Boer History1688 at the Cape of Good Hope: Huguenot Refugees, Simond, and Drakenstein
Directorsâ Terms and the Five Ships
The calendar year 1688 opened with the first large body of French Protestant colonists already at sea or embarking for the Cape. In the autumn of 1687 the directors of the East India Company had judged it possible to obtain Piedmontese and French families as settlers. Besides advantages already held out to emigrants, they promised a clergyman speaking French and liberty to return to Europe after five years if desired. On the 28th of October 1687 they engaged the Rev. Pierre Simond, minister of the refugee congregation at Zierickzee, at a salary of ÂŁ7 10s. a month. On the 5th of November they added outfit gratuities of from ÂŁ5 to ÂŁ8 6s. 8d. for heads of families and from ÂŁ2 10s. to ÂŁ4 3s. 4d. for unmarried young men or women. On the 16th of that month they wrote to the commander and council that the parties would be sent at once. [3]
Conditions were otherwise the same as those offered to natural subjects of the Netherlands: free passages, farms in full property without payment, farming stock at cost price on credit, the same oaths of allegiance, and the same privileges. The directors did not intend a French colony. Dutch families were being sent out at the same time, and at no period did the French exceed about one-sixth of the colonists or one-eighth of the whole European population including Company servants. They hoped the newcomers would strengthen wine, brandy, and olive work without neglecting wheat and cattle. Arrangements kept families and friends together as far as possible across the Companyâs chambers and ports of embarkation. [3]
The emigrants were sent in five ships: Voorschoten, Borssenburg, Oosterland, China, and Zuid Beveland. Voorschoten sailed from Delftshaven on the 31st of December 1687 with, among others, Charles Marais of Plessis and Catherine Taboureux with four children; Philippe Fouché and Anne Fouché with three children; Jacques Pinard, carpenter, and Esther Fouché; Marguerite Baché; Etienne BruÚre, waggon-maker; Pierre Sabatier; Jean and Gabriel le Roux of Blois; Gideon Malherbe; Jean Pasté; Paul Godefroy; and Gaspar Fouché. Borssenburg sailed on the 6th of January 1688; her passenger list was later missing from both Cape and Hague archives. Oosterland left Middelburg on the 29th of January 1688 with Jacques de Savoye of Ath, Marie Madeleine le Clerc, Antoinette Carnoy, and three De Savoye children; the surgeon Jean Prieur du Plessis of Poitiers and Madeleine Menanteau; Sarah Avicé; Jean, Jacob, and Daniel Nortier with Marie Vytou; Isaac Taillefer, vinedresser of Thierry, Susanne Briet, and six Taillefer children; Jean Cloudon, shoemaker of Condé; Jean du Buis of Calais; and Jean Parisel of Paris. [3]
China sailed from Rotterdam on the 20th of March 1688 with Jean Mesnard, Louise Corbonne, and six Mesnard children; Louis Corbonne; Jean Jourdan and Pierre Jourdan of CabriÚre; the orphan nieces Marie and Marguerite Roux; a second Pierre Jourdan; Pierre Joubert and Isabeau Richard; Susanne Réné; Jacques and Hercule Verdeau; Pierre la Grange; Matthieu Fracassé; André Pelanchon; and twelve others who died before the ship reached her destination. From the Orphan Chamber of Rotterdam eight young women of unblemished reputation, industrious and skilled in farm work, also emigrated in China; all were married in the colony within a few months of arrival. Their names included Ariaante Janssens, Willemyntje Ariens de Wit, Ariaante Jacobs van den Berg, Judith Verbeek, Petronella van Capelle, Judith van der Bout, Catharina van der Zee, and Anna van Kleef. Zuid Beveland sailed from Middelburg on the 22nd of April 1688; the only names securely known from her missing list are the Rev. Pierre Simond of Dauphiné and Anne de Beront, his wife. [3]
More men came out than womenâthe disproportion the Company wished to prevent and that Commander Simon van der Stel continually complained ofâyet among groups escaping France the number of males was regularly far greater. Several passengers had held good positions before the persecution: the surgeon Du Plessis was of an ancient family of Poitiers, though now penniless; De Savoye had been a wealthy merchant and had saved nothing but life and family. [3]
Voorschoten, Oosterland, and Borssenburg Arrive
On the 13th of April 1688 Voorschoten put into Saldanha Bay under a strong south-east wind against which she could not beat up to Table Bay. Rocky islands covered with seabirds and desolate country around met eyes that had left cultivated France; yet the landing promised freedom of worship in the manner conscience approved. From the Companyâs outpost a message went overland to the castle. The cutter Jupiter was sent with fresh provisions, and when she returned she brought the immigrants to the Cape. [3]
On the 26th of April Oosterland cast anchor in Table Bay after a passage of eighty-seven days from Middelburgâthen one of the quickest runs on record. She was followed on the 12th of May by Borssenburg. Within a month of the first Saldanha landing, three of the five refugee ships had delivered their people into Cape hands, and the work of temporary housing and inland allotment could begin in earnest. [3]
China and Zuid Beveland â August 1688
On the 4th of August 1688 China reached Table Bay after a disastrous run of seven months from Rotterdam. Nearly all her crew and passengers were sick. Twenty individuals had died on the passage, twelve of them French refugees. The orphan girls and the surviving French families came ashore into a settlement already absorbing the April and May arrivals. [3]
