Boer History1689 at the Cape of Good Hope: Alkmaar, Zion, Normande, and the Huguenot Church Plea
Wapen van Alkmaar and Terwold — January 1689
The calendar year 1689 opened with the next Huguenot reinforcement still at sea. On the 27th of January 1689 the ship Wapen van Alkmaar (also written ’t Wapen van Alkmaar), commanded by Captain Carel Goske, which had left Texel on the 27th of July 1688, anchored in Table Bay with about forty immigrants, young and old. They were the first large party to land after the five ships of 1688, and they filled out the French and mixed households already marked at Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, and French Hoek. The voyage had been severe: the vessel lost thirty-seven persons by death and brought one hundred and four sick, who were placed at once in the Company’s hospital at the Cape. The French emigrants among them were sent into the country to their new homes on the 1st of February, after they had been given the necessaries for agricultural work. Of the Alkmaar French names later recoverable with certainty, Botha could trace only Antonie Martin from surviving lists; the fuller roll of Alkmaar arrivals appears mainly through the relief distribution of the following year. [3] [8]
That reinforcement was itself a substitute for a larger plan. Before Alkmaar sailed, the directors had contemplated sending six or seven hundred Vaudois of the labouring class from the Nuremberg refuge. Arrangements were made for two or three hundred to go in the Schielandt and then in Alkmaar; the people proved averse to so long a sea voyage, obtained employment in Germany, and declined to go so far. The Seventeen wrote that forty French refugees bred to agriculture were being sent in Alkmaar instead. The larger Vaudois project fell through; the forty French of January 1689 were what the Cape received in its place. [3] [8]
In the same month the Cape pulpit changed hands. In January 1689 the Rev. Johannes van Andel was succeeded by the Rev. Leonardus Terwold; Van Andel went on to Batavia as chaplain of the Wapen van Alkmaar. The settlement now had two ordained ministers in active service: Terwold at the Castle church and the Rev. Pierre Simond on the French circuit of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Stellenbosch itself still had no resident clergyman of its own, though it was organised as a consistory. The sick-comforter continued to read ordinary services there; Simond preached in French and Terwold in Dutch when either rode out from the Cape or the Berg-river valley. [3]
Commander Simon van der Stel still preferred Netherlanders alone as colonists, yet he continued to work within the directors’ orders. In 1689 he appointed Jacques de Savoye a heemraad of Stellenbosch and stood sponsor at the baptism of one of De Savoye’s children and of a child of the Rev. Mr Simond. Simond’s daughter Catherine was baptised at the Cape on the 17th of March 1689, one of her sponsors being the commander himself; De Savoye’s daughter Aletta was baptised at Cape Town on the 17th of July 1689. Those marks of limited personal goodwill sat beside a firm refusal to treat the French as a separate political body. [3] [8]
Namaqua and Grigriqua Raid — March 1689
Tracts of land of considerable extent were by this time being taken into occupation for European immigrants, yet relations with neighbouring Khoikhoi were not uniformly hostile. Colonists would gladly have employed hundreds of Khoikhoi if they could have been induced to take regular service; the men preferred their free life, though they would do light work for tobacco and spirits and were found useful in harvesting. Female children were hired out as household servants, and by that means a knowledge of Dutch spread. None of the clans had yet progressed so far as to make gardens or cultivate the ground for themselves. [3]
In March 1689 Namaqua and Grigriqua parties crossed the Elephant River in such force that fifty-two kraals were counted on the southern side. Less than two years earlier the Grigriquas had sent a present of six oxen to the castle and had stated their wish to remain in friendship; the messengers had been well received and had left pleased and satisfied. Nothing since that visit had openly broken the peace with either them or the Namaquas, yet the size of the inroad alarmed the free community. Farmers of Drakenstein and Stellenbosch prepared for defence. [3]
