Boer History1683 at the Cape of Good Hope: Bergh’s Second Copper March and Klapmuts Stock-Farm
Opening 1683 after the First Copper Failure
The calendar year 1683 opened with Simon van der Stel still commander, Stellenbosch already under a local heemraad from the previous August, and the peninsula petty court of commissioners sitting weekly for small civil claims. Between January 1672 and the close of 1681 three hundred and sixty-eight ships had put into Table Bay—three hundred and forty-four of them Company vessels—yet free inland households could still be counted in small multiples of the eight families of May 1680. Growth had “fairly commenced,” but it remained slow when measured in freehold families rather than in tonnage. [3] [4] [8]
The wheat of 1682 had been nearly ruined by insects. On the same ground where in November 1681 the commander had counted one hundred and five grains of wheat in ear on a single stalk, in November 1682 there had been hardly a sound ear to be seen. That plague continued for several successive seasons to inflict severe loss upon the farmers, though it was never again so destructive, and gradually it disappeared. The inland freehold valley and the older peninsula farms therefore entered the new ploughing cycle under pressure to restore grain while ordinary refreshment-station work—fleets in Table Bay, the Company garden, castle administration—continued without pause. [3]
To the north the directors’ copper question remained open. At the end of October 1682 Ensign Olof Bergh had marched with thirty soldiers, a journalist, and a chart-maker toward the country from which Namaqua visitors had brought ore specimens in 1681; after a month the column returned with the report that drought made further progress impossible. Cory’s wider sketch of northern exploration—from earlier probes through the later copper marches that eventually reached the Namaqualand copper district—places that October–November failure as the first failed step on a path that would be retried with larger equipment in the present year and, under the commander himself, in 1685. The year ahead would test whether a larger, better-equipped expedition could force the same route when the calendar again favoured late-winter departure. [3] [4]
Pastoral logistics also demanded attention closer to home. Company cattle already used Hottentots Holland and other fixed posts; growth of herds and the need for change of pasturage pushed the government toward a new inland stock-farm on ground at Klapmuts. Neighbouring Khoikhoi still lived on peaceful commercial terms with the Europeans; Hessequa cattle trade and occasional San molestation of hunters framed the outer pastoral world, while Cory noted more broadly that gradual usurpation of pasture by white occupation was anything but gratifying to pastoral communities who found themselves excluded from lands over which they had been accustomed to roam. The working narrative sources for 1683, however, still describe the nearer relationship as one of peace and trade rather than open hostilities. [3] [4]
Discharged Servants and the Search for Colonists
The commander had been informed by the directors that they would gladly send out families of agricultural labourers if such people could be found willing to emigrate, but that it was rarely any were to be had, because there was no lack of employment at home for all who could work. There was, therefore, no way of obtaining colonists except by discharging servants of the Company. Cory’s parallel account of reinforcement from soldiers and sailors permitted to leave the ships, and from the few who came from Holland as emigrants with promise of free passage, land, stock, seed, and implements at low rates, makes the same structural point: before the large Huguenot addition of 1688, the free farming population grew chiefly by selective release from Company service rather than by organised family immigration. [3] [4]
In the past that system had entailed heavy expense without compensating result. Fully nine out of every ten discharged soldiers and sailors who had been assisted by the Company to commence farming failed in that occupation, and either returned into the service in debt or found their way to some other country. The arithmetic was administrative as much as moral: each failure cost seed, stock, tools, and lost labour that the refreshment station could ill spare. Botha’s later commercial sketch of the same settlement explains why failure was so common—the Company controlled trade, fixed prices, and expected farmers to sell first to its magazines; only after Company needs were met could colonists dispose of surplus, and then only with permission. [3] [8]
Van der Stel tried to improve upon the older plan. Instead of waiting until men’s terms of service had expired and then giving ground indiscriminately to all who offered to take it, he was willing at any time to release individuals of good character and industrious habits, especially if they had families. Even so, the proportion of those who became permanent colonists remained very small compared with the whole number discharged. The 1683 settlement therefore grew less by sudden immigration than by selective free papers and by the slow thickening of households already committed to the soil at Stellenbosch and on the peninsula. [3]
Foreigners and the Refreshment Trade — to November 1683
At the beginning of his government Simon van der Stel had interpreted the directors’ instructions concerning foreigners to mean that he was not to permit them to obtain other refreshments than water. Some Danes and Englishmen who visited Table Bay were unable to purchase anything whatever. The commander treated the officers with politeness and invited them to his own table, but declined to supply their ships with meat or vegetables. He informed some of them that they were at liberty to purchase what they could from the burghers, yet privately he sent messengers round to the farmers forbidding them in some instances to sell anything under very heavy penalties, and in other cases requiring them to charge four or five times the usual rates. [3]
