Boer History1801 at the Cape of Good Hope: Yonge Recalled, the July Rising, and Sherlock at Graaff Reinet
Drought and Duckitt’s Model Farm — 1801
Harvests from 1798 onward were very poor. That scarcity is why Sir George Yonge issued a stringent proclamation on the 4th of December 1800. The army, the fleet, and the townspeople still had to be fed. Farmers were ordered to bring all their wheat to the magazines at Capetown, except enough for their own food and for seed. The government paid 8 pounds 12 shillings in paper for 10 muids, less 12 shillings instead of the tithe, and sold to bakers and families at 9 pounds 2 shillings for 10 muids. Anyone who disobeyed forfeited the grain and a fine of 100 pounds. The magazines of that December did not break the drought. The order mattered in 1801 because the same empty barns still faced the same garrison and shipping. [3]
In 1801 flour and rice had to be imported to avert famine. The agricultural department that Yonge had added to the Cape government was meant to show that English skill, not only rain, could make the colony a grain and wine country. On the 20th of September 1800 the staff reached Table Bay after a long passage: William Duckitt as superintendent at 500 pounds a year, an assistant at 60, a carpenter and a blacksmith at 33 pounds 12 shillings each, six husbandmen at 31 pounds 10 shillings, a farm boy at 10, and a dairy woman at 10 pounds 10 shillings. They were placed on the farm Klapmuts with cattle, horses, slaves, and English implements. Duckitt was an enthusiast for high culture. His father wrote on farm machinery, and he himself had improved a drill for sowing seed then in general use in England. The farm was set up at a bad time. High culture at Klapmuts produced nothing beyond ordinary Cape tillage, and cost more. [3]
Two or three of the Van Reenens tried the English manner; the rest held back. They told Duckitt that if God sent rain the land only needed to be scratched, and if little rain fell the highest culture would be useless. Their wooden ploughs cost almost nothing beyond labour; his were expensive. Theirs needed more draught cattle, but the oxen had to take produce to market in any case, and in seedtime might as well be working. Cape tillage was still a heavy wooden plough with one handle, drawn by six or eight oxen; a harrow of three blocks in a triangle with pegs, or a large bush; sheaves threshed by driving horses or young oxen round a hard floor; grain winnowed in the wind. Duckitt’s drill and those English ploughs did not feed the hands who used them. [3]
By the time the year had run, over 8000 pounds had gone on the model farm with no return. In neither 1801 nor the season that followed was enough food raised for the people employed there. The experiment failed except that English ploughs came into limited use on ground long under cultivation. What hung on the failure was not only wasted paper money. It showed that, in a drought year, the Cape still depended on imports and on the old wooden plough, while the garrison and the roadstead still had to be fed. [3]
Yonge Recalled — 20–21 April 1801
Sir George Yonge governed the Cape from 10 December 1799. Few men at the head of that government were more generally disliked. In one despatch he reported that the colonists termed him their father; those who used such language were only a few suppliants for mercy. Except for favourites of his own appointment, he was not on friendly terms with the officers of his government, and he reported that the only efficient public servant he found on arrival was Hercules Ross. The secretary of state read those despatches with something like alarm. When complaints of misgovernment, supported by apparently complete proofs of corruption, reached the colonial office, the ministry resolved to recall him and make a strict inquiry. The recall mattered because the Cape was still a wartime British occupation: the governor’s credit was the occupation’s credit. [3] [7]
On the 20th of April 1801 the Nutwell arrived in Table Bay with despatches dated the 14th of January, addressed to Yonge and to Major-General Francis Dundas. Dundas was the same officer who had sat as acting governor from 21 November 1798 to 9 December 1799, before Yonge took the chair. Lord Glenbervie was now named governor. Yonge was to transfer the administration to Dundas at once and return to England by the first opportunity. Dundas was to assume at once and act until Glenbervie arrived. Glenbervie never took up the Cape post. The general called at government house and informed Yonge of his instructions. Yonge asked to keep his position a few days longer — in truth for appearance, nominally to put accounts in order. Dundas would not consent. That afternoon two notices were issued: one by Dundas, that in consequence of a despatch from the secretary of state he was then acting governor; the other by Yonge, that the king had been pleased to appoint Glenbervie and had given permission to transfer the administration and return at once. [3]
