1660 at the Cape of Good Hope: Kaapman Peace, the Marichal Wreck, and Danckert’s Trek

Peace Overtures and the Cause of the War

In the early months of 1660 the settlement looked peaceful, but only because the Cape clans had moved inland for a time. With their return to the peninsula, hostilities were expected again unless some arrangement could be made beforehand. Van Riebeeck and his council wanted a settlement that would let Europeans work unmolested. [3]

There was no doubt in their minds about the cause of the late war. The wounded Khoikhoi prisoner whom the fiscal had brought to the fort spoke Dutch well enough to be understood. Asked why his countrymen stole farmers’ cattle, he answered that the farmers occupied, without leave, land that had belonged to his people from time immemorial. They could no longer drive cattle to the river to drink without crossing cultivated ground, and they had determined to force the intruders out. Soon after that statement the prisoner died. From then on van Riebeeck gave this as the true origin of the war. [3]

Batavia candidly admitted that the natives had natural cause for enmity, yet no redress of the kind they sought could be granted. The question before the council was whether nomad clans held a right to the soil so complete that Europeans ought not to take any of it, or whether a European outpost at the Cape was justified. The answer at the fort was that the cultivated ground would be held; resistance was treated as natural, not as a reason to withdraw. [3]

Kaapman Treaty — 6 April 1660

The Kaapmans made the first peace overtures. Early in the year they sent a message from Saldanha Bay by the coast traders, proposing a treaty of friendship. They asked for a written safe-conduct signed by the commander, the secunde, and the fiscal so that delegates might visit the fort. The proposal came from Harry and Doman, who had learned that a bond was preferable to a verbal promise. The safe-conduct was sent; under its protection the two former interpreters settled the preliminary arrangements with the commander. [3]

On the 6th of April the fat captain Gogosoa, accompanied by Harry, Doman, and forty of the leading men of the Kaapman clan, arrived at the fort and concluded a treaty. The terms were that neither party would molest the other; that the Kaapmans would try to bring inland clans to sell cattle to make up for stock stolen in the war; that Europeans would retain the land they occupied; that roads would be pointed out along which Kaapmans could come to the fort; and that Europeans who wronged natives would be severely punished. [3]

Those terms came only after long discussion. Argument ended when van Riebeeck declared plainly that the ground would be held by the sword. After ceding the point of possession of cultivated land, the Kaapmans asked leave to come within the boundaries to gather bitter almonds and edible roots found in abundance on the settlement side. That request was refused, because the bitter almonds were needed for the thorn hedge planned to enclose the settlement. They brought forward many instances of ill-treatment by burghers, and had to be content with an assurance that if they reported such cases thereafter they would receive redress. [3]

Gorachouqua Peace and the Fort Dance — 5 May 1660

Soon after the Kaapman peace, the Gorachouquas sent three delegates to ask whether terms would be made with them also. The answer was yes. On the 5th of May Choro, with Harry and Doman as interpreters and about a hundred followers, appeared at the fort. Ankaisoa, a petty chief of Gogosoa’s clan who had not been included in the April treaty, was there as well. They wanted to reopen ownership of the ground along the Liesbeek; the commander cut that subject off and said nothing must be said on it again. Terms similar to Gogosoa’s were then agreed. In ratification Choro presented thirteen head of cattle and received copper, beads, pipes, and tobacco in return. [3]

The Gorachouquas were entertained, as the Kaapmans had been, with a feast of rice and bread and as much spirits as they chose to drink. A tub in the fort courtyard was filled with a mixture of arrack and brandy. The men then prepared a grand dance after their manner: they ranged in order while the women sat and set up a monotonous chant, clapping sharply. The dancing — springing and quivering rather than stepping — lasted about two hours, while one after another men fell overcome by exertion and the drink. Each was carried outside and laid in the grass to sleep. When the dance ended only three or four men could still stand. It was the concluding festivity of the peace season; the commander could thereafter say he was at peace with all the people of Africa then known to the fort. [3]

Lacus Secretary and Burgher Officers

About this time secretary Gysbert van Campen left the Cape for Batavia, and clerk Hendrik Lacus was promoted to the vacant post. The secretary kept the record of the council of policy but had neither vote nor voice in debate; in the absence of a clergyman he performed marriages; he drew up contracts and agreements; declarations concerning crime were made before him, though prosecutions remained with the fiscal; and a great mass of copying — letters, journals, and other documents — passed through his hands. Clear black-letter penmanship was a necessary qualification; the tough paper and quill work of those secretaries still read almost like print centuries later. [3]