Complaints of such treatment speedily reached Europe, and representations were made to the Assembly of Seventeen which caused that body to issue instructions that foreigners were to be treated as of old. They were not to be supplied, except in very urgent cases, with sea stores out of the magazines, as such stores were sent solely for the use of the Company’s own ships. They were to be at liberty to purchase refreshments from the burghers. No wheat or fuel was to be sold to them, as the Company needed all and more than all that was procurable of both. They were to be at liberty to refresh themselves in the lodging-houses kept by the town burghers. They were not to be permitted to sell any merchandise. [3] [8]
The restrictions of Commander Van der Stel lasted only until November 1683, after which date foreigners, though not encouraged to visit the Cape, were treated here quite as fairly as subjects of the Netherlands were in the colonies of other European nations. A system was gradually introduced by which they were indirectly taxed for the benefit of the Company. This was done in the farming out of the privilege to sell bread, meat, wine, and similar articles: the exclusive right might be auctioned with a fixed price to burghers and a higher rate to foreigners, or the Company might bid down a supply contract for its own use while the contractor retained a right to sell to foreigners at a dearer figure. Botha’s later revenue sketch confirms the same farming-out of sale privileges as a principal Company source; for 1683 the decisive administrative fact is the November end of the commander’s stricter phase and the return to the directors’ older refreshment rule. [3] [8]
Klapmuts Company Stock-Farm — 1683
In 1683 a tract of ground at Klapmuts was turned into a stock-farm for the Company’s use, so that the cattle kept at Hottentots Holland might have a change of pasturage. Cory states the same act in the language of annexation: in 1683 the Company itself annexed land at Klapmuts as an out-station for the pasturage of its own cattle. The post belonged to the same system of Company out-stations that already dotted the nearer country—places where a few soldiers and slaves watched herds on government account rather than freehold title deeds for burgher families. [3] [4]
The choice of Klapmuts was practical geography. Hottentots Holland already carried Company stock on the eastern side of the peninsula approaches; rotating beasts to Klapmuts lengthened the grass cycle without pushing the official cattle line as far inland as Stellenbosch freehold. In the same broad movement of pastoral occupation, the Company was annexing and staffing ground for its own herds while burgher settlement thickened in the Eerste River valley under the heemraad established the year before. Cory places the act in a continuous sequence of expansion beyond the Cape peninsula—Hottentots Holland burgher farms from 1678, Klapmuts Company pasture in 1683, and later Huguenot location and Stellenbosch village growth. [3] [4]
Klapmuts in 1683 was not yet one of a long list of later outposts named in the mid-1680s after cattle-buying through Captain Klaas multiplied herds beyond older capacity. For this year the fact is simpler and sharper: the Company converted a defined tract into a stock-farm so that official cattle at Hottentots Holland could be moved and rested. That single administrative act fixed another permanent point on the map between the castle and the inland freehold district, and it would stand beside Tigerberg and Hottentots Holland when, in the following year, fresh outposts at the Kuilen, Diep River, Visser’s Hok, and Riet Vlei were added on the same model of four or five soldiers and a few slaves at each station. [3]
Stellenbosch First School and Dominie Mankadan — 1683
In 1683 the first school at Stellenbosch was established. On the 28th of September of that year the burghers presented a petition to the council of policy in which they represented that there were then about thirty landowners in the district, many of whom had families, but as yet there was no school in which the children could be taught the principles of Christianity as well as to read and write, so that the young were in danger of growing up as barbarians; that they were living at too great a distance from the castle to be able to attend divine service on the Lord’s days, and were thus liable to fall into careless habits; that on this account the condition of both young and old was very unsatisfactory, and if it continued God’s blessing could not be expected upon themselves or their crops. [3]
They therefore requested that a suitable person should be appointed to keep a school, to read a sermon on Sundays, and to act as visitor of the sick. They asked further for some assistance towards the erection of the necessary building. The council of policy viewed this petition with great favour. The members resolved at once to send masons and carpenters at the expense of the Company to put up a residence for the teacher with a large hall in it for a schoolroom, and also to supply the nails free of charge, the inhabitants providing the other materials. As soon as the building could be got ready a teacher was appointed, by name Sybrand Mankadan, and the school was opened. [3]