Next morning — the 21st of April — at eleven o’clock the principal civil and military officers assembled at the castle. Dundas caused his instructions to be read and took the prescribed oaths as acting governor. Yonge applied to the admiral on the station for a man-of-war to convey him to England, as was usual with governors returning home, and was refused. On the 29th of May he left in a private ship, to the great satisfaction of nearly every one in the colony. What hung on the two April days was the chair itself: from the afternoon of the 20th the Cape was again under a soldier-governor, and the inquiry into Yonge’s household could begin. [3]
A commission sat on the charges. The most serious were: that he had increased the taxes in violation of the capitulation of September 1795, the terms under which the Dutch had surrendered the Cape to Britain; that he had granted monopolies to improper persons and shared the profits; that he had taken government slaves from the fortifications and given their services to monopoly holders; that he had caused lavish and unnecessary expenditure; that he had received from Hogan the sum of 5000 pounds for leave to import 800 slaves from Mozambique; that he had not prosecuted persons who illegally obtained 250 slaves at Mozambique, 90 of whom had died for want of water on the passage. After investigation he was exonerated of having personally received bribes, and even of having been cognisant of the corruption of the officials in his confidence; but a scandalous state of things was disclosed. He had violated the capitulation by imposing licences for killing game, by doubling the duty on brandy passing the barrier, and by several other taxes. He had alienated some of the public lands pledged as security for the paper money. The only way to get a decision from the governor, or even to communicate with him, was by bribing the favourites about his person. The slave trade with Mozambique was being actively carried on: the method was letters of marque for a privateer, then slaves represented as prizes. [3] [7]
In May 1801 Lord Hobart, secretary of state for the colonies, expressed extreme surprise that the sentences of the court of justice of September 1800 had not been carried into effect, and desired that the law should take its course. Those sentences were the remaining business of the 1799 Graaff Reinet rising: Adriaan van Jaarsveld, Marthinus Prinsloo, and their fellows still sat in the castle. Dundas, acting when those orders came, took the responsibility of further postponement and strongly recommended the prisoners to mercy. In December of the same year he answered Hobart that feelings of humanity and a desire to avoid effusion of blood prompted him to plead for modification: the people had readily surrendered when they had it in their power to place themselves beyond the law. They stayed in the castle. A treaty of peace between France and England was by then concluded, under which the colony was to be restored; the fourteen remained with the sentence of the court in suspense. [3] [4] [7]
Maynier, the Church Barrack, and Vanderkemp — 1801
After the arrangement called peace, Graaff Reinet remained wretched. The upper fieldcornetcies were again occupied, but the heavy cattle losses were not made good, and poverty was general. Honoratus Maynier still sat as resident commissioner for Swellendam and Graaff Reinet, the post Dundas had given him on 25 December 1799 to hold the eastern districts after the Van Jaarsveld rising. Locusts toward the close of 1799 had eaten every green thing, so that even the game disappeared. February rains and locust-birds of 1800 killed the insects; the game did not return. Many families with few or no domestic cattle were actually in want of food. Country near the Xhosa and Khoikhoi kraals was nearly uninhabited, as neither life nor property was safe there. Life and property on the Fish side of the old Company’s line were on a very insecure tenure. That is why a commissioner who would not decide for the farmers, and a church used as a barrack, became the year’s eastern flashpoints. [3] [4]
To the farmers it seemed as if justice, as well as order, had fled. It was of no use to bring charges against coloured people before Maynier: no matter how good the case, he would not decide in their favour. He reported that the Xhosa and the Khoikhoi were behaving themselves very well. For the colonists in the district he had no good word. They considered his presence a greater evil even than the raiding horde, and blamed him for more misery than they should have done. One thing irritated them exceedingly. The original church in the village had been destroyed by fire early in 1799; in the midst of trouble they had put up another building for worship, and it was now a barrack for the pandours. Dundas said it was a necessity to have shelter for the Khoikhoi soldiers, that the building was cleaned and the men withdrawn some time before divine service, and that a proper barrack would be built as soon as possible. The colonists’ view was that the church was being polluted by the heathen, and this too was set down to Maynier’s account, though he had nothing to do with it. [3]
