Boer History1661 at the Cape of Good Hope: Namaqua Contact, Cruythof, and Meerhof’s Peace
Danckert’s Return — 20 January 1661
On the 20th of January 1661 Jan Danckert’s exploring party came safely back to the fort. They had left on the 12th of November 1660 with thirteen volunteers, the interpreter Doman, three pack oxen carrying bread and other stores, and muskets for meat, aiming north along the mountain range that separates the western coast belt from the interior. At a river flowing to the Atlantic they had found two or three hundred elephants feeding and given the stream the name it still bears. Farther on they had seen smoke and been told by San that it rose from Namaqua fires. Fatigue forced the turn for home before that camp was reached. [1] [3]
The council’s reading of the journey was not purely triumphant. On 24 January it resolved that most of the explorers had not kept the zeal with which they had set out. Only the leader Jan Danckaert, the provisional junior surgeon Pieter van Meerhoff, and two or three others had pressed hard; lazy subordinates had vexed the rest and rendered an otherwise promising march practically fruitless. Double pay was therefore withheld from all but Danckaert; brandy rations kept to their credit were paid in cash at Company store prices to limit debauchery. Yet the party had spoken with people barely four days from the Namaquas, who believed they could have guided the Dutch there in one or two days — a reach of some twenty to twenty-five days’ journey from the fort. [1]
That intelligence was enough. Within ten days another party was ready. On the same 24 January the council appointed Corporal Pieter Cruythof (Cruijthoff), superintendent of the Company’s agriculture and corporal of the cadets, as leader — a man who had offered his services and was judged able to command respect and keep authority over the men. Meerhoff, who had given full satisfaction as junior surgeon for nearly two years at the fort, in the country, and on inland journeys, was confirmed in that rank at twenty guilders a month from the first of the month and named second-in-command and journalist. Thirteen Europeans in all were selected, with two Khoikhoi interpreters, Douckerman and Hans van Neurenburg. The path was the one already tried: past a mountain the travellers named Riebeek’s Kasteel, then the least rugged line north toward the Elephant River and beyond. [1] [3]
The party left between five and nine o’clock on the morning of Sunday 30 January. Five pack-oxen carried an outfit that shows how the Company stocked an inland push: some 700 lbs of bread and 50 lbs of pork; brandy and Spanish wine in pewter flasks; vinegar and salt; thirteen pistols, thirteen firelocks, twelve cutlasses, powder, lead, fuses, and flints; red and French beads, tobacco and pipes, cloths and silks, brass wire and trinketry, looking-glasses, paper and quills, tools, fish-hooks, and a small store of pepper, mace, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Instructions of 29 January, signed by van Riebeeck, ordered Cruythof to take the best paths to the spot from which San had shown Danckert’s men the Namaqua fires, to trust Meerhoff’s route knowledge, and not lightly to believe interpreters who might keep them away from the northern people. In case of Cruythof’s death, Meerhoff was to succeed with full authority. [1]
Cruythof and Meerhof to the Namaquas — January–March 1661
Not far beyond the Elephant River the party fell in with eighteen or twenty Namaqua hunters. After hesitation and repeated invitations through the interpreters, the hunters came up in a friendly manner. Trinkets were given; confidence on both sides was established within minutes. Some of the Namaquas stayed with the Europeans that night and next morning led them to a village nearby. Meerhoff’s own journal, later copied into the fort day-book, records the first sighting in sharp detail: Hottentot companions crying “Namaqua!”, shields of dry hide, and the surgeon raising his telescope before the band would cross over. [1] [3]
The kraal belonged to the Namaquas under chief Akembie. Meerhof counted seventy-three huts in a circle, with a few others outside, and estimated about three hundred men and four hundred women and children — the proportion of women and children small because the place was only a temporary outpost. Stock stood at roughly four thousand head of horned cattle and three thousand sheep, moved from pasture to pasture as grazing required. The travellers were welcomed with open joy. A calf and a sheep were presented for food. The leaders were invited into the chief’s hut, seated on a kaross, and given milk. [1] [3]