The commander took as warm an interest in the school as did any of the parents, for he regarded Stellenbosch as a place of his own founding, and anything that tended to the welfare of its people secured his sympathy. It was his custom whenever possible to spend his birthday there. He usually arrived in the village a few days earlier so as to inspect improvements made during the preceding twelvemonth, to inquire after every one’s prospects, and to make himself acquainted with all that was transpiring. On these occasions he did not fail to visit the school and ascertain what progress the pupils were making. His birthday was a general holiday: every man and woman in the district, dressed in their best, came to his pavilion to compliment him and to drink his health in a glass of wine. The school-children came also, marching in procession with Dominie Mankadan at their head and carrying a banner which he had presented to them; each was sure of a friendly greeting and of receiving some little token of kindness. The boys over nine years of age were drilled every Saturday in the use of arms, and the juvenile corps always took part in the parade in honour of the commander. [3]
The course of instruction at the school did not extend in secular subjects beyond reading, writing, and the elements of arithmetic, a large portion of the time being occupied with religious teaching. At the age of thirteen years the pupils were supposed to have completed their education. The standard aimed at was the ability to pass an examination before the consistory preparatory to being publicly admitted as members of the church. It was necessary to be able to read the Bible, to repeat the Heidelberg catechism, and to write a little. The pupils were also taught to sing psalms in the tunes then commonly used. At Christmas prizes were given at the expense of the Company: each of the three most advanced and best-behaved pupils received a prize of the value of four shillings, the next three carried off prizes valued at two shillings, and each of the others received one shilling in money. The commander added a cake for every child, the size to depend upon the merit of the recipient. [3]
Dominie Mankadan, the first teacher at Stellenbosch, remained there in that capacity for many years. He acted also as sick-visitor and conducted divine service every Sunday. After a time he united with these duties that of district secretary, so that he was by no means an idle man. Yet his salary for all these services combined was only about fifty shillings a month, in addition to which he had a free house, a large garden, and some small school fees. There was no ordained chaplain in the Company’s service who was paid more than ten pounds a month, and only a few old and tried men among them drew that amount. The September petition and Mankadan’s appointment thus gave Stellenbosch, within a year of its heemraad, the rudiments of a local school, a Sunday reader, and a sick-visitor—an institutional thickening of the freehold valley that matched the growth from pioneering households to about thirty landowners. [3]
Stellenbosch Heemraad Rotation — End of 1683
The court of heemraad established on the 30th of August 1682 consisted of four of the leading inhabitants, who held office for two years without receiving any salaries for their services. The powers of the heemraad were not at first very accurately defined, but its decisions appear in every instance to have been treated with respect. Two members retired annually, when the court itself sent to the council of policy a list of four new names from which to select successors. Botha’s administrative sketch confirms the same unpaid honorary service and the same nomination lists to the Council of Policy from which new members of the inferior courts were chosen. [3] [8]
The first heemraden were Gerrit van der Byl, Henning Huising, Hans Jurgen Grimp, and Hendrik Elberts. At the end of 1683 the two first-named retired, when Douwe Steyn and Matthys Greef were elected to take their places. Grimp and Elberts would retire at the end of 1684 and be succeeded by Jan Mostert and Harmen Smit. The first annual rotation therefore fell within the present calendar year: the heemraad of 1682 ceased to be a single founding quartet and became a continuing bench with staggered two-year terms. [3]
For Stellenbosch freeholders the rotation mattered as much as the original creation. Boundary quarrels, neighbourly debts, and the small civil friction of a growing farming district continued to be heard closer to home than the castle, while the council of policy retained the last word on who sat. Botha adds the later jurisdictional frame that Van Rheede’s reforms would complete in 1685: a landdrost to preside, final judgment only for small sums, and appeal to the Court of Justice within a defined ceiling. The end-of-1683 election of Steyn and Greef is the first working proof that the unpaid local bench was meant to renew itself rather than expire with its founders. [3] [8]
Bergh’s Second Expedition Fitted Out — August 1683
The specimens of copper ore brought to the Cape by the Namaqua visitors in 1681 had excited the curiosity of the directors to know more about the country in which the metal was found, and instructions had been sent out to Commander Van der Stel to cause it to be carefully explored. The attempt toward the copper country was renewed on a larger scale than the drought march of late 1682. On the 27th of August 1683 an expedition better equipped than any that had previously left the Cape set out for the Namaqua country under command of Ensign Olof Bergh. [3] [4]
The column consisted of forty-two Europeans—among whom were draughtsmen, miners, and journalists—and ten Hottentots, all under Bergh’s command. It was provisioned for four months. A train of waggons and carts was to convey supplies as far as possible; two boats were taken so that swollen rivers need not delay the march; and a herd of pack-oxen and five horses were ready for use when the waggons could get no farther. [3]
