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, 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. [3]
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. The sick-comforter 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. Those marks of limited personal goodwill sat beside a firm refusal to treat the French as a separate political body. [3]
Namaqua and Grigriqua Raid — March 1689
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. 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. The commander did not 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 soldiers into the field; in March 1689 the settlement watched, armed its farms, and left the Khoikhoi quarrel to run its course. [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; Klaas kept scouring the hills in his neighbourhood against them even when they nearly ruined him by sweeping off his stock. [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]
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; crimes among Khoikhoi themselves were left to their own law. The general policy remained non-interference beyond what the safety and welfare of the settlement required. [3]
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; the killing at Drakenstein therefore struck one of the new French freehold families in their first full season on the Berg-river lands. [3]
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]
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. [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. Some time before the war 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. The directors had not approved of his accepting the gift, and it might have fared ill with him if fortune had not given him this open chance to clear himself of suspicion by seizing French ships in wartime. [3]
Zion and the De Villiers Brothers — 6 May 1689
On the 6th of May 1689 the ship Zion arrived in Table Bay. In her came three brothers, Abraham, Pierre, and Jacob de Villiers, vinedressers from the neighbourhood of La Rochelle. They joined the wine-growing free community already taking root at Drakenstein and the adjoining valleys, and would appear among the Huguenot names on later relief and census rolls. [3]
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]
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. Directors at home already pressed for cheaper grain, more export of wheat, wine, and olive oil, continued vine experiments, and renewed attention to the olive—points the commander answered with reports of trials in the Company’s gardens, on freehold farms, and at Constantia, and of Huguenot grafting of cultivated olives on the wild olive of the country, while most burghers still would not wait long years for uncertain olive profit. [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. [3]
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 Hottentot 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]
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, 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. 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]
The commander called the council together, but not so much to ask advice as to express his opinion of the French. The deputation was for some time left waiting in an outer room. By-and-bye they were reminded of the oath of allegiance which they had taken, and 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. 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]
Close of 1689 at the Cape
By the end of 1689 the Cape had absorbed two further Huguenot ships after the mass landings of 1688: Wapen van Alkmaar in January with about forty souls, and Zion in May with the De Villiers brothers among her passengers. Terwold held the Castle pulpit; Simond still served French hearers as a branch of Stellenbosch. De Savoye sat as heemraad. War with France was known, and two French Indiamen had been taken in Table Bay, renamed, and sent home with cargoes valued at fifty thousand pounds and one hundred and forty prisoners shipped to Batavia. Namaqua and Grigriqua raiders had crossed the Elephant River against the Cochoquas; Charles Marais had been murdered at Drakenstein and the killer executed; Persian horses and asses and Spanish rams had been brought in to improve colonial stock. On the last formal business of the year the French church deputation of 28 November had been refused and sent home under the oath of allegiance. Those were the calendar facts of 1689 under Simon van der Stel’s command. [3]