In the evening a grand dance was held in their honour: a ring of between one and two hundred men, each holding a hollow reed of different length or thickness; a leader in the centre with a long stick, singing and directing; the ring blowing the reeds and moving through evolutions while women danced outside the circle. The entertainment lasted about two hours. On the return to the fort, about seven o’clock on the morning of the 10th–11th of March, the explorers brought proofs of contact and a report that the Namaquas had received them most pleasantly, bartered the explorers’ caps, and shown keen interest in red cloth, cowries, and bric-a-brac. They were described as a very sturdy, almost giant-like people in handsome prepared skins studded with beads of iron and copper, wearing the hair long, living in mat huts like the Cape clans, and rich in cattle. [1] [3]
Akembie’s people wished in due course to come down to the Cape, but first seemed set on destroying San (Soaquas) who had robbed them of large numbers of cattle, and on striking a blow at Oedasoa, chief of the Cochoquas (Saldanhars). Cruythof’s men got them so far as to agree that they would receive two or three of Oedasoa’s followers, if he sent them under Dutch escort, to make an offer of peace. The Namaquas also promised large numbers of sheep and cattle for trade, a closer alliance, and guidance toward their permanent dwellings and a people they called the Brijckje. The king sent the commander a small goat — the first seen in the country — after much mumbling among his people before it was handed over. The party had been absent only about forty days. [1] [3]
Akembie’s Kraal and Namaqua Life
Meerhof described the Namaquas as larger in person than other Khoikhoi groups known at the Cape, and better dressed. They wore karosses of leather or of leopard, wild cat, or coney skins. Hair was of the same kind as among the Cape clans, but copper ornaments fastened to some of the tufts stretched them so that they fell round the head. Ivory and copper rings were worn on the arms. They smelted copper and iron and made ornaments and weapons from both. Habitations were the familiar hemispherical wooden frames covered with mats, movable almost as readily as canvas tents. Milk, kept in large calabashes and hollowed wooden vessels, was the chief article of food. Meerhoff guessed Akembie’s age at sixty or seventy years. [1] [3]
Warriors carried shields of double oxhide large enough to hide behind, and used the assagai, clubbed stick, and bow and arrow. At the time of Cruythof’s visit there was a feud with the Cochoquas. San had recently robbed the Namaquas of cattle, and the clan was looking for a chance of vengeance on that side as well. Presents of beads, copper plates, tobacco, and other articles were made; what pleased most was a red nightcap. The strangers were well entertained while they stayed. When they left, gifts for the fort included a young ox and the goat already noted. Geographical curiosity at the Cape still looked past these pastoral people toward mapped golden regions; Cory later placed the Cruythof–Meerhof push in the longer line of northern and north-eastern treks that followed Wintervogel, Gabbema, and the first free-burgher years. [3] [4]
Oedasoa, the Chariguriqua Feud, and Mediation
Khoikhoi clans were often at odds with one another when Europeans first came to know them. Some feuds were hereditary; others were smaller quarrels. The ill-feeling between Namaquas and Cochoquas at this time was not deep-seated. It had grown from a deed of spoliation: Oedasoa, the Cochoqua chief, had fallen on the Great Chariguriquas and taken their cattle. The Chariguriquas had fled to the Namaquas, who had taken up their cause, but so lukewarmly that Akembie told Cruythof he would make peace at once if Oedasoa sent messengers for that purpose. [3]
Van Riebeeck wanted the interior clans on good terms so that all might come unmolested to the fort with cattle for sale. As soon as he had Cruythof’s report and the expedition journal, he visited Oedasoa and addressed him as ally of the Honourable East India Company. The Netherlanders, he said, were friends of all peoples and wished everyone to live in peace and trade in friendship. He asked his good friend and ally to appoint delegates to treat with the Namaquas; a European party would go with them and help secure the country’s tranquillity. On 15–16 March the junior surgeon was sent out to Oedasoa’s camp, and the chief came in with Koukosoa, second-in-command of his camp, to hear the fort’s mediation. [1] [3]
