Boer History1701 at the Cape of Good Hope: Bushmen Raids, Cloete Commandos, Vogel Vlei and Groen Kloof Posts, and Frontier Defence
Winter Oak Planting at Stellenbosch — 1701
Governor Wilhem Adriaan van der Stel, like his father, treated tree cultivation as a standing duty of the settlement. During the first winter after his arrival twenty thousand young oaks had been planted in the kloofs at Stellenbosch and Drakenstein where the native forests had been exhausted, and over ten thousand had been set out in the Cape peninsula. In the winter of 1701 a further supply was sent to Stellenbosch from the nursery in Table Valley, and the landdrost was instructed to have them planted along the streets. [3]
The planting order belonged to the same administrative year that would be dominated by stock theft on the outer grazing line. Timber and fuel remained scarce for ships and the Castle; the street oaks at Stellenbosch were a long investment in shade and future wood rather than an answer to the firewood shortage that skippers still reported. For calendar 1701 the winter nursery draft is the only major peaceful public-works note before the March raids opened the year’s military record. [3]
Cloete Raided at Riebeek’s Kasteel — March 1701
With the enlargement of the settlement after the open cattle trade of 1700 and the occupation of the Land of Waveren, fresh troubles arose with the San groups the Dutch records called Bushmen. In March 1701 a band of these raiders drove off forty head of cattle from Gerrit Cloete’s farm at Riebeek’s Kasteel. A commando of ten soldiers and thirty burghers was sent after the depredators, but was unable to find them. A temporary military post was then established at Vogel Vlei, at the foot of the Obiqua mountains. [3]
Riebeek’s Kasteel had already been opened to Drakenstein graziers after the governor’s 1699 tour; the March lift showed that the new stock farms sat within reach of mountain bases the same range the Waveren settlers watched from the other side of the Roodezand. The failed pursuit of forty head, and the choice of Vogel Vlei as a standing watch rather than a one-day chase, fixed the pattern for the rest of the year: short commandos that lost the trail, then posts meant to shorten the next response. [3]
Waveren Lift and Vogel Vlei — April 1701
The Vogel Vlei post soon proved insufficient. In April Gerrit Cloete was again robbed, and eleven head of cattle were lifted from the Waveren post itself. A commando of twelve soldiers and fifty burghers was then organised to clear the country of Bushmen, but did not succeed in effecting its object. It was hardly disbanded when one hundred and thirty-seven head of cattle were lifted within sight of the Vogel Vlei post. [3]
Upon that third blow a reinforcement of six mounted soldiers was sent to each of the two posts, and twelve men were stationed at Riebeek’s Kasteel. The April sequence—repeat theft from Cloete, theft from the Waveren outstation planted only the previous July and October, a larger mixed commando that found nothing, then a mass lift under the eyes of Vogel Vlei—made plain that temporary posts without enough horse could not cover the Obiqua front. The government answered with numbers rather than a change of doctrine: more mounted men on the same line. [3]
Reinforcements, Captain Kees, and Cloete’s Private Commando
The Goringhaiqua and Cochoqua Khoikhoi now tendered their services to assist the Europeans against the Bushmen, and requested that the captain Kees, who was then living at Groen Kloof, might be recognised as their leader in the expedition. But it was discovered that Kees, who had suffered severely from the Bushmen, had already joined a commando of Gerrit Cloete’s friends, and that the joint force was scouring the Obiqua mountains. On receipt of this information, the governor sent instructions to the landdrost of Stellenbosch to have Cloete arrested and brought to trial for waging war without leave, and to ascertain and send in the names of those who had joined him in the expedition. [3]
The prosecution fell through, and the governor thought it best after this to send out only parties of soldiers against the raiders. The failed case left an awkward mark on the year’s policy: burgher and Khoikhoi self-help under Cloete and Kees had moved faster than the landdrost’s warrant, yet the council would not legitimise private war. Official defence was thereafter to be Company soldiers from the posts, even when Khoikhoi captains offered alliance under a named leader. [3]
Kees’s residence at Groen Kloof tied the episode to the meat contractor’s run as well as to the mountain war. The same district that fed Huising’s slaughter-houses sheltered a Khoikhoi captain willing to fight San thieves—and willing, when the council delayed, to ride with Cloete’s friends without leave. Calendar 1701 thus recorded both an offered alliance and a refused private war on the same stretch of grazing ground. [3]
