Boer History1728 at the Cape of Good Hope: Table Bay Gales, Meat Placaats, Tulbagh Councillor, and the Valk Raid
Van der Heiden’s Interior Cattle Leave Withdrawn — February 1728
After a time the contractor Van der Heiden had informed the council that he could not continue to supply meat unless permission was given him to procure cattle from the Khoikhoi in the distant interior. Leave was therefore granted, but in February 1728 it was withdrawn upon the Drakenstein consistory complaining that the trading parties sent out by him had used violence towards the natives, and had even murdered some Khoikhoi. [3]
The matter was investigated by the fiscal and the landdrost, but sufficient evidence could not be procured to secure the conviction of the offenders, though there was no doubt that very atrocious crimes had been committed. The February withdrawal thus closed a licensed interior meat path that had been opened under pressure of supply and shut again under consistory complaint—without a court conviction to match the moral certainty of the record. [3]
Calendar 1728 therefore opened, under Governor Pieter Gysbert Noodt and secunde Jan de la Fontaine, with the meat contract again cut off from distant Khoikhoi barter that Van der Heiden had said he needed. The same contractor’s party had already figured in directors’ anger over unpunished misconduct toward Khoikhoi and in the strict native-trade placaat of 9 April 1727; the February leave withdrawal was the local administrative sequel inside the new year. [3]
Tongue-and-Hoof Sickness and Stock Prices — 1728
The price of sheep sold at public auction at this time was from 11s. 1d. to 18s. 11d., taking one with another in a flock, and of draught oxen £4 8s. 4d. each. Scarcity was increased by the tongue and hoof sickness making its first appearance in 1728. [3]
Stock disease thus entered the meat crisis as a biological fact beside contractor politics. Auction floors still cleared flocks and trek oxen at the quoted ranges, but the first recorded tongue-and-hoof outbreak tightened the same market that Van der Heiden’s cancelled interior leave had already strained. [3]
For free burghers and Company magazines alike, 1728 stacked a new epizootic on top of the lingering reputation that the Cape no longer offered cheap fresh provisions to foreign shipping—the plague among cattle having earlier driven prices and scared off foreign flags even after beef and mutton later eased toward a penny halfpenny to two pence a pound. [3]
Meat and Stranger-Supply Placaats — 24 February and 6 April 1728
By order of the directors, a placaat was issued on the 24th of February 1728 prohibiting the sale of fresh meat or vegetables to strangers, under penalty of deportation to Europe and a fine of nearly £70. This was construed to mean that permission must first be obtained from the council, for upon English captains requesting to be allowed to purchase supplies of fresh provisions for their sick, leave was invariably granted. [3]
On the 6th of April of the same year another placaat required the farmers to provide the Company with meat at two pence a pound and sheep at ten shillings each, under penalty of a tithe of all animals reared being required. Legislation such as this was fruitless. [3]
The February ban therefore policed private sales to foreign flags while the April schedule tried to pin Company meat prices and flock delivery under threat of a rearing tithe. English sick lists still got council leave; the forced farm price did not restore a working meat market. Inside Noodt’s second calendar year the paper answers to scarcity ran faster than the herds. [3]
Wheat Export Resumes after the Rust Year — 1728
The harvests during the broader De la Fontaine–Noodt period fluctuated considerably. The directors, having gained experience of the uncertainty of the seasons in South Africa, had ordered that a year’s supply of wheat should always be put by as a reserve before any was sent to India. In 1724 and again in 1725 over five thousand muids had been exported. In 1726 none could be spared, owing to drought. In 1727 there had not been sufficient for home consumption, owing to rust, which had attacked rye before, but not wheat. [3]
From 1728 to 1737 there was a constant export, sometimes of as much as seven thousand muids, though the crops were not uniformly good. Calendar 1728 was thus the first year of the resumed export sequence after the rust shortfall that had left the settlement short of its own bread grain. [3]
Magazines that had faced home shortage in 1727 could again load India-bound wheat once the reserve rule was met. The recovery did not imply uniformly fine seasons through the next decade; it did mean that 1728 reopened the grain pipe that drought and rust had closed. [3]
French Sick-Comforter Refused — 23 February 1728
When Paul Roux died, the Drakenstein consistory requested the council of policy to appoint another French sick-comforter in his stead, as there were still some twenty-five or twenty-six old people living who did not understand Dutch. The council, on the 23rd of February 1728, declined to do so until the pleasure of the directors could be made known, and their decision was unfavourable. [3]
The refusal left the ageing French-speaking remnant at Drakenstein without a dedicated comforter of their language. The church completed in 1720 and served under the Rev. Lambertus Slicher after his transfer from the Cape side in 1725 thus kept Dutch pastoral cover while the last non-Dutch hearers lost their special petition. [3]
At the Cape the Rev. Mr. Bek held the mother congregation after the death of the Rev. Mr. D’Ailly in 1726, with Slicher directed to hold services occasionally at Stellenbosch as well as Drakenstein. So the clerical map of 1728 still ran Cape (Bek), Drakenstein with occasional Stellenbosch (Slicher), and no separate Stellenbosch incumbent—while the February council minute closed the French sick-comforter line pending directors who would not reopen it. [3]
July Gale: Stabroek, Haarlem, and Middenrak — 3–4 July 1728
On Saturday the 3rd of July 1728 there were six ships at anchor in Table Bay, when a gale set in from the north-north-west. At one o’clock in the afternoon the Stabroek parted her cables and was driven ashore between the castle and the mouth of Salt River. She was followed two hours later by the Haarlem, which grounded nearer the castle. Neither of these vessels was broken, and only two men of each were drowned in endeavouring to get to land. [3]