Oedasoa answered that he knew the commander wished all people to live in peace, but he was not so good himself. His followers were more numerous and more powerful than the Namaquas and the Great Chariguriquas combined, and he was disposed to make them feel his strength. He claimed large numbers of fighting men and at first would not persuade any of his people to go north. He was persuaded, however, to change that view. After a short delay three Cochoqua delegates were appointed to arrange for peace. The council, for its part, resolved rewards for the discoverers — including cash for the Namaqua proofs — and prepared generous presents of the beads, red caps, and copper most popular with the northern people, whether or not Oedasoa’s envoys held firm all the way. [1] [3]
Meerhof’s Peace Mission — 21 March to 23 April 1661
Volunteers offered again. On the 21st of March a party of nine Europeans, the three Cochoqua delegates, and two interpreters — among them Jan Koninkeij and Tousabé — left the fort for Namaqua country under Pieter van Meerhof. Large presents went for Akembie, his three grown sons, and the leading men of the clan. The country as far as the Elephant River was by now well known. When Meerhof reached that stream for the third time he was not sorry to find no Namaquas on its banks: their absence let him lead the party into regions no explorers had previously entered. [1] [3]
Six days farther north he pushed through country more barren and desolate than he had ever seen or imagined. On the sixth day of that wearisome march the party came on an encampment of the Great Chariguriquas and found some of Akembie’s people left there on purpose to receive any Europeans who might arrive during the chief’s absence. The main body of the Namaquas had migrated farther north. The object of the expedition was still attained: peace was concluded between the belligerent clans by their representatives. Meerhof’s party returned to Fort Good Hope on the 23rd of April, bringing every prospect of a large increase in the Company’s cattle trade. [1] [3]
Van Riebeeck remained eager for a formal alliance with the Namaquas. Personal intercourse had broken the old belief in their high civilisation; they were known to be ordinary Khoikhoi, not even as numerous or powerful as the Cochoquas. They were, however, rich in cattle, and through them the commander still hoped to reach the golden regions laid down on the charts. Faith in the maps of the day was unshaken. He still spoke of Vigiti Magna and of the great river that ran past it as if they were established geographical facts. Beyond that river lay the land of wealth, and friendship with the Namaquas seemed the way to it. [3]
Pieter van der Stael, Sick Comforter — 1661
While the interior was being opened to commerce, work among people already at the settlement was not wholly neglected. There were no missionaries in the later sense of the word, but one man at the Cape was doing the work of an evangelist: Pieter van der Stael, the sick comforter, and brother-in-law of commander van Riebeeck. On Saturday 12 March 1661 he submitted to the council that his first five-year contract had expired and that he wished to renew service. He asked an increase because he was also joint superintendent of the hospital and was teaching some Khoikhoi and some slaves of the Company and its servants to read Dutch. [1] [3]
The council re-engaged him for three years from 4 March 1661, the day his term expired. He had arrived on that date in 1656 aboard the yacht Weseph from Rotterdam at thirty-six guilders a month. The new deed recognised his hospital work and his instruction of Company slaves and Khoikhoi in the Dutch language and Christian doctrine — “with some success” — and raised his pay to forty-five guilders a month, subject to approval by the Lords and Masters in the Fatherland. Theal notes that the directors entirely approved the teaching zeal and that forty-five gulden was then considered a very large salary for the office. He was still to attend the sick and conduct the Sunday services. [1] [3]
The whole number of Khoikhoi within the settlement at this time did not exceed fifty souls, so the “Dominie,” as he was sometimes called, had few of that people to labour among. Their manner of living made any effort to improve their minds almost hopeless in the eyes of contemporary observers. Already some observers suspected that the only workable method with the Khoikhoi was the path taken with Eva (Krotoa). She had grown up in the commander’s household, acquired European habits and tastes, learned to read, and acted outwardly as a Christian, though she was not yet baptized. Two systems seemed on trial: van der Stael among the beachrangers’ hovels under the Lion’s Head, teaching language, faith, and the alphabet; and Eva, trained from childhood in industry and settled modes of living before purely religious instruction was pressed. Both approaches would have advocates long after 1661. [3]