It soon appeared that the Cochoquas, not the Europeans, were the intended victims. The invaders attacked a kraal near Saldanha Bay, killed the chief and as many of the men as they could seize, and carried off women, children, and cattle as booty. The commander did not see fit to interfere in this disturbance, though the Cochoquas were said to be under Dutch protection. A similar raid at the end of the following year would bring thirty or forty soldiers into the field, with several thousand head of cattle captured and then restored upon a renewal of friendship; in March 1689 the settlement watched, armed its farms, and left the Khoikhoi quarrel to run its course. In the interval between those events the old Cochoqua chief Oedasoa died; one of his brothers applied to the commander to be appointed in his stead, received a staff of office, and was named Hannibal. [3]
Among the Chainouquas the captains Klaas and Koopman still quarrelled often. When they came to open war the commander continued to support Klaas, held a faithful ally through whom large herds were still obtained for the fleets. San parties from the Drakenstein mountains still came down into the valley; they were regarded as outlaws and were too wary and fleet of foot to be easily made prisoners. Klaas kept scouring the hills in his neighbourhood against them even when they nearly ruined him by sweeping off his stock, and managed to destroy a large number of them. [3]
War News from Europe — March 1689
In March 1689 intelligence reached South Africa that all Dutch ships in French harbours had been seized, and that on the 26th of the preceding November the king of France had declared war against the United Netherlands. For a few days it was feared that England would join the enemy. That apprehension was removed when further despatches stated that the Prince of Orange had landed at Torbay and had been welcomed by the English people as their deliverer. The Cape, already strengthened by the hundred and fifty extra soldiers sent out in the autumn of 1688, now knew itself a station of a Company at war with France. [3] [8]
During the Dutch–French war the directors would issue instructions that Khoikhoi with cattle were to be kept away from the neighbourhood of Saldanha Bay, so that enemy ships putting in there might not find supplies. Thefts by Khoikhoi against Europeans continued to be tried in Dutch tribunals and punished according to Dutch law; crimes among Khoikhoi themselves were left to their own law. Khoikhoi remained generally at liberty to wander over the open country provided they did not trespass on ground occupied by settlers, but that liberty was suspended whenever it interfered with European interests. The general policy remained non-interference beyond what the safety and welfare of the settlement required. [3]
War framed the commander’s position in another way. Some time before hostilities he had received from the king of France a present of a gold chain and medal with a portrait of that monarch, in return for civilities shown to the French fleets that called at Table Bay in 1685 and 1687. On accepting the gift he had said he would inform the directors. They did not approve of his receiving it, and suspicion might have settled on him had fortune not soon given him an open chance to clear himself by seizing French ships in wartime. [3] [8]
Murder of Charles Marais — April 1689
In April 1689 a colonist, the elder Charles Marais, was murdered by a Khoikhoi man at Drakenstein. Over a long run of years this was the only crime more serious than cattle-lifting recorded against Khoikhoi in the European courts. The offender was tried and executed. The Marais household had come out in Voorschoten in 1688—Charles Marais of Plessis and Catherine Taboureux with four children, Claude, Charles, Isaac, and Marie—so the killing at Drakenstein struck one of the new French freehold families in their first full season on the Berg-river lands. The widow Catherine Taboureux later appears on the April 1690 Batavia relief list with four children, and would remarry Daniel des Ruelles (De Ruelle). [3] [8]
The crime stood almost alone in the criminal record of Khoikhoi–European contact for the period, and the government’s response followed the standing rule: offences by Khoikhoi against Europeans belonged to Dutch tribunals; offences among Khoikhoi themselves remained outside colonial jurisdiction. Farmers of Drakenstein and Stellenbosch, already armed after the March raid across the Elephant River, now had a second reason to watch the valley paths. The settlement did not treat the murder as a cause for general war against neighbouring clans; it treated it as a capital case against one man.