At the beginning of 1801 a missionary of the London society appeared in Graaff Reinet and began religious instruction among the refugee Khoikhoi. Johannes Theodosius Vanderkemp was a Dutch physician, born at Rotterdam in 1748, who offered himself to the London Missionary Society in 1797 and reached Capetown on 31 March 1799. His mission to Gaika’s country failed; in December he left that country and came to the village when it was becoming an asylum for alarmed Khoikhoi. He was assisted by two other London missionaries, Read and Vanderlingen. On the 11th of February 1801 he wrote to Dundas the principles on which he proposed to rule an institution: the knowledge of Christ and real piety first, by instruction and example among Khoikhoi and other heathen admitted into a regular society; temporal happiness second; and Paul’s rule that if any would not work, neither should he eat, so as to discourage idleness. The letter mattered because it was the seed of a location: collect as many Khoikhoi as would settle, at a distance from the village, under the missionary. Maynier still sat as resident commissioner. Buys’s people still sat beyond the Fish. [4]
Opgaaf Rumour — May–July 1801
Toward the end of May 1801 the greatest uneasiness and alarm seized the east. A rumour circulated that at the opgaaf which was to take place on the ensuing 15th of June in Graaff Reinet, the government intended to seize the male inhabitants at an unguarded moment and press them into army or navy, and that Maynier had been deputed to carry this into effect. The opgaaf was the ordinary annual muster and tax return. In a district that already distrusted every act of government, a paper census became, in the rumour, a press-gang. Any momentary good which Maynier effected in convincing them of their folly was soon undone when they met with some ill-intentioned person — some vagabond schoolmaster or some butcher’s worthless servant — and everything done or said on the side of government was looked upon with distrust. [4]
Maynier took immediate steps to show the report false and to discover its origin. This had little effect. On the 6th of June intelligence reached the village that all the inhabitants of Bruintjes Hoogte and surrounding parts had left their homes and assembled in arms at Zwagershoek, meaning to join Johannes van der Walt on the Tarka. A messenger was told they were abandoning the Hoogte because life had become impossible on account of the Xhosa. From an intimate friend, however, he learnt in confidence that that statement was not true, and that the commotion was due entirely to the press rumour. The pretext was the old frontier danger; the cause was the new fear of being seized at the drostdy. [4]
Maynier circulated a proclamation by the fieldcornets. It was so effective that on the appointed day the inhabitants of Rhenosterberg, Sneeuwberg, Camdeboo, Sundays River and Zwart Ruggens presented themselves at the opgaaf and renewed the oath of allegiance. The Tarka held off and seemed disappointed in finding no real excuse for venting feeling against Maynier. The split mattered: most of the district still came in on paper; the Tarka did not, and that refusal fed the July march on the drostdy. [4]
On the 3rd of July it was reported in Graaff Reinet that the Tarka people were marching in hostile array against the drostdy, intending to attack and destroy it, and that they were only eight hours distant. This was confirmed by letters from the leaders of the confederacy to fieldcornet Schalk Willem Burger and Carel Daniel Gerotz, shown that day to Maynier. He called a meeting of the village and asked their assistance, adding that if matters came to the worst he was prepared to defend the place with the few soldiers at hand. A deputation of three influential inhabitants found a band of about 400 men. They were told that the armed body had been forced — so they said — by a large number of Xhosa under Buys and also by a body of farmers from Swellendam under Tjaart van der Walt. One of the leaders accompanied the deputation and told Maynier there was no hostile intention against the village, but that having heard the press rumour they had come to learn the truth, afraid to do so unarmed. [4]
Shortly afterwards two other leaders, Rensburg and Piet Erasmus, came in to Maynier and seemed satisfied that their fears were groundless. Next day 200 appeared on the hill overlooking the town — later Magazine Hill. The village force faced them by the old church. This show of resistance probably dictated the prudence of accepting further messages. Instead of dispersing they kept together in a camp in the Stormberg, not far from the later Sterkstroom: in the official reports “behind the Bamboes Mountain,” and according to the maps of that date beyond the colonial boundary. The procedure alarmed the Khoikhoi. They had heard that when the drostdy was destroyed and Maynier driven forth they themselves would receive attention. Those who had re-entered farmers’ service, and many who had formed kraals of their own, fled to Graaff Reinet for protection. Among them were some who had been concerned in the recent murder of a farmer named Van Rooyen. Maynier thought it wise to maintain those who sought his protection, so that they might be kept from repeating the exploits of 1799. The farmers read that protection as further encouragement to murder and robbery. That reading is why the Bamboes camp did not end the year. [4]
