Boer History1670 at the Cape of Good Hope: Van der Broeck, Hackius, and the French Fleet
Commissioner Van der Broeck — Early 1670
The arrival of the commissioner Mattheus van der Broeck early in 1670 was an important event in the history of the still small settlement. Van der Broeck was one of the ablest of the Company’s officers and was then acting as admiral of a richly laden return fleet of fifteen ships. His instructions from the Indian authorities were to rectify anything he should find amiss at the Cape after due investigation. Upon arrival he handed Commander Jacob Borghorst a list of questions to which he desired written replies, and he added to the ordinary council of policy five of the chief officers of the fleet to assist in its deliberations. [3]
The commissioner’s visit therefore opened the year under dual pressure: a sick commander who had already leaned heavily on subordinates, and a fleet admiral empowered to reshape local practice with temporary council votes from the ships. Grain, drink licenses, wine outlets, public works, and the seating of the council of policy all came under that review before Borghorst’s relief arrived from Europe. [3]
Van der Broeck’s questions were not ceremonial. They forced the settlement to answer, in writing and in enlarged council, why rice still had to be imported, how free farmers could be strengthened without starving Company magazines, and which local abuses—especially the spread of canteens—were draining farm capital. The answers shaped the rest of the Borghorst months and the brief healthy interval of Hackius’s first summer. [3]
Grain, Hottentots Holland, and the Rondebosch Lease
One of the commissioner’s questions concerned the growth of corn. Hitherto there had not been sufficient grain raised at the Cape for the consumption of the Company’s people and the free inhabitants, so that it had been necessary to import a large quantity of rice yearly. That expense the Company wished to be relieved of. Commander Borghorst proposed to form a large farming establishment at Hottentots Holland, a part of the country he had once visited and where he believed unusual facilities existed for both agricultural and pastoral pursuits. He suggested also that the free farmers should be encouraged by an offer of higher prices for grain than those previously given. [3]
His views were adopted by the council, and with the commissioner’s sanction it was resolved that the Company’s cultivated ground at Rondebosch should be leased by public auction, and the staff of servants there removed to Hottentots Holland. The price of wheat was raised to 16s. 8d., and of rye to 11s. 8d. the muid (then about 224 lbs. avoirdupois). The move tied three policies at once: higher fixed prices to draw free grain into Company purchase, a new inland Company farm on the Hottentots Holland pastures, and the conversion of the older Rondebosch works from direct Company cultivation into a leased freemen operation. [3]
In the written instructions of the commissioner the Cape authorities were directed to encourage and assist the free farmers, not alone on account of the produce of their fields and flocks, but because of the assistance to be derived from them in time of war. The freemen then constituted a company of militia eighty-nine strong. Van der Broeck, in ordering the lease of the Company’s farm at Rondebosch, had in view an immediate increase of that number. He directed also that as soon as the Company had made a good start at Hottentots Holland, that tract of country should likewise be given out to freemen. [3]
Canteens Reduced and the Batavia Wine Market
A great evil existed, in the commissioner’s opinion, in the number of canteens that had been recently established. They were even to be found at Rondebosch and Wynberg, where they were a sore temptation to the farmers to spend their substance in dissipation. On the other hand, each paid for its license, and all provided board and lodging for strangers when ships were in the bay. The commissioner and council reduced the number to nine for the whole settlement, but in addition permitted Jacob Rosendael, who was the owner of a large vineyard, to sell by retail wine of his own making. [3]
Some samples of Cape wine had been sent to Batavia, but had not been received there with much favour. It was therefore a question what was to be done with the produce of the vineyards. The council decided that each individual could send his wine to Batavia, to be sold there on his own account, upon payment of 12s. 6d. freight on every half aum, and such duties as the Indian government should impose. That was practically throwing the Eastern markets open to Cape wine farmers to make the most they could of them. [3]
So far from being viewed as a privilege or a concession by the colonists of those days, it was held by them to be equivalent to a prohibition of wine-making. They wanted a market on the spot, for they were too poor to wait a twelvemonth for the price of their produce. Neither were they a people inclined to run any risk, and therefore their idea of a good market was a market where the price of everything was fixed, where a man could reckon to a stiver what his wine would bring before it left his farm. The freedom of the Indian market was thus no inducement to them to increase their vineyards. The 1670 settlement preferred Rosendael’s local retail right and the nine licensed canteens to a distant Batavia auction. [3]
Watercourse, Council Seats, and Freemen Contracts