Capture of the Normande — 26 April 1689
On the 26th of April 1689 the French ship Normande, from Pondicherry with a valuable cargo, put into Table Bay. Captain De Courcelles knew nothing of recent events in Europe and believed he was anchoring in a friendly port. He sent a boat ashore with a complimentary message to the Dutch authorities; the bearers were made prisoners as soon as they entered the castle. The boat was then manned with Dutch sailors dressed like the French, who kept her flag flying and pretended to put off from the shore. [3] [8]
The Normande began to fire a salute. While her people were thus engaged she was boarded by the crews of the Dutch ships in port. There was a short scuffle in which no one was killed, though two Dutchmen and eight Frenchmen were wounded; it ended in the surrender of Captain De Courcelles and his crew. The French flag was left flying on the Normande so as to decoy her consort, the Coche, to a similar fate. War news only weeks old had turned Table Bay from a refreshment roadstead into a trap for any French hull that still believed the old courtesies held. [3]
Capture of the Coche — 5–6 May 1689
On the evening of the 5th of May the Coche came to anchor and shortly afterwards saluted the Dutch flag with nine guns, a compliment returned at once with the same number. She had no communication with the shore, but late in the evening she sent a boat to the Normande. When the boat did not return, and a large Dutch ship was clearly ranging alongside, shortly after midnight Captain D’Armagnan became alarmed and began to prepare the Coche for action. [3]
Seeing this, the master of the Nederland poured in a broadside at less distance than his own ship’s length. Captain D’Armagnan and three of his crew were killed and eight others wounded. With five hostile ships around them, the officers of the Coche saw no chance of defending her successfully and surrendered. Both prizes were plundered by Dutch seamen immediately after capture. The value of their cargoes was estimated at £50,000. The Normande and the Coche were renamed Goede Hoop and Afrika and sent to Europe with the next Company fleet. The prisoners, one hundred and forty in number, were forwarded to Batavia to be detained until an exchange could be arranged. [3]
The capture was a fortunate occurrence for Commander Van der Stel. The gold chain and medal from Louis XIV had left him open to directors’ disapproval; the open seizure of two French Indiamen in wartime gave him the chance to clear himself of suspicion. Botha later noted the same sequence when weighing the commander’s temper toward the Huguenot community: March war news, April–May prizes, and the earlier French gift that the Seventeen had not liked. The bay that had refreshed French fleets in 1685 and 1687 now held their prizes under Dutch colours. [3] [8]
Zion and the De Villiers Brothers — 6 May 1689
On the 6th of May 1689 the ship Zion arrived in Table Bay. She had left Holland on the 8th of January 1689. In her came three brothers, Abraham, Pierre, and Jacob de Villiers, vinedressers from the neighbourhood of La Rochelle. The Chamber at Delft had written to the Cape on the 16th of December 1688 that the three brothers had good knowledge of laying out and managing vineyards and should be given a helping hand. They joined the wine-growing free community already taking root at Drakenstein and the adjoining valleys. Abraham married Susanne Gardiol on the 5th of October 1689; the three brothers would appear among the Huguenot names on later relief and census rolls, Abraham with wife and two brothers drawing ƒ570 in the April 1690 Batavia distribution. [3] [8]
With most of the earlier Huguenots the first difficulties of settling were already being overcome: small rough houses gave shelter, gardens were under cultivation, and the crops of the first season had been particularly good. A few who declined farms at Stellenbosch remained poorer. The mixed location of French among Dutch neighbours was still felt as a grievance, and a deeper discontent remained—that the government treated them as a branch of the Stellenbosch congregation while they read the directors’ promise of a French clergyman as leave to form a congregation of their own. [3] [8]
Poverty among the newcomers remained real enough that on the 22nd of April 1689 Commander Van der Stel wrote to the Batavian government and complained of the extreme want of the French refugees, who, he said, would not enjoy the fruits of their work for three or four years; they were being supported by the Company and from such means as the poor fund could spare. The ground had never been tilled since the world began, was overgrown with bush and roots, and would take several years to yield return; tools and implements had to be obtained from the Company, to whom the settlers became debtors. He asked that a collection might be made for these poor people. The petition was not in vain: although a public collection was not raised at Batavia, a bill of exchange for 6,000 rixdollars, or about £1,250, was sent over in favour of the Rev. Pierre Simond as pastor of the French congregation at Drakenstein. The money had long stood in the Batavian treasury as the poor fund of a church at Formosa, carried off when the Dutch evacuated that island. It would be distributed at the Cape only on the 18th and 19th of April 1690; the request and the grant belonged to 1689. [3] [8]
