Boer History1803 at the Cape of Good Hope: Batavian Restoration, Janssens, and De Mist
Handover — February–March 1803
Major-General Francis Dundas still sat as acting governor when the year opened. He had held the chair since Sir George Yonge was recalled on the 20th of April 1801. Jacob Abraham de Mist was in the castle: he had landed from the Bato on the 23rd of December 1802 to take the colony back for the Batavian Republic under the peace signed at Amiens. Lieutenant-General Jan Willem Janssens and the Dutch officials were under canvas on a plain near Rondebosch — the campground — because the handover of 31 December 1802 had been stopped. Only half the Batavian troops were ashore, and those on shore had no weapons. Capetown feared that war would start again at once. Some residents were preparing to leave for the inland districts. That panic is why, on the 2nd of January, Dundas declared martial law, forbade assemblages, and prohibited families from moving from the town to the country. [3] [4] [9]
Matters stayed in that suspense until the 19th of February, when H.M.S. Concord brought a despatch from the secretary of state, dated the 16th of November 1802, instructing Dundas to transfer the colony at once. At half past seven in the evening this was told to De Mist. Next day several companies of Batavian troops marched from the campground into the castle. At sunset on Sunday the 20th of February Dutch soldiers relieved the English guards. Next morning the Batavian flag was hoisted on the castle and saluted by the ships of war in the bay. Dundas on that same Sunday issued a proclamation absolving the inhabitants from the oath of allegiance to the king of England — the oath he had released, then withdrawn, when the New Year handover was stopped. The British soldiers went to other stations. The officials returned to England. Two commissioners remained to settle accounts with the new government. [3] [4] [7] [9]
The chief item in those accounts was paper money. General Craig had issued notes for 50000 pounds to buy supplies for his troops. Dundas, on the 1st of January 1802, had increased the paper in circulation by 56000 pounds: 20000 added to the capital of the loan bank, the interest to keep the streets of Capetown in order; 20000 advanced to a committee to lay in wheat against famine in the town; and 16000 to the same committee for rice. The 20000 created for wheat was destroyed when the wheat was sold; but another 13000 was added to the loan bank. The paper currency was therefore increased during the British administration by 495000 rixdollars, or 99000 pounds. The rice bought with the 16000 was still in the magazines, and it was transferred untouched. Of the other items, the only one the British authorities could be expected to pay was Craig’s issue. To that amount — 50000 pounds — property was transferred to the new government. The split mattered because the Batavian Republic was taking a colony whose cash was paper, and because only the first occupation’s troop notes were treated as a British debt. [3]
The government slaves were included in that property. After the surrender of September 1795 the slaves belonging to the Dutch East India Company — 458 in number, great and small — were claimed by the army and navy as prize. The claim was admitted, and they were purchased for his Majesty’s service at 30 pounds a head all round. They were now transferred to the Batavian authorities at the same rate, and the balance of the amount was paid in munitions of war. The Company that had ruled the Cape since 1652 was liquidated. Cape affairs were no longer a half-way station under Batavia: they were a direct responsibility of the Hague. On the 4th of March Dundas sailed with his staff, the remainder of the army, and the fleet, leaving the Cape once more a dependency of the Netherlands. [3] [4] [9]
De Mist and Janssens — 1 March 1803
The 1st of March 1803 was observed as a day of thanksgiving for the restoration of the colony to its former owners. In the morning service was held in all the churches. At noon De Mist installed Janssens as governor in the hall of the castle of Good Hope, before a crowd of spectators. There was much rejoicing throughout the country: the rule of the Republic was, to the inhabitants, a different and a more desirable government than that of the late Dutch East India Company. The principal houses in Capetown were illuminated in the evening, and a series of festivities followed. What hung on the noon ceremony was not only a change of flag. It was the first day on which a governor sat for the Hague, not for Batavia or for London. [3] [7] [9]
Janssens was forty, born at Nijmegen on the 12th of October 1762, son of Johannes Jacobus Janssens, captain of the Van Aylva regiment, and Adriana van Rees. He had joined the army as a cadet at twelve; at twenty-six he was a major; he became a lieutenant-colonel in the campaign against the French in 1793 and was seriously wounded, after which he switched to military administration. Between 1797 and 1800 he served as commissioner for the French troops in the employ of the Batavian Republic. In March 1800 he was appointed secretary-general of the war department, a position in military terms equivalent to major-general. De Mist, member of the States-General’s Council for the Asiatic possessions and establishments, had drafted the blueprint for Cape administration and come out himself to introduce it. An experienced soldier-administrator was appointed to accompany him, to look after defence, and to stay behind as governor when the commissioner’s services were required again in the Netherlands. That pairing is why the Cape now had a lawyer with a charter to write and a soldier with a garrison to hold. [9]
The other officials who had arrived from Europe had their duties formally assigned. The member of council R. G. van Polanen had not yet reached the colony; but the other three — Roedolf Anthony de Salis, Willem Ferdinand van Reede van Oudtshoorn, and Jacobus Philippus van Medenbach Wakker — were invested with office. Jan Henoch Neethling was named as secretary, and C. H. van Hasselt as assistant secretary to the council. One of the judges of the high court was still in Europe, as was the secretary, Gerrit Buyskes; and the attorney-general, Gerard Beelaerts van Blokland, was at sea on the passage out. The judges who were present and were sworn in were L. C. Strubberg, E. de Man, R. van Burmania, W. Hiddingh, M. Wichers, and D. Denyssen. The high court was to consist of a president and six members, independent of the government in the discharge of their judicial duties. A legislative council of four, presided over by the governor, was formed. Sovereignty was delegated to a governor and a council of four members, one of whom had to be a local resident. [3] [7] [9]
De Mist announced that after making himself acquainted with the country it would be his duty to prepare a charter, which would require to be confirmed by the states-general. An amnesty was granted to all persons confined or banished by the late government for political offences. The landdrosts, secretaries, and in general all the clerks who had held office during the English administration retained their appointments. So did the collector of tithes and the wine tax, Christoffel Brand, and the receiver-general of revenue, Arend de Waal, who had succeeded Rhenius in April 1797. J. P. Baumgardt had left the country on its transfer, and in his stead as collector of land revenue De Mist appointed Sebastiaan Valentyn van Reenen, who had suffered heavy losses under the late administration by being detained for a long time in arrest on suspicion of having communicated with the Dutch fleet under Admiral Lucas. What was virtually free trade with all possessions of the Netherlands — there was only a very small revenue duty — was now introduced. The burgher senate was enlarged to seven members. Those now chosen were Cornelis van der Poel, Gerrit Hendrik Meyer, Anthony Berrangé, Pieter van Breda, Jan Andries Horak, Jacobus Johannes Vos, and Jan Adriaan Vermaak. Cajus Jesse Slotsboo was appointed secretary. [3] [7]
In February the churches of Drakenstein, Roodezand, and Graaff Reinet still had no clergymen of their own, only consulents. Serrurier, Fleck, and Von Manger were in Capetown; Borcherds at Stellenbosch; Van der Spuy at Zwartland; Ballot at Swellendam. The restoration put a governor in the castle hall and a council of four beside him. It did not fill those empty pulpits. The amnesty of the 1st of March did not open every cell either: the Graaff Reinet farmers sentenced by a court in 1800 were still inside. [3]
Graaff Reinet Prisoners Released — 30 March 1803
The amnesty of the 1st of March covered persons confined or banished by the late government for political offences. It did not include the Graaff Reinet farmers who had been nearly four years in prison, because they had been sentenced by a court of law after the rising of 1799. They were not left long in doubt. Adriaan van Jaarsveld had died in confinement. The others were set free on the 30th of March. Freedom from the castle was not freedom on the Fish. The fourteen of 1800 walked out; the eastern frontier they had fought over was still occupied. [3] [7]
The eastern province under Batavian rule still had the old problem: Xhosa occupation of the Zuurveld that the chiefs themselves acknowledged as colonial ground, and a Khoikhoi question under Klaas Stuurman and Boesak. Depredations had in large measure ceased, but probably only because there was scarcely anything left to seize. Those under Dr. Vanderkemp had removed