In the matter of public works, the council resolved to construct a stone watercourse from the reservoir to the jetty, and to plant twenty-four morgen of ground with trees, half alders for timber and half kreupel bushes for fuel. The plantations were never laid out, however: upon further consideration the commander concluded that they would be dangerous in Table Valley on account of the shelter they would afford to ravenous animals. The watercourse was thrown open to tender, and a contract for its construction was entered into by the burgher Wouter Mostert for the sum of £625. It was further resolved that in future all bricks and tiles required by the Company should be purchased from freemen by public tender. [3]
The duties of each member of the government were accurately defined. Cornelis de Cretzer was promoted from fiscal to be secunde, and Jacob Granaat from secretary to be fiscal. In the council of policy the secunde Cornelis de Cretzer, the lieutenant Johannes Coon, the fiscal Jacob Granaat, and the bookkeeper Anthonie de Raaf were to have seats, while liberty was left to the commander to admit one or two other fit persons if he should deem it necessary. The promotion closed the long provisional gap left by the suspended Hendrik Lacus and fixed De Cretzer, already the ablest working officer under Borghorst, as formal second in the settlement. [3]
Together the watercourse contract, the brick-and-tile tenders, and the new council list described a settlement that was trying to push routine Company needs onto free labour markets while sharpening the paper hierarchy around an invalid commander. Mostert’s stone channel from reservoir to jetty was the visible public work of the year; De Cretzer’s seat as secunde was its administrative hinge until his later misfortune carried him out of Cape history. [3]
Hackius Arrives and Takes Command — March 1670
Pieter Hackius and his family, who had sailed from home in the Sticht van Utrecht on 7 December 1669, reached Table Bay on the 18th of March 1670. The new commander landed a more confirmed invalid even than the officer whom he had come to relieve. But he too, like Borghorst, hoped that after a short term of service in this country he would be permitted to return to the fatherland to end his days there. [3]
On the 25th of March 1670 the government was formally transferred, and a few weeks later Borghorst embarked in the Beemster and returned to Europe. The handover closed the Borghorst administration that had begun in June 1668 under already broken health and that had, for about three-fourths of its course, left practical direction with subordinates. Hackius inherited the Van der Broeck reforms, the raised grain prices, the Rondebosch lease policy, the Hottentots Holland project, Mostert’s watercourse contract, and a council now headed in daily work by De Cretzer as secunde. [3]
For several months after Hackius’s arrival nothing beyond the ordinary quiet routine of life occurred in the settlement. The commander himself was for some time unable to take an active part in the administration of affairs, and it was not until June that he held his first council meeting. The formal transfer of 25 March therefore opened a command that was already constrained by the same bodily weakness that had emptied Borghorst’s chair—another shattered India servant hoping the Cape air would be only a brief last post before Europe. [3]
The Grundel’s Eastward Voyage and Loss at Os Medãos do Ouro
In the year after her northern coasting beyond St Helena Bay, the exploring vessel Grundel was sent to the eastward, but discovered nothing worthy of note. The furthest point reached by her was the bay Os Medãos do Ouro, said in the report to be in latitude 27° 17′ S.; but that was an error, for in later maps it was laid down in latitude 26° 40′. Here an officer and sixteen men went ashore to examine the country, but never returned, and owing to this disaster the Grundel put about and sailed for the Cape. [3]
The eastward cruise therefore ended not with a new harbour or cattle coast but with the sudden disappearance of a landing party on a Portuguese-named bay far up the south-east shore. Seventeen men lost on a coastal examination stripped the small exploring establishment of officers and sailors at a stroke. The vessel’s return to Table Bay closed the Grundel’s African survey work that had begun with Martin Vaz and the barren northern desert report of the previous season. [3]
For the settlement of 1670 the disaster sat beside the Van der Broeck grain programme and the Hackius handover as a reminder that coastal knowledge was still bought at high risk. The Cape already held a permanent Saldanha post against French designs; the Grundel’s eastern failure showed how little the opposite seaboard yet offered in return for the same style of boat work and shore parties. [3]
Lion Premiums and Burgher Councillors — June 1670
When Hackius at last held council in June, it had become necessary to make greater efforts to destroy the lions and leopards which were preying upon the flocks and herds in the settlement. As this was a matter affecting the taxation of the burghers, their councillors, now increased to three in number, were invited to assist in the deliberations. It was resolved that the premiums for the destruction of ravenous animals should be increased, and that in general half the rewards should be paid out of funds raised by the burghers. [3]
In the particular case of lions killed between Table Mountain and the Tigerberg the premium was raised to £6 5s. for each, two-thirds of which was to be paid by the freemen. The higher scale marked how serious the stock losses had become on the settled pastures and how far burgher money was already yoked to the defence of herds that fed both free households and Company shipping. [3]