Stock Improvement and Farm Work — 1689
Agriculture was now far enough advanced that there was sufficient food for the inhabitants, the garrison, and the people of the fleets. In good seasons a surplus of fifteen hundred or two thousand muids of wheat could be exported to Batavia. Experience had taught the government always to keep two years’ supply in the magazines against drought or destruction by locusts or caterpillars. The Company had not yet abandoned farming, but was gradually doing so as it could depend on colonial supplies. Besides the garden in Table Valley and the vineyard at Rondebosch it still held seven farms or cattle places, the most remote at Hottentots Holland; on two of them a few hundred muids of wheat were grown, the others serving mainly as breeding and holding stations for oxen and sheep bought from Khoikhoi until required for the fleets. [3]
The Company was also trying to improve existing stock and introduce new breeds. Horses originally brought from Java had increased in number but deteriorated in size and appearance; even so they brought at auction from £4 to £5 each, as much as four or five large oxen in prime condition. To improve the breed, in 1689 the Company imported some stud horses from Persia. At the same time Persian asses were introduced. Spanish rams were sent out, as the directors hoped that valuable kirman wool might be produced by a cross with sheep of the South African type. [3]
For free farmers the first object remained wheat, which brought relatively a higher price than any other product. Next came cattle rearing. Wine followed; the Company purchased it at £5 a legger for the fleets. It was not saleable in India on account of inferior quality; some was converted into vinegar for seamen. There seemed now to the directors a good prospect of attaining the objects for which the Cape settlement had been formed: refreshments for the fleets in ample quantities, yet hitherto at so great an expense that they looked on the station as the dearest victualling post in the world. A considerable colony should, they thought, enable them to reduce expenditure by furnishing militia in place of a large garrison and by producing food more cheaply than before. [3]
In their despatches they pointed out that while wheat sold in the Netherlands at 6s. 8d. the muid, they were paying 12s. 6d. and even 13s. 11d. the muid at the Cape, though Cape farmers paid no rent and almost no taxes. They held that the price could gradually be reduced toward that of the Fatherland and still leave the farmers better off than those in Europe. They further wanted export of wheat, wine, and olive oil sufficient, after fair payment to the farmers, to defray a considerable portion of government cost from sale profits. They directed continued vine experiments until the best sort was known, and expressed disappointment that olive culture had apparently not been persevered in. The commander replied that vine trials were under way in the Company’s gardens, on freehold farms, and at Constantia; that the olive had been tried with pains and remained a failure except in occasional seasons; and that a few Huguenots were grafting cultivated olives on the wild olive of the country, while most burghers still would not wait long years for uncertain olive profit. [3]
Plans of Table Valley at this date show the town covering part of the ground between the Company’s garden and the shore of the bay, with extensive private gardens over much of the remaining space. There were no private residences beyond the present Plein Street on one side and Burg Street on the other. On the north side of the Heeregracht the Company’s garden extended as far down as the present Longmarket Street; on the opposite side it terminated where it still does. A reservoir near the site of the original earthen fort on the parade ground received water from the Fresh river by a wooden pipe laid in 1686, from which it could be conveyed along the jetty to the ships’ boats; close to the reservoir stood a mill for grinding corn. As far as the buildings extended the streets were regularly laid out and crossed at right angles, though none yet bore the names they carry now. The colony that Simon van der Stel had found in 1679 limited to a portion of the Cape peninsula had spread over the country bounded by the mountains of Drakenstein and Hottentots Holland; farmhouses stood along the Koebergen and as far down the Berg-river valley as the Green mountain beyond Wellington. [3]
Simond’s Letter and Huguenot Discontent
Individual representations about a separate French congregation the commander declined to notice. The Huguenots therefore resolved to proceed more formally. About five months before the November deputation—roughly mid-year—the clergyman Simond wrote to the Supreme Authorities concerning the grievances of the refugees. Nothing further could be settled at the Cape until a reply arrived. In the meantime the mixed-farm grievance and the church grievance hardened into open mutual bitterness between many French and Dutch free burghers. After arrival the first church arrangement had been that Simond should preach at Stellenbosch and Drakenstein on alternate Sundays until a church could be built; Stellenbosch already had a consistory, and the refugees were not satisfied to remain only a portion of that congregation. From the promise of their own clergyman they had presumed a congregation of their own. [3] [8]