Two new burgher councillors were needed. Jan Reyniers, ruined by the war, had returned into the Company’s service; Hendrik Boom had served his full term. The freemen nominated Jacob Cloete, Leendert Cornelissen, Wouter Mostert, and Jurien Janssen; the council of policy selected the second and third — Leendert Cornelissen and Wouter Mostert. The council of militia presented six names; from them Hendrik van Surwerden was appointed sergeant, and Herman Remajenne and Elbert Dirksen corporals for the ensuing year. [3]

The Marichal Wreck — May 1660

On the 9th of May 1660 the French ship Marichal, Captain Simon Vesron, from Nantes bound for Madagascar, put into Table Bay. She carried, all told, one hundred and forty-eight souls, among them Lieutenant Pierre Gelton, going out to assume government of a French factory at Madagascar, a bishop, and three minor ecclesiastics of the church of Rome. [3]

On the morning of the 16th the wind set in from the north-west with rain and rose until the 18th it blew a gale, with a heavy sea rolling into the bay. The Marichal rode to three anchors, but her ground tackle was weaker than that of a Dutch Indiaman of her size. Before daylight on the 19th the cables parted. There was no saving the ship; the fore-staysail was run up so that she swung and struck the beach bows on near the mouth of Salt River. Spars were cut away and a boat got out, but it swamped and broke on the beach. [3]

At dawn people on the wreck were seen making rafts, without success. In the afternoon they sent two letters ashore in a cask, pleading for help. A whale-boat was mounted on a waggon and taken to the beach. A line was floated in, a strong rope followed, and the whale-boat plied once or twice along it, but only half a dozen men reached shore that afternoon. In the night the gale abated and the sea went down; there was no longer danger of loss of life. A place was assigned where the crew could pitch tents and store cargo. [3]

Restrictions followed. All munitions of war except the arms of the six officers highest in rank were to be given into the commander’s custody; the French were not to go beyond assigned limits; and no meetings were to be held for worship according to the ritual of the church of Rome. Van Riebeeck issued a proclamation prohibiting all religious ceremonies in the settlement except those of the Reformed church of Holland. That clause seemed so ordinary to those present that no demur was made to it, but Lieutenant Gelton objected forcibly to surrendering the arms. The commander held firm, and the lieutenant submitted. [3]

Captain Vesron and forty-four of the crew were Huguenots; sympathy between them and the Netherlanders seems to have run stronger than between them and their own countrymen of the other faith. Thirty-five of the Frenchmen entered the Company’s service at the Cape; the remainder did the same as soon as they reached Batavia in the first ships after the disaster. The ecclesiastics stayed nearly a year and then took passage for Europe after failing to engage a conveyance to Madagascar. The bishop, Estienne by name, was a man of wealth and good family who had turned from a profligate career to fervent piety and the founding of missions in Madagascar. This was the third time he had been thwarted in reaching that island; he told van Riebeeck he meant, once home, to charter a vessel at his own cost if the factory owners sent none. [3]

Remajenne’s Illicit Cattle Trade

In 1660 it was discovered that Herman Remajenne — the man whose name heads the list of South African free settlers — had long carried on illicit trade with the Khoikhoi. During the late hostilities, when the government was straining to find the Kaapmans, he had twice visited their camp in secret. When the Marichal was lost, he managed by night to supply the crew with abundance of fresh beef in exchange for articles saved from the wreck. He was running a large cattle trade under the eye of the fort, with few accomplices other than natives. [3]

One night he was taken red-handed with a party of Khoikhoi driving bartered cattle to his kraal, and the whole of his past transactions came out. Punishment, by the standards of the day and the circumstances, was light: the bartered cattle were forfeited to the Company, and a small fine was inflicted on him. [3]

Inland Chiefs and Cattle Barter

Large herds were now frequently brought for sale by chiefs of inland clans. Natives were eager for beads and parted with many hundreds of oxen and cows for them. Beads for an ox cost the Company only eight to ten pence, but the trade carried larger expenses: continual presents of copper plates, iron rods, axes, tobacco, pipes, and other articles to the chiefs, and liberal entertainment of all who came to the fort. [3]

The barter was ceremonious. A party approaching from the interior sent messengers ahead to report the number of cattle on the way. At the gate by the watch-house Keert de Koe the party was met by a horseman and escorted to the fort. The leader might be Oedasoa, chief of the Cochoqua — a tribe estimated at seventeen or eighteen thousand souls — mounted on an ox, with his favourite daughter Namies riding at his side, a pack ox behind, and forty or fifty men driving the cattle. Or it might be Sousoa, chief of the Chainouqua, a tribe even more numerous and powerful, accompanied by his son Goeboe with a similar train. [3]