A little after three o’clock the Middenrak went ashore just beyond the mouth of Salt River. There were seventy-five men on board, and the ship was in a raging surf, but it was not possible to render any assistance. Night set in, and the hull of the Middenrak still held together. But when morning dawned on Sunday the 4th, all that remained of the ship was strewed along the beach, and not one of the seventy-five was saved to tell when she had gone to pieces. The other three vessels rode out the gale. [3]
The July disaster therefore split three ways on the same north-north-west blow: two Indiamen beached with light loss of life, one total loss of ship and company beyond Salt River mouth, and three ships still holding their anchors when the surf quieted. Table Bay’s winter reputation, already costly in earlier gales, took another full wreck and two strandings in a single afternoon and night. [3]
Haarlem Repaired at Saldanha and Lost Again — 4 December 1728
The Haarlem was got afloat again, and was sent to Saldanha Bay to be repaired. This was effected, and she returned to Table Bay on the 4th of December. At that season of the year danger was not suspected, though the day was rainy and the wind was variable from north-west to south-west. At ten o’clock that night the Haarlem parted her cables and went ashore close to the mouth of Salt River, where she broke up at once. Of one hundred and seven men on board, only sixteen got to land on pieces of the wreck. [3]
The same hull that had grounded near the castle in July with two drowned thus completed a second career in five months: Saldanha repair, December return on a day not classed as winter crisis, and total break-up at Salt River mouth with ninety-one men lost. Summer expectation did not protect a ship already once cast on the Table Bay beach. [3]
For the settlement watching Salt River mouth twice in one year, the Haarlem’s double wreck framed 1728 as a shipping year as much as a meat-and-grain year. July’s partial salvage of two ships and total loss of the Middenrak was answered in December by the failure of the repaired Haarlem on a rainy night when the roadstead was not thought dangerous. [3]
Ryk Tulbagh Enters the Council of Policy — 16 September 1728
Ryk Tulbagh, who had risen through Company clerkships at the Cape, had been appointed secretary of the council of policy when Adriaan van Kervel became fiscal in 1725. He remained in that office without a vote until the 16th of September 1728, when he became a member of the council of policy, and at the same time had a seat given to him in the high court of justice. [3]
In 1726 he had been named by the local authorities a junior merchant on approbation, and this dignity was now confirmed by the directors. The September promotion thus paired a council vote and a justice seat with metropolitan confirmation of the junior-merchant rank already granted on the spot. [3]
Tulbagh’s wife was a young lady who was by birth a colonist; among her relatives in Company service was her brother, Hendrik Swellengrebel, who had been Tulbagh’s immediate superior in the warehouse department. The 1728 entry into the council therefore seated a secretary already tied by marriage and service to the colonial official families around Noodt’s government—not a stranger imported for the chair. [3]
San Raid on Jan Valk near Piketberg — December 1728
There is at this period hardly any mention of the natives in the records, as they seldom gave the Europeans trouble. An exception occurred in December 1728, when a party of San drove off the cattle from the farm of Jan Valk near Piketberg. Valk’s neighbours assembled and pursued the robbers, who offered resistance when they were overtaken. [3]
Two Europeans were wounded, but a volley of slugs put to flight all the San who were not struck. The cattle were recovered, except two oxen. The government approved of the action of the colonists in following the robbers and firing upon them, but directed the landdrost to be careful that no provocation was given to San who did not first offend. [3]
The December pursuit near Piketberg was thus recorded as a rare frontier incident inside a quiet native file: neighbour assembly, resistance and wounded Europeans, a slug volley, recovery of all but two oxen, and a dual government answer—approval of the chase and a caution against unprovoked offence. It closed the calendar year’s inland violence on the northern stock frontier rather than on the Zonder End line that had drawn a corporal’s post in November 1726. [3]
Close of 1728 at the Cape
By the end of 1728 Governor Pieter Gysbert Noodt still headed the colony with secunde Jan de la Fontaine beside him. In February Van der Heiden’s leave to fetch interior cattle was withdrawn after Drakenstein complaints of violence and murder that the fiscal and landdrost could not convert into convictions; tongue-and-hoof sickness made its first recorded appearance; and on the 24th a directors’ placaat barred sale of fresh meat or vegetables to strangers without council leave, under threat of deportation and a fine near £70. On the 6th of April farmers were ordered to supply the Company at two pence a pound and ten shillings a sheep under tithe penalty—fruitless on the ground. Wheat export resumed after the rust year of 1727, opening a constant export run that would stretch toward 1737. On the 23rd of February the council refused a new French sick-comforter for Drakenstein’s remaining non-Dutch elderly, pending directors who answered unfavourably, while Bek and Slicher still divided Cape and inland pulpits. The 3rd–4th of July north-north-west gale cast the Stabroek and Haarlem ashore with two drowned from each and destroyed the Middenrak with all seventy-five hands; the repaired Haarlem returned on the 4th of December and broke up that night at Salt River mouth, sixteen of one hundred and seven reaching land. On the 16th of September Ryk Tulbagh took a council vote and a high-court seat with directors’ confirmation of junior-merchant rank. In December San drove cattle from Jan Valk near Piketberg; neighbours recovered all but two oxen after a fight that wounded two Europeans, and the government approved the pursuit while warning the landdrost against unprovoked offence. Noodt’s second year thus closed on cancelled interior meat leave, epizootic and placaat pressure, restored grain export, a refused French comforter, double Table Bay disaster around the Haarlem, a new councillor in Tulbagh, and a single recorded San stock raid on the Piketberg side. [3]