Compared with the thirty soldiers plus journalist and chart-maker of October 1682, the 1683 outfit was a deliberate answer to last year’s failure: more men, mining and recording specialists, river boats, and pack animals for the stage beyond wheels. Directors’ curiosity about Namaqua copper had become a four-month field establishment rather than a single short probe. Cory’s later description of the still larger 1685 march under the commander himself—fifty-six Europeans, drivers and leaders, fifteen waggons, eight carts, a coach, two small cannon, spare oxen, horses, and mules—makes the August 1683 column legible as the middle term between the thin 1682 probe and the full gubernatorial expedition. [3] [4]
Riebeek’s Kasteel, Berg River, and the Elephant River
The expedition proceeded by way of Riebeek’s Kasteel to the Berg river, which was found too deep to be forded. The boats were then brought into service, and after everything was ferried over the march was resumed. At the Elephant river the same difficulty recurred. There a camp was formed, as the boats would not be needed again. [3]
River crossings fixed the rhythm of the early march. Waggons and carts could roll on the known northern track as far as deep water allowed; beyond each unfordable stream the boats turned a military-mining column into a ferry operation, with stores, men, and animals passed in stages. Leaving the boats at the Elephant river marked the edge of wheeled and floated supply: from that camp forward, pack-oxen and the five horses would have to carry what the waggons could no longer take. [3]
The route itself was not a new fantasy of blank country. Riebeek’s Kasteel and the Berg river valley had long been on the northern itinerary of explorers and cattle parties; mining search before 1671 had already examined country as far as Riebeek’s Kasteel, and Cory notes that later columns followed the track of previous explorers toward the copper district. What distinguished Bergh’s 1683 column was scale and purpose—miners and draughtsmen in the same train as soldiers, pointed at the copper mountains rather than at ordinary barter kraals alone. [3] [4]
Grigriquas, Namaqua Guides, and the Desert
Across the Elephant river a party of Grigriquas was encountered, and with them were four or five Namaquas who offered to act as guides. Soon after this a sterile district was entered, but the column pushed on until it reached the nearest of the Namaqua kraals. The contact belonged to the same northern Khoikhoi geography that had already framed the December 1681 embassy: Namaqua visitors had then reached the Grigriqua kraals on their way to the castle, and a sergeant’s escort had brought them in with copper specimens and the first authentic European report of the great inland river later known as the Gariep or Orange. [3]
Close to that kraal stood a high mountain, from the top of which the Atlantic could be seen at no great distance. Beyond it to the northward the whole country was a desert without grass or water, for rain had only fallen once within the preceding twelve months. Local guidance and European equipment could open the road to the first Namaqua settlement; they could not invent pasture or springs where a year’s drought had left none. [3]
The geography of failure was therefore visible from the mountain above the kraal: ocean to one side, empty north ahead, and a column provisioned for four months staring at ground that could not feed oxen. The same climate that had turned Bergh back in 1682 still ruled the approaches to the copper country in the late southern winter and spring of 1683. Cory’s later successful copper journey of 1685 under Van der Stel himself would prove that the mountains could be reached in another season; for Bergh’s second march the desert closed the road short of the ore. [3] [4]
Return and Report — 24 October 1683
It was impossible to get any farther. The ensign was obliged to retrace his steps, and on the 24th of October he reported at the castle that the expedition had failed. [3]
Roughly two months separated the 27 August departure from the 24 October report—time enough to prove the improved outfit as far as the nearest Namaqua kraals and the desert beyond, not time enough to reach the copper mountains themselves. Failure was again climatic and pastoral rather than a collapse of discipline: boats had worked on the Berg and Elephant rivers; Grigriqua contact and Namaqua guides had been obtained; the sterile belt simply closed the road. In February 1684 a party of Namaquas would visit the Cape, and when they returned Sergeant Izaak Schryver with fifteen soldiers and three miners would be sent with them—succeeding little better than Bergh, though managing to proceed somewhat farther and to collect pieces of copper ore brought back on a pack-ox and melted in crucibles as specimens for the directors. For the calendar of 1683 that sequel still lay ahead; October closed only the year’s own northern programme. [3]
For Cape administration the October report did not cancel the year’s other gains. Directors still wanted knowledge of the ore country; the commander still held their instructions to explore it carefully; but 1683’s large column had demonstrated that even draughtsmen, miners, journalists, boats, pack-oxen, and hired guides could not cross a twelve-month drought belt. Any further probe would need another season and another plan. Closer to home the year had already fixed Klapmuts as a Company stock-farm, opened Stellenbosch’s first school under Sybrand Mankadan after the twenty-eight September petition of about thirty landowners, rotated the heemraad by electing Douwe Steyn and Matthys Greef, and, from November, ended the commander’s stricter phase of foreigner refreshment rules in favour of the directors’ older commercial order. [3] [4] [8]