Fifteen days later, on the 19th of August, Zuid Beveland cast anchor in Table Bay. Huguenots already landed had looked forward anxiously to their pastorâs arrival, and a little crowd waited on the wooden jettyâthen the only pier in the bayâto welcome him. Just after the first boat left the ship she was capsized by a sudden squall. Those on the jetty watched eight men drown without being able to help. Hours passed before communication could be restored; the drowned men proved to be three officers and five seamen of the ship, not the minister. The Rev. Mr Simond and his wife landed safely into a community that regarded a French Protestant pastor as guide in secular as well as religious matters. [3]
Dutch custom treated clergymen with respect; the refugeesâ attachment ran deeper still. A French Protestant minister of that generation was expected to be a man of earnest faith, bravery, and self-devotion. Correspondence later preserved shows Simond sadly lacking in charity toward those who differed from himâfault of the age as much as of the manâyet for his own religion and flock there was no honest sacrifice he would not make. With his arrival the little band of refugees felt their circle more complete. [3]
Landing, Relief, and First Allotments
The Huguenots landed without goods or money. The Company sent shipâs biscuit, peas, and salt meat for a few monthsâ provisions, and deal planks for the woodwork of temporary houses. Whatever else was needed came on credit from Company stores. No large relief could be expected from Europe, where demands on the benevolent were unceasing. In the colony a fund was raised; each person contributed cattle, grain, or money according to means. The amount is not stated in the surviving narrative, but Commander Van der Stel reported it very creditable to the old colonists and serviceable to the refugees. It was given to the Rev. Mr Simond and the deacons of Stellenbosch for distribution. [3]
The burgher council furnished six waggons free of charge to convey the immigrants inland. The heemraad of Stellenbosch supplied six more until the refugees were settled. Some Huguenots were located in and about Stellenbosch; the larger number at Drakenstein and French Hoek. Particular care was taken not to place them by themselves but to mix them as much as possible with Dutch colonists already present or arriving at the same time. From nearly the day of landing that mixture was a point of disagreement: the refugees expressed a strong desire not to be separated. Several refused the allotments offered and preferred to engage as servants to others of their own tongue. [3] [4]
That placement was the largest single addition of the period to the free population. Pasture and farm ground for the increasing community already reached beyond the Cape peninsula; the Huguenots filled the new Berg-river frontage opened the previous October and the adjoining French Hoek valley, while Stellenbosch remained the inland administrative and church centre for the mixed district. [4] [3]
Church Services under Simond
For church services an arrangement was made that the Rev. Mr Simond should preach in French on alternate Sundays at Stellenbosch and at the house of a burgher at Drakenstein. The sick-comforter Mankadan was to read a sermon and prayers in Dutch at Stellenbosch when the minister was at Drakenstein, and at Drakenstein when the minister was at Stellenbosch. Once in three months Simond was to preach at the Cape, and then the Rev. Johannes van Andel was to hold service in Dutch and administer the sacraments at Stellenbosch. [3]
The pattern followed Netherlands practice as closely as local numbers allowed. There, refugees formed branch congregations of established churches; here they formed a branch of the church of Stellenbosch. That church, though still without a resident Dutch clergyman, had a fully organised consistory presided over by the Cape minister as consulent. The arrangement was meant to serve both language groups; it did not satisfy the French, who desired a church entirely of their ownâa demand that would harden into formal petition only after the first building season. [3]
Building, Planting, and the First Season
The refugees began building and planting with alacrity. Those used to manual labour soon raised rough dwellings of clay walls and thatched roofs and laid out vegetable gardens. Men bred in ease found the toil severe and fared badly at first; with some help from countrymen they too made a start in farming. The Company had promised slaves as soon as possible but could procure none at this time. Wheat and garden crops remained the immediate necessity; vine and olive skill, which the directors had hoped to import with the refugees, could only show later. [3]
Those located at Drakenstein had hardly got roofs above their heads when they addressed the commander on a school for their children. He approved. On the 8th of November 1688, Paul Roux of Orange in France, who understood both languages, was appointed schoolmaster of Drakenstein. He was to receive a salary of 25s. and a ration allowance of 12s. 6d. a month, and besides teaching he was to act as church clerk. The dual-language school was the first permanent FrenchâDutch educational post inland of the Cape. [3]
With most of the Huguenots the first difficulties of settling were speedily overcome: housesâvery small and rough, yet shelter from sun and stormâwent up, gardens came under cultivation, and the crops of the first season were particularly good, so that there was no want of the necessaries of life. A few who declined farms at Stellenbosch remained in poorer circumstances. The manner of mixed location was felt by all as a grievance, though as each improved his property the grievance would naturally lessen. The deeper discontentâthat the government treated them as part of the Stellenbosch congregation while they read the directorsâ promise of a clergyman of their own as leave to form a congregation by themselvesâremained for the commander to refuse when put formally, and for the Seventeen to settle only in later years. [3]
Further Parties, the Vaudois Plan, and the Garrison
A few months after the first party left the Netherlands, others were engaged. They embarked in Wapen van Alkmaar and Zion. The first of these left Texel on the 27th of July 1688 with about forty immigrants young and old; she would reach Table Bay only on 27 January 1689. Zion, carrying among others the vinedresser brothers Abraham, Pierre, and Jacob de Villiers from the neighbourhood of La Rochelle, would arrive on 6 May 1689. Within 1688 those ships belonged to the outbound reinforcement, not yet to the landed census. [3]
Before Wapen van Alkmaar sailed, the directors had contemplated sending six or seven hundred Vaudois of the labouring class, most understanding some handiwork as well as agriculture. Refugees at Nuremberg in deep distress had sent deputies to the States of Holland and West Friesland and offered to emigrate in a body to any Netherlands colony. The Assembly of Seventeen offered to settle them at the Cape; the States agreed to contribute ÂŁ4 3s. 4d. per emigrant toward outfits and the journey to Amsterdam; the Company would give free passages, building materials and provisions on credit for seven or eight months, and the same privileges as earlier emigrants. While arrangements were concluding, the Vaudois obtained employment in Europe and declined to go so far. The project fell through. [3]
After June 1688 the subject of French emigration, once prominent in the directorsâ discussions, disappears from their records as a large programme. Exciting events in Europe occupied them. The summer of 1688 passed in anxiety that war with France and England combined was imminent; the first thought was protection, not enlargement, of possessions. In the autumn the garrison of the Cape was increased by one hundred and fifty men. The landing of the Prince of Orange in England, French seizure of Dutch ships, and open war with France followed on the European calendar; while those storms gathered, no further mass colonisation scheme was pressed. [3]
Van der Stel and the Newcomers
Commander Simon van der Stel would much rather have seen Netherlanders alone coming to South Africa, but as the supreme authorities chose to send French refugees he received them and dealt with them according to his instructions. He could not be as free with them as with his own countrymen, yet he did not at first treat them with undue reserve. In the settlement year he worked through Simond and the Stellenbosch deacons for relief, mixed the farm grants as ordered, and kept the French services inside the existing church order. Later appointments and sponsorships would show limited personal goodwill toward leading refugees; 1688 itself was the year of arrival, allotment, and guarded hospitality under orders from home. [3]
Among the immigrants already named, families that would mark later rolls of Drakenstein and Stellenbosch took ground in this first season: Marais, FouchĂ©, Taillefer, Nortier, De Savoye, Du Plessis, Jourdan, Joubert, Mesnard, Malherbe, Le Roux, Pinard, BruĂšre, Cloudon, Du Buis, Parisel, and many unmarried young men who hired out until they could hold farms. The orphan girls from Rotterdam married into the free community within months. Names familiar for generations in the Low CountriesâLe FĂšbre, De Lanoy, Nel, Du Toit, Cordier, Joubert, Malan, Malherbe, Mesnardâalso appear among people who had long residence behind them before the 1685â88 flight, so that not every French surname on a Cape list was a brand-new refugee in the commanderâs eyes. [3]
Open Country and Close of 1688
While the new farms filled the Berg-river valley, tracts of land of considerable extent were being taken up for European immigrants, yet intercourse with neighbouring Khoikhoi remained generally friendly. There was room enough for pastoral movement beyond occupied grants. Colonists would gladly have hired hundreds of Khoikhoi if men could have been induced to take steady service; most preferred their free life and would do only light occasional work for tobacco and spirits, though in harvesting they were found useful. Female children were sometimes hired out, spreading knowledge of Dutch in household service. None of the clans had yet taken to making gardens or cultivating ground for themselves. [3]
San parties occasionally came down from the Drakenstein mountains and committed depredations in the valley below. They were treated as outlaws by the settlementâs law, yet were too wary and fleet to be made prisoners easily. Khoikhoi allies pursued them with greater success. Captain Klaas was almost constantly scouring the mountains in his neighbourhood; though on several occasions they nearly ruined him by sweeping off his herds, he destroyed a large number of the raiders. Chainouqua captains Klaas and Koopman quarrelled often; when they came to open war the commander interfered on behalf of Klaas, held a faithful ally through whom large herds were still obtained for the fleets. [3]
By the end of 1688 the Cape had absorbed the first mass Huguenot embarkations of the decade: five shipsâ people landed between April and August, Simond installed in the French pulpit on the StellenboschâDrakenstein circuit, relief grain and planks issued, waggons run inland, farms marked among Dutch neighbours at Drakenstein and French Hoek, Paul Roux teaching and clerking from November, a hundred and fifty extra soldiers on the strength against a European war cloud, and the Vaudois mass scheme abandoned. Those were the calendar facts of the refugee year under Simon van der Stelâs command. [3] [4]