At the fort the chiefs dismounted and were taken to the commander’s apartments, seated on mats on the floor. For Oedasoa, Eva (Krotoa to the natives) always interpreted; for other chiefs, Doman or Harry attended. After compliments came an entertainment of bread, rice, cheese, sugar, and wine served in tin dishes and cans said to be used only by persons of rank in Holland. Sometimes they heard music from the virginals; if it was Sunday, military and burgher infantry were reviewed after divine service and salutes fired in their honour. While the chiefs ate in the commander’s quarters, their retainers feasted in the courtyard on bread, rice, and brandy. As a rule no trade was done on the day of arrival; barter followed next morning, then further entertainment that might last two or three days. When the visitors left, pack oxen carried presents for the chiefs and biscuits and brandy for the road. [3]

Behaviour on these visits was satisfactory, and traits of character were noticed with care. If a present was made to one man, he immediately divided it among all. Oedasoa’s attachment to Namies stood out: when a lion mangled his arm while his people tried to secure young zebras for the commander, who wished to try taming them as horses, Namies alone dressed the wounds and watched day and night until he could help himself. When she was ill, nothing would tempt her father to leave her despite pressing invitations from the fort. The mother of Namies had been an elder sister of Eva, carried off years earlier by Chainouquas and later taken among Cochoqua spoil — a reminder that capture and remarriage were common, yet family ties could still run deep. [3]

Ships were often blown past the Cape without putting into Table Bay; sometimes vessels at the mouth of the harbour were driven out again by a strong south-east gale. The directors therefore wanted a second place of refreshment somewhere in the Atlantic. England under the Protector Cromwell had taken St Helena, so search was under way for another convenient station. Belief held that a beautiful, fertile island lay somewhere between St Helena and the African coast. [3]

Lodewyk Claessen of Delft, then master ship’s carpenter at Batavia, said that in 1652 he had twice been on St Helena Nova, as the Portuguese named the island. Questioned by the governor-general and council of India, he told a full story: four years a Portuguese prisoner, compelled for a time to serve in a ship cruising the Atlantic; a fertile island abounding with fruit, vegetables, and cattle; sailors saying it lay half a degree south of old St Helena; two small Portuguese fortresses ashore and a third larger one building; a good harbour. Charts had long laid down St Helena Nova as well. Expeditions from the Cape searched for it without success. Return fleets left in long lines with ships a few miles apart and scoured the ocean for years until the island was erased from the maps. [3]

Danckert’s Trek — Elephant River, November 1660

An attempt to reach the empire of Monomotapa was also made from the Cape in 1660. Large rewards for discoveries of importance drew volunteers. Since the last exploring party, van Riebeeck had studied books on South African geography and believed he could fix Monomotapa and its chief cities. His authorities included Linschoten’s work, Father Martinus Martini’s verbal description, and Portuguese books of travel, geography, and history. Portuguese was then the common medium among Europeans of different nations in the east, and was often used at the fort; Eva could speak it tolerably well. [3]

From those sources he laid down the city of Davagul, where the emperor of Monomotapa kept his treasures, as 828 English miles north-east of the Cape and 322 miles west of the Indian Ocean coast — in the neighbourhood of the later town of Pretoria — on the bank of the river Spirito Santo. Cortado on Rio Infante was thought to lie in the same direction but nearer. Peoples on the route were listed as Cochoqua, Chainouqua, and Hancumqua; next to these last the Chobona, taken to be the civilised people of Monomotapa. [3]

Thirteen volunteers went under Jan Danckert, an intelligent petty officer. Two men in the party would be met with often again: George Frederick Wreede, a German of good education who had fallen into the lower ranks of Company service, and Pieter van Meerhof, a Dane who had come as a soldier and, skilled in dressing wounds, been promoted under-surgeon. Interpreter Doman went too — living at the fort since the peace and working to regain the commander’s confidence. They left on the 12th of November with bread and other food on three pack oxen, trusting muskets for meat. [3]

They travelled north along the base of the mountain range that separates the western coast belt from the interior. Small parties of San were encountered — some dropped arms and fled at the sight of strangers; others held friendly talk. They passed a region they called the veritable kingdom of the moles, where the ground gave way at every step. At length they came to a river flowing toward the Atlantic with two or three hundred elephants feeding on its banks, and named it from that sight — the Elephant River, the name it still bears. [3]

At the Elephant River some of the party rested while the leader and a few others pushed a little farther north. At the farthest point they saw smoke rising far ahead and were told by San that it came from fires of a Namaqua encampment. Most of the men were too fatigued to go on; Danckert had to turn homeward. They made no discoveries of importance on the return march and reached the fort safely on the 20th of January 1661. The year 1660 thus closed with peace treaties on the peninsula, a French wreck and new labour in the bay, inland cattle coming in by ceremony, and the first European sight of Namaqua smoke from the far north — without yet opening that trade. [3]