Fighting at Graaff Reinet — 20 July 1801
In July 1801 the heads of families in the district were called upon to appear at the drostdy and give in the usual census returns. Instead of doing so, on the 20th of July those who had formerly occupied farms in the Zuurveld — the region now in Xhosa and Khoikhoi hands — together with those of Bruintjes Hoogte and the fieldcornetcy of Zwartkops River, appeared in arms and demanded the removal of Maynier and the Khoikhoi soldiers. They expected to be joined by the people of the other parts of the district, but were disappointed: only a few men came. Those of the Zuurveld now had no farms left. They blamed the British government for their troubles. Bruintjes Hoogte and Zwartkops were, as on the previous occasion, ready to take part. The census that should have been a paper return became a day of fire because the Zuurveld men had nowhere to go back to, and because Maynier and the Cape Corps still sat in the village. [3] [7]
The dragoons and the Khoikhoi soldiers were prepared to receive them. Throughout the day some shots were fired on both sides, but without anyone being hurt. In the evening Maynier offered pardon to all who would retire, and during the night the insurgents withdrew, though a large party of them kept together in arms beyond the Bamboes mountains. [3] [4]
Dundas confirmed the pardon promised by Maynier, and appointed Dr William Somerville joint commissioner in Graaff Reinet, empowering him and Maynier to suspend the civil authority and enforce martial law in such parts of the district as they might think necessary. Somerville did not take up the appointment. For a few weeks after this there was no commotion. The Cape Corps — Khoikhoi soldiers in British pay — still used the new church. What the 20th of July left on the ground was a pardon, a party still in arms behind the Bamboes, and a joint commission that one of the two named men would not take. [3] [7]
Truter and Somerville North — 1 October 1801
Slaughter cattle for the garrison being scarce after the waste of Graaff Reinet, Dundas sent a caravan to try a new market among the people then usually called Briquas — the southern Tswana. Vague accounts had been received for a generation; hunters and traders had not chosen to make their discoveries known. The first authentic information concerning the people north of the Orange and east of the Kalahari was to come from this expedition. The caravan was not a scientific luxury. It was a search for beef after the eastern cattle were gone. On the 1st of October 1801 the caravan left Capetown. The same day, at London, preliminary articles of peace between France and England provided that Great Britain should surrender the Cape Colony to the Batavian Republic. The Cape did not yet know that. The two facts of the 1st of October sat on different oceans: a waggon train looking for stock, and a European peace that would later restore the colony. [3]
The expedition was under the joint command of Pieter Jan Truter and Somerville — the same Somerville who had not taken the Graaff Reinet joint commission. Samuel Daniell went as secretary and draughtsman, P. B. Borcherds as assistant secretary, T. C. Schultz over the waggons. 24 men of mixed descent and Khoikhoi tended the cattle; 4 slaves waited on the Europeans. The caravan passed through Roodezand and Hex River kloofs, over the Bokkeveld and the Roggeveld, and on the 18th of October reached the northern boundary of the colony. There they were joined by seven Roggeveld farmers as escort, required by the landdrost: Frans and David Kruger, Jan Cloete, Jan Maritz, Caspar Snyder, Pieter Jacobs, and David Lombard. [3]
On the 23rd of October they passed the ruins of the Zak-river station once occupied by Kicherer and Edwards. On the 2nd of November they arrived on the southern bank of the Orange, having seen only a few half-starved San after leaving the line. Crossing without much difficulty, they were joined on the northern bank by Edwards and his wife, and by a colonist named Jacob Kiniger who had been wandering the great river for many years. On the 8th of November they encountered a horde of mixed-descent people, Koranas, and San, with a colonist named Jan Kock acting as a volunteer missionary. Another stage brought them to Rietfontein, where Kicherer, Anderson, and Kramer, assisted by Jacobus Scholtz and Christiaan Botma, were labouring. [3]
