be driven. A thick thorn belt was to follow, and bitter almonds were reserved for that living hedge. The posts were named Keert de Koe (Turn the Cow), Houdt den Bul (Hold the Bull), and Kyck uijt (Look Out). Horsemen patrolling between them were the frontier police of the day; the line was the colonial border. [1] [3]
Framework for a watch-house went out on four free-burgher wagons in late August; the commander marked the site and carpenters raised it at once. Erasmus seamen, weak after their long voyage, still helped drag forest timber for the barrier when fit enough, for a month’s pay credit and a pound of tobacco. At the war’s start Van Riebeeck had pressed Batavia for horses — he had only about twenty, including foals, and at one point only four reasonably fit for pursuit. The return fleet brought sixteen from Java, and powerful dogs with them. Europeans felt better matched against large Khoikhoi numbers, though mounted patrols remained expensive. [1] [3]
On 30 August 1659 Van Riebeeck himself bought half the farm Den Uytwijck from Jan Reijniers — sixteen and a half morgen for f523:3:6 — after Reijniers, ruined by war and robbery, could no longer hold it. Wouter Mostert sold his share the same day to Cornelis Claes; Claes sold out to the commander on 16 November, so that the whole thirty-three morgen and two hundred square roods cost Van Riebeeck about f1,644:7:0. The house was half-finished and falling to ruin; tools needed costly repair. The purchase was both relief to broken freemen and extension of the commander’s own farming line east of the Liesbeek. [2]
The Erasmus Conspiracy — Late 1659
The return yacht Erasmus reached Table Bay on 25–26 September 1659 after a disastrous passage from Batavia: separated from the Naerden in a storm off Natal latitudes on 29/30 March, forced to the Comoros and an unknown Madagascar bay, losing her skipper Daem Pieterssen Lelij and some thirty souls, and arriving short of meat, pork, arrack, oil, vinegar, and rice for the eighty-six still alive. The council held her for repair and, by majority vote in October, ordered her to wait for the next return fleet rather than risk the winter route round Scotland and Ireland alone against Swedish and English raiders. [1]
Toward year’s end a plot was found just in time. On the afternoon of Sunday 14 December 1659, fort surgeon Meester William Robertson of Dundee learned that a large party meant that night — at the third bell — to begin a rising: first kill Erasmus men working in the forest, then the people at the Company granary, then scale the fort and murder all within, “to the smallest child,” seize the yacht, and sail. An earlier scheme had been overland desertion to Angola; when the rich Erasmus lay so long in the bay, the plan shifted to the ship. Robertson told the commander at once. Arrests followed the same evening and next days. [1] [2] [3]
Examinations before the council, augmented by officers of the Erasmus and later the Gecroonde Leeuw, named a ring under shepherd Hendrick Hendrickssen van Cloppenburgh, with Pieter Barber of Haemstede (Hampstead), Jacob Dirckssen of Antwerp, Patrick Job of Glasgow, Marcus Tomlinson, Jacob Born of Glasgow, the convict Pasquael Rodrigo of Tenerife, and others. Theal’s summary counts twenty-nine men in all, fifteen of them enslaved, and lists Scots and English among the rest: Colin Lawson, John Brown, John Beck, Alexander Crawford of Dundee; Jacob Born of Glasgow; Peter Barber of Hampstead. Two fugitive shepherds were taken on the night of 19 December near Jacob Cloeten’s house and the river bank. Cloppenburgh long denied leadership even under torture with a hundred-pound weight; comrades swore he had taken their oath and money for powder and provisions. [1] [3]
Robertson received the Artikelbrief reward of fifty reals of eight in cash (Theal equates the surgeon’s gift to about £10); promotion was left for the return-fleet commander. Lesser hands who had only heard of an Angola trek and kept silent were beaten with musket butts and lost months of pay. The council meant to clear the Cape of English and Scotch “rubbish” (oncruijt) as far as possible by shipping suspects to Batavia, excepting the surgeon. In March 1660 Admiral Pieter Sterthemius, unwilling to delay his fleet over capital cases, ordered the principal prisoners sent chained to Batavia for trial rather than finish judgment at the Cape — a decision that left bitterness in Van Riebeeck’s correspondence and in later traveller gossip about hard usage of soldiers. [1] [2] [3]
Harvest, Trade, and Fixed Prices
Losses from cattle sickness and war were offset by a remarkably good agricultural season. Crops exceeded hopes; food had never been so plentiful. While the Cochoquas stayed nearby, many cattle were bartered, so that despite mortality the commander could restock farmers — and in early November loaned Company draught oxen and milch cows to burghers stripped by raids, so that reaping and stubble-ploughing might continue behind the new fence. [1] [3]
One regulation of the year left every burgher free to buy or sell anything except corn and cattle, but fixed legal prices for goods likely to come to market. The fiscal and two burgher councillors were to go round at least monthly and enforce the rates. Grain policy stayed contested: Van Riebeeck paid freemen thirty-two stivers a schepel while knowing the Company offered far less per last at the higher account — a gap that fed the remonstrances Böeseken traces through 1658–1661. [2] [3]
By year’s end the settlement held a paradox the sources all register. The first Cape wine was in the vat; the first formal free-burgher militia stood on paper; three named watch-houses and a timber fence marked a border on the Liesbeek; a rich yacht had been saved from internal conspiracy. Yet Kaapman and Gorachouqua herds still grazed beyond reach, Doman lived with a useless arm and a price on his head, Harry was free again on the mainland, and the true cause of the war — occupation of old pasture without leave — was already plain to a wounded prisoner who spoke enough Dutch to say so. Peace treaties would wait for 1660. The year 1659 closed with full barns, thin kraals, and a frontier that had begun to look like a line on a map. [3]