Burgher Office, Game, and Farm Discipline
Inside the settlement only a few lesser events of the year need notice — yet they show how tightly the council still regulated free society. Burgher councillor Leendert Cornelissen of Zevenhuysen, free sawyer, had suffered heavy losses by the desertion of slaves, the disturbance with the Khoikhoi, and mishaps in his timber business. Those troubles had driven him to carelessness and intemperance unbecoming his position. On 5 October 1661 the council recorded that instead of setting an honourable example he had daily grown more debauched — drinking, celebrating, fighting, brawling, swearing — tarnishing both his own character and the lustre of the court of justice, of which he was a member when it sat on free-burgher abuses. He was dismissed; from a double nomination by the freemen the council appointed Hendrik Boom of Amsterdam, a former burgher councillor, in his stead. [1] [3]
The two burghers who held exclusive privilege to shoot and sell game had also become irregular, so that venison was procurable only at uncertain intervals. The commander therefore allowed all freemen to kill wild animals for their own families’ consumption, but not for sale, on the ground that the public welfare required that modification of the licensed hunters’ privileges. Farmers, instead of attending to their work when ships were in the bay, often came into the port, commonly with a waggon load of firewood for sale. To check that waste of time the council enacted that no firewood should be brought for sale except on Saturday afternoons or on Sunday mornings before nine o’clock, and an official was sent to Rondebosch to compel the farmers to plough their lands. Such regulations were not peculiar to the Cape; elsewhere in Europe labour and wages were likewise bound by local authority. [3]
Private farming by the commander himself tightened the year’s agricultural record. On 31 March he bought from Otto Jansz van Vreede the portion of the old Hollandse Thuijn known as Sorgvliet — about twenty-four morgen with half the dwelling, barn, sheep-pen, stock, fowls, and implements — for four hundred guilders, a purchase Böeseken links to Otto’s crippling wound from a shooting “accident” with Jacob Rosendael in 1659. On 12 September a outbuilding at Den Uytwijck burned to the ground; van Riebeeck blamed the carelessness of those who managed the farm for him. By late November wheat stood finely in ear there and barley was ready to cut. Grain and orchard work at Bosheuvel and the lower farms remained, in Böeseken’s phrase, an example to later generations even as the commander prepared to leave. [2]
Van Harn’s Death and the Coming Change of Command
Van Riebeeck had long been anxious for removal from South Africa. He thought highly of his own abilities and believed he deserved promotion. Further advancement at the Cape being impossible, he had more than once asked for an appointment in India, always adding that he would abide by his superiors’ decision. In 1660 the directors resolved on his removal and appointed Gerrit van Harn — an uncle of van Riebeeck — as successor, without saying more about van Riebeeck himself than that he was to proceed to Batavia and there receive instructions. [1] [3]
Van Harn sailed from Texel in the Wapen van Holland, a first-class Indiaman whose skipper was David Coninck, formerly of the Dromedaris. Soon after leaving home, sickness broke out among the crew. Before many weeks at sea the ship was like a hospital. Twenty-five corpses had already been committed to the deep when, on the 17th of March 1661, van Harn himself died. He was buried on the island of St Vincent. News reached the Cape on 18 June 1661 from skipper David de Coninck when the Wapen van Holland called on the outward passage — a sudden check to the timetable of departure van Riebeeck had already begun to prepare. [1] [2] [3]
When news of the commander-designate’s death reached Batavia, the council of India appointed in his stead Zacharias Wagenaar, then serving as a merchant in the Company’s service. With the first return ship van Riebeeck was told that he might shortly expect his successor. He received the announcement with satisfaction. Arrangements to leave South Africa had already been in train: his two sons, Lambertus and Abraham, had been sent in March 1660 under skipper Douwen Aukus to the Latin school at Rotterdam; his private farm at Wynberg was to be handed to the council for the Company, with a commissioner to appraise improvements. [2] [3]