After several days farther the Kuruman was reached, and the first kraals of the Batlapin. Edwards remained there to commence mission work and was joined after a few days by Jan Kock. From the Kuruman the travellers went on to Lithako, partly occupied by a Barolong clan under Makraki and partly by the principal Batlapin under Molehabangwe. Near the kraal were large gardens. The travellers estimated 10000 to 15000 inhabitants. They remained until the 12th of December, gathering information, but unable to procure any cattle worth speaking of. Molehabangwe had been attacked and nearly ruined a few years before by Jan Bloem at the head of a Korana horde. Truter and Somerville wished to go on to the principal Barolong farther north; Molehabangwe gave his neighbours such a bad character, and pictured so many obstacles, that they abandoned the idea. The market Dundas wanted was not there. [3]
In returning they went down the Orange to Cornelis Kok’s kraal on the southern bank, hoping for a drove. They were not successful. Botma and mixed-descent people from Rietfontein overtook them and asked assistance against the robber captain Afrikaner. Adam Kok led a party; Somerville, Daniell, and Botma accompanied it a short distance until it became necessary to proceed on foot. In Afrikaner’s gang was a Pole, once a soldier of the Dutch East India Company, sentenced to death, escaped, who had palmed himself off on the Korana as a religious instructor sent from heaven. When the London missionaries appeared he joined Afrikaner. The party found the robbers on an island below Olivenhout Drift. Adam Kok’s band defeated them, but Afrikaner and the Pole escaped. 300 oxen, 100 sheep, and 2 muskets were taken. The west was too parched for Little Namaqualand. The expedition turned back at Cornelis Kok’s kraal. At the Zak, Kicherer was rebuilding. The travellers brought back that the Tswana were of the same race as the Xhosa, more skilful in manufactures, less warlike; they were struck with the comfort of the huts and the neatness of the skin robes. The caravan returned with information and almost no slaughter stock. What hung on the journey was knowledge of the people north of the Orange, not beef for the Cape garrison. [3]
Rensburg before the Drostdy — 23 October 1801
On the 23rd of October the armed body from the Bamboes Berg appeared again under Hendrik Rensburg. Rensburg was the able and law-abiding commandant whose presence in the armed camp showed how far the district had gone. It was demanded, under threat of immediate attack, that the Khoikhoi be sent away, that the murderers of Van Rooyen and others be delivered and punished, and that the district be governed as they saw it. Maynier stood his ground. He told Rensburg that violence would be met by violence, and that unless they retired he would give orders to fire. He was eventually compelled to do so. The fire was returned; throughout the day the conflict continued; toward night they drew off and remained in arms at a distance. No one was hurt on either side. [3] [4]
Having thus defied the government, and in remembrance of what had taken place two years before, a large number of farmers who had abandoned their places remained assembled in arms. The greater part of the district was again in such disorder that nothing short of troops from Fort Frederick was likely to produce any effect. Early in October, before Sherlock marched, the officer in command of the troops at the village entrenched his force and prepared for defence, after burning down one of the public buildings by which his position was overlooked. [3] [4]
Petitions and letters representing Maynier’s conduct in the most unfavourable light, and imploring that he might be recalled, were pouring in. Dundas observed that most of these were from people who were staunch upholders of law and order. Among them was a letter from the reverend Mr Vos of Roodezand, on a pastoral tour to the frontier, one of the warmest adherents of the English government in South Africa. Another was from Commandant Tjaart van der Walt of Swellendam, making many and grievous charges. A third was a strongly-worded document signed by the best men of the Sneeuwberg, Gouph, and Nieuwveld. These could not be disregarded. It was evident that Maynier was unable to suppress the insurrection, which had drawn in even such a man as Hendrik van Rensburg. The letters mattered because they came from men Dundas could not dismiss as rebels. That is why he recalled a commissioner who still held the drostdy. [3]
Dundas therefore recalled Maynier and announced that the charges against him would be investigated. Bresler and the heemraden were instructed to resume their ordinary duties, which had been for some time suspended. Major Sherlock, Major Abercrombie, and Lieutenant Smyth were appointed a commission to take over the chief civil authority in Graaff Reinet and to inquire into the cause of the disturbances. Dundas sent Major Sherlock of the 8th light dragoons with 300 men — selected from his own regiment, the artillery corps, and the 91st infantry — by sea to Algoa Bay, to march to Graaff Reinet as speedily as possible. The sea route was chosen because the country between the bay and the drostdy was no longer a road a small escort could trust. [3] [7]