September Recovery and Huising’s Loss at Piketberg
In September one of the soldier parties recovered one hundred and twenty head of cattle belonging partly to burghers and partly to Khoikhoi. That success was the first substantial recovery of the year and showed that mounted patrols could still retake stock when they struck the right trail. It did not end the raids. [3]
In the following month—October—more than two hundred head belonging to the contractor Henning Huising were lifted at Groen Kloof, and a patrol of thirty-five soldiers was obliged to fall back from Piketberg, where the Bushmen made a resolute stand. The meat contractor who held the Company’s slaughter privilege and the Groen Kloof run thus became a principal victim of the same frontier pressure his open-trade world had helped to extend. A Company patrol large enough for ordinary pursuit could not force the Piketberg position. [3]
September’s hundred and twenty recovered and October’s two hundred-plus lost at Groen Kloof framed the soldier-only policy in hard numbers: recovery was possible; so was a fighting retreat when San groups chose ground and stood. Huising’s loss also linked the Castle’s beef contract directly to the northern grazing war, not only to Cloete’s Riebeek’s Kasteel line and the Waveren basin. [3]
Groen Kloof Post, Terreblanche, and Twenty-four Rivers — November 1701
In November a sergeant and ten men were sent to form a permanent military post at Groen Kloof. In the Land of Waveren forty head of cattle, mostly belonging to Etienne Terreblanche, were seized by Bushmen, and one of the soldiers who tried to recover them was killed. Two hundred and seventy-four head belonging to Khoikhoi kraals at Riebeek’s Kasteel were driven off, but a party of soldiers followed the robbers to Twenty-four Rivers and retook most of the spoil. [3]
In trying to afford protection, no distinction was made by the government between burghers and Khoikhoi: the officers at the outposts were instructed to do their utmost to recover cattle stolen by Bushmen and deliver them to their proper owners whoever these might be. That parity of recovery—explicit after the November kraal lift and the Twenty-four Rivers pursuit—matched the year’s earlier pattern in which Khoikhoi stock and burgher stock had both appeared in the September recovery of one hundred and twenty head. [3]
The permanent Groen Kloof post answered Huising’s October disaster and Kees’s earlier residence there with a standing sergeant’s guard. Terreblanche’s loss and the soldier’s death at Waveren showed that the basin occupied in 1700 still paid a blood price in 1701. The retaking of most of the two hundred and seventy-four kraal cattle at Twenty-four Rivers closed the year’s recorded pursuits on a partial success for Khoikhoi owners under Company escort. [3]
Close of 1701 at the Cape
By the end of 1701 the landdrost of Stellenbosch had set out street oaks drawn from the Table Valley nursery in the winter planting. In March forty cattle had been driven from Gerrit Cloete at Riebeek’s Kasteel, a mixed commando of ten soldiers and thirty burghers had failed to find the raiders, and Vogel Vlei had been posted at the foot of the Obiqua mountains. In April Cloete had been robbed again, eleven head had left the Waveren post, a larger commando of twelve soldiers and fifty burghers had failed to clear the country, one hundred and thirty-seven cattle had been lifted in sight of Vogel Vlei, and six mounted men had reinforced each of the two posts while twelve were placed at Riebeek’s Kasteel. Captain Kees of Groen Kloof and Cloete’s friends had scoured the Obiqua range without leave; the landdrost had been ordered to prosecute; the case had fallen through; and thereafter only soldier parties had been sent out. In September one hundred and twenty head belonging to burghers and Khoikhoi had been recovered. In October more than two hundred of Henning Huising’s cattle had been taken at Groen Kloof, and thirty-five soldiers had fallen back from a resolute San stand at Piketberg. In November a sergeant and ten men had formed a permanent post at Groen Kloof; forty head, mostly Etienne Terreblanche’s, had been seized at Waveren and a recovering soldier killed; two hundred and seventy-four Khoikhoi cattle from Riebeek’s Kasteel kraals had been driven off and most retaken at Twenty-four Rivers. Outpost officers stood under orders to restore stolen stock to burgher and Khoikhoi owners alike. Those were the calendar facts of a year in which the open grazing frontier of 1700 met sustained San stock war, private commandos were refused after one failed prosecution, and Company posts multiplied from Vogel Vlei to Groen Kloof while oaks took root along Stellenbosch streets. [3]