On 18 July he took secunde Roeloff de Man, fiscal Abraham Gabbema, and sergeant Pieter Everaerts to Bosheuvel, which he sought to sell so that, if found serviceable, the Company might take it over. Next day the Council of Policy resolved that the Company needed a large orchard sheltered from the hard south-easter; freemen were little inclined to tree or vine planting and would sell fruit as they pleased rather than supply the fleets. The estate — some 101 morgen with land cleared and ploughed, sown wheat and barley, outhouses, barn, wagons, ploughs, and implements — was transferred to the Company pending a price to be fixed by the next commissioner from Batavia, so that the bargain might stand above suspicion. Planted there already were 1,162 young orange, lemon, and shaddock trees, ten bananas, two olives, and seventy Dutch fruit trees (three walnut, six quince, five apple, two pear, eleven cherry, twenty-four chestnut, nineteen plum) — 1,244 young fruit trees in all — besides thousands of vines, sweet potatoes, two free Dutch hirelings, eight slaves, and twenty-two sound draught-oxen. Maetsuyker wrote the Seventeen on 21 December that Arnold de Vlaming van Oudtshoorn was to inspect the Bosheuvel land on the homeward route. The formal change of command would fall in the following year; 1661 closed with the succession settled in principle, the commander’s show farm offered to the Company, and the Namaqua road opened in practice. [1] [2] [3]
Everaert’s November Departure toward the Namaquas
Late in the year a further party was fitted out to visit Akembie, invite him and his three sons to the fort, and carry the most friendly messages and acceptable presents. On 10 November 1661 the council noted that the dry season had made the routes negotiable again; Akembie and his sons had promised the previous year to be at a place some sixty or seventy miles from the fort in the present month, whence they would accompany the Dutch down. Sergeant Pieter Everaert (Everaerts), long a member of the Council and experienced in India, was placed in command for order and discipline; Meerhoff went again as second-in-command; clerk Cornelis de Cretzer (Cretser) as third and journalist. Thirteen picked volunteers — several of them veterans of the year’s earlier treks — were named in the resolution. Six of the best draught-oxen were assigned to carry provisions and merchandise. [1] [3]
Outfits for such journeys show the style of living among Company servants: food ample though coarse; tea and coffee unused; arrack or brandy part of the ration; and a large quantity of spice — cloves, nutmegs, and especially cinnamon — which would strike anyone unacquainted with colonial tastes as strange. The November list was elaborate: separate bead, copper, cap, and tobacco presents for the Namaqua king, each of his three sons, and three captains; trade beads, copper wire and plates, red Rouen caps, knives, and pipes; arms and ammunition; a small tent; 750 lbs of biscuit and 70 lbs of pork; brandy, Spanish wine, vinegar, sugar, salt; and the familiar spice packet. Instructions of 10 November ordered Everaert to invite the king with households, trade goods, and livestock to closer alliance at the fort, and even to offer leaving a volunteer hostage if Namaqua men stayed behind while parties travelled — so that Cochoqua and other middle clans would not be feared. Oedasoa and Gonnomoa, visiting the fort on the 11th, raised no objection to the expedition though they brought no cattle that day and complained of mortality among herds and people. [1] [3]
At nine o’clock on the morning of the 14th of November 1661 the party set out. Recalcitrant oxen stopped them at first no farther than the Bracke River; next morning they crossed successfully and pushed inland. North of the Elephant River they would meet scarcity of water, much of it too bitter to drink, and long stretches of sand without sign of human life — a dreary wilderness under a hard sun. San later told them the Namaquas were far to the north; the party tried to follow and did not succeed in reaching them. One volunteer was trampled to death by an elephant. No discovery of importance was made. The original chart of the expedition, Theal noted, aimed at the town of Vigiti Magna though the bearings were very inaccurately laid down. The return to the fort fell on the 13th of February 1662; 1661’s last inland push thus closed the year’s record of Namaqua diplomacy without adding a new treaty or a new map of the interior — yet it fixed the northern road as a standing object of Company policy into the change of command that followed. [1] [3]