During the night of the 6th of November the heemraad Stephanus Naude and his wife were murdered on their farm twelve miles from the village. Sherlock found the country between Algoa Bay and the drostdy quite deserted, and the inhabitants of the district to a man under arms. The garrison of the village was holding out, but had been four days without bread. Bands of Khoikhoi were marching up and down wherever they chose, plundering whatever still remained. The camp of the insurgent burghers was so situated that the drostdy was closely invested. Sherlock, reporting, ascribed to Maynier the want of bread and the starvation of the congregated Khoikhoi — so far that his own nephew Van Reenen, appointed to command them, had resigned. The scarcity was general, and Graaff Reinet’s resources were slender at the best of times; the late disturbance made them thinner still. [3] [4]
Sherlock, Vanderkemp’s Location, and the December Papers — November–December 1801
On the 27th of November 1801 instructions were issued to Landdrost Bresler to select a suitable site for a temporary location near Algoa Bay, where Vanderkemp, residing in Graaff Reinet, might carry on mission work among as many Khoikhoi as would settle. The government undertook to send rice and other provisions until gardens yielded, and to furnish seed wheat and implements. The order was the February letter put into land: take the refugee Khoikhoi out of the village, feed them for a season, and give the missionary a place of his own. Bresler selected the farm once occupied by Theunis Botha on the Zwartkops river — later Bethelsdorp, about four miles from the later Redhouse, between the places of Thomas Ignatius Ferreira and the Widow Scheepers. Botha was still in prison from the Van Jaarsveld affair; the farm was empty. Vanderkemp collected a large following at Graaff Reinet. At the same time 200 burghers of Swellendam were summoned under Tjaart van der Walt to help recover stolen cattle and punish marauders who would not retire to the location. [3] [4]
On that same 27th of November a detachment of the 91st Light Infantry and a rifle company with one six-pounder under Sherlock arrived in the village; he was at the drostdy on the 29th. Having ascertained the condition of affairs, he sent a dragoon to the farmers’ camp, offering a full and free pardon to all who would return to their allegiance, with protection of their persons and properties, inviting them to make him acquainted with their real grievances, which would be redressed. He demanded a positive and immediate answer. The farmers, being informed that Maynier was no longer in power, at once sent Fieldcornet Erasmus and Jacobus Kruger to state that they had no complaint against the government, but were in arms solely to drive the late commissioner away. Several followed the messengers into the British camp; others went back to their farms without delay; and before nightfall on the 30th all had dispersed and the insurrection was at an end. On that day 147 Khoikhoi came in and enlisted as soldiers. What hung on Sherlock’s pardon was the proof that the rising had been against Maynier, not against the British chair at the castle. [3] [4]
A commission consisting of Lieutenant-Colonel Dickens and Messrs Acheson Maxwell and Clement Matthiessen was appointed to investigate the complaints against Maynier. Some of the charges were preposterous: that he had incited the Khoikhoi and Xhosa to rob and murder. Others, such as peculation of district funds, were easily shown to be without foundation: he had collected money and expended it on public buildings, but disdained to explain to the farmers and neglected to enter it in the district books. The indictment also alleged suppression of truth, a game tax of his own, dissuading Khoikhoi from British service, delivering Khoikhoi who had fled to him so that 15 were murdered, and even Naude’s murder. In December Maynier received instructions to go to Capetown for a purpose not stated. He went without suspicion, and on arrival found himself regarded as little better than the worst of criminals, suspended from all public offices including the judgeship. [3] [4]
At ten o’clock in the morning of the 8th of December 1801 the residents in Capetown were startled by a crashing noise: an enormous mass of rock came down in the gorge on the face of Table Mountain. No damage was done, but the fissure for a great distance was strewn with fragments and its appearance changed. Heavy falls had been known on the 10th of July 1695, the 16th of September 1699, and the 27th of May 1700. In the Lutheran church the vacancy after Kolver had been filled in February 1799 by the temporary appointment of Johan Haas, who called in a Danish ship and remained as acting clergyman through 1801. A clergyman of the church of England was stationed as chaplain to the troops; there was no congregation other than military, though some officers of government and several merchants attended. On the 15th of December intelligence was received at the Cape that preliminary articles of peace had been signed at London on the 1st of October, and that restoration of the colony to the Netherlands — then the Batavian Republic — was one of the conditions. Dundas now knew that the occupation he held as acting governor was, on paper, already timed to end. [3]