The June sitting was thus the first clear act of Hackius’s own council: not a new inland expedition or a castle decree, but a joint Company–burgher tariff on predators along the Table Mountain–Tigerberg belt. Three burgher councillors at the table, half the ordinary rewards on free funds, and two-thirds of the special lion premium on freemen purses together showed how taxation and game destruction had become a shared settlement burden. [3]
Admiral De la Haye and the French Seizure at Saldanha Bay — September 1670
In September the second large fleet fitted out by the French Company put into South African waters on its way to the east. Admiral De la Haye saluted the fort with five guns, and was answered with only one, which he complained of as an insult to his king. He seems to have expected to be able to get at the Cape whatever fresh provisions and sea stores he needed, but he was soon undeceived. Commander Hackius made no objection to his purchasing vegetables from the farmers, but informed him that the Company could not furnish him with anything from its own gardens or magazines. The admiral was indignant at receiving such treatment, but at the very time he was asking for supplies he was acting toward the Dutch as enemies. [3]
Six of his ships had put into Saldanha Bay. They found at the place now called the Old Post a station occupied by a few soldiers under command of Sergeant Hieronymus Cruse. Of this station they took forcible possession, and made prisoners of the soldiers. Some burgher fishermen who were carrying on their ordinary employment in the bay were also seized and made prisoners. The Company’s flag was taken down and its beacons were destroyed, the French substituting the flag and arms of their king. The council of policy entered a formal protest against these acts of violence, but they had no force with which to resist, and so they prudently did nothing to provoke the French further. [3]
After a short detention, Admiral De la Haye was good enough to release his prisoners, and he then sailed without leaving any garrison behind. The French flag was not disturbed for four months. Then the establishment at the Cape was reinforced with three hundred men, and the station at Saldanha Bay was again taken in possession and occupied. The September crisis thus fulfilled the fear that had driven the 1669 order for a permanent Saldanha post: a French fleet could brush aside a sergeant’s guard, haul down the Company’s marks, and leave its own symbols standing until Dutch strength returned. [3]
Immigrant Families Announced — Late 1670
For ten or a dozen years the authorities of the East India Company had been endeavouring to induce gardeners and small farmers to emigrate from Europe to South Africa, but with little success. Now and again they were able to send out to their eastern possessions a few families attracted by glowing tales of the Indian isles; but the Cape had no such charms, for its inhabitants were still largely pastoral Khoikhoi communities and it contributed nothing to commerce. Of all the Dutch dependencies it was the one that possessed least attraction for emigrants. [3]
In October 1670, however, the Chamber of Amsterdam was able to announce that it had secured a few families who would be sent in the next fleet, and in the following December another party is spoken of as being about to leave for the Cape and Mauritius. The families were dispersed among the ships in such a manner as best to secure their comfortable accommodation. Some vessels had only one spare cabin, and thus took only one family as passengers; others took two or three. [3]
Among the new names of burghers at this time are found those of Jacob and Dirk van Niekerk, Johannes van As, François Villion, Jacob Brouwer, Jan van Eden, Hermanus Potgieter, Albertus Gildenhuis, and Jacobus van den Berg. Before leaving the Netherlands the emigrants subscribed an oath of fidelity to the States General, the directors of the Company, the Governor-General and Council of India, and all governors, commanders, and officers set over them by sea and land. The late-1670 announcements did not suddenly fill the Cape with free families, but they marked the first clear cluster of surnames that later free rolls would treat as ordinary burgher stock rather than chance soldiers taking free papers. [3]
Gonnema’s Cochoquas at the Settlement — December 1670
There was little communication between the Europeans and the natives at this time, and that little was not altogether friendly. In December 1670 the branch of the Cochoquas under the chief Gonnema paid a visit to the settlement. Their presence caused quite a panic among the frontier farmers at Wynberg, some of whom abandoned their houses, which the Khoikhoi afterwards broke into. Happily they did not remain long in the neighbourhood. [3]
The December visit closed the calendar year on a frontier alarm rather than on a formal war. Wynberg houses left empty and then entered showed how thin the free farms still were once a strong Cochoqua following moved near the cultivated belt. Gonnema’s people came and went without a recorded battle in 1670; the scare itself was enough to fix the chief’s name again on the settlement’s edge after earlier cattle trade and inland contacts of the Van Riebeeck years. [3]
Thus 1670 ran from Van der Broeck’s fifteen-ship inquest and the Hottentots Holland grain design, through Hackius’s March installation and the Grundel’s eastern disaster, to De la Haye’s September humiliation of the Saldanha post, the autumn promise of a few immigrant families, and Gonnema’s December appearance among the Wynberg farms. The settlement ended the year with a second invalid commander, a French flag only lately pulled down at Saldanha, higher lion premiums on burgher purses, and free surnames beginning to thicken on the roll beside the older Company servants and gardeners. [3]