On both sides rash words were uttered. In open meeting the French resolved not to intermarry with the Dutch, forgetting that if such a resolution could be carried out most of them could never marry at all. There were individuals among them who did not scruple to say that, having braved the anger of the great king of France, they would be ashamed of themselves if they were afraid of the commander Van der Stel. Many of the Dutch colonists ceased to hold intercourse with the French; some were even reported to have said that they would rather give bread to a Khoikhoi or to a dog than to a Frenchman. The commander saw in Huguenot projects an attempt to thwart his scheme of a pure Dutch colony; they saw in him a determination to compel them to be Dutch whether they would or not. [3]
The bitterness of 1689 has to be read against the kinder reception of the year before: the subscription among older settlers and Company servants, the readiness to convey the refugees to their farms, and the April appeal to Batavia for money. Botha later weighed whether Van der Stel’s outburst against a separate congregation proved settled animosity, or whether war with France, the seizure of the Normande and Coche, and the awkward French gold chain together sharpened his temper toward any project that looked like a French body inside the colony. The documents of the year show both the relief granted and the church petition refused. [8]
Church Deputation — 28 November 1689
On the 28th of November 1689 a deputation consisting of the Rev. Pierre Simond, Jacques de Savoye, Daniel de Ruelle (David de Ruelle in the council minutes as Botha read them), Abraham de Villiers, and Louis Cordier appeared at the castle and, on behalf of their countrymen, requested permission to establish a separate church of their own. Before leaving Holland they had been promised their own clergyman; from that promise they had presumed their own congregation. The commander broke into a furious passion. He declared that the project was rank sedition, and that the French were the most impertinent and ungrateful people on the face of the earth. It was not only their own church they wanted, he said, but their own magistrate and their own prince; they should have nothing of the kind. Here, he argued, they had been treated actually better than Netherlanders, and this was how they turned. [3] [8]
Botha’s reading of the same council debate preserves a sharper phrasing of the commander’s charge: men who had fled France on account of religious persecution and sought refuge especially in Holland; men who, that they might lead lazy and indolent lives under the cloak of Protestant zeal, had obtained passages in Company ships to earn their living as agriculturists; men treated with every kindness, even better than the Dutch nation—who would want not only their own church but their own magistrate, commander-in-chief, and prince. After deliberation the council resolved to reprimand the petitioners and bring them to their senses, so that their impertinences might be checked and their plots prevented in time. [8]
The deputation was for some time left waiting in an outer room while the debate ran. By-and-bye they were called in and reminded of the oath of allegiance which every Cape freeman had taken; the pastor was asked to read that oath to them. They were ordered to return to their homes. The commander informed them that they must be satisfied to remain as they were, a branch congregation of the church of Stellenbosch, and warned them not to trouble him again with such impertinent requests. With Simond’s earlier letter already on its way to the Seventeen, nothing more could be done at the Cape until home authority answered. For a time the two nationalities regarded each other with a bitter spirit of hostility. [3] [8]
The answer from home would come only on the 6th of December 1690, when the Assembly of Seventeen took Simond’s request into consideration and resolved to permit a church at Drakenstein under strict conditions: elders and deacons chosen yearly to be approved by the council of policy; a political commissioner in the consistory; important matters before the Cape church council with country deputies seated; local control of poor funds raised by the congregation, but foreign contributions under the combined church council; bilingual schoolmasters at Stellenbosch and Drakenstein with care that French children be instructed in Dutch; and an explicit refusal of the request to be located together, with orders to mix the nationalities when granting ground. That despatch would reach the Cape only in June 1691. The year 1689 closed with the plea made, the rebuke delivered, and the French still formally a branch of Stellenbosch—while Alkmaar and Zion settlers, Persian stock, wartime prizes, and the Batavia bill of exchange already marked how far the free community had grown since the first five ships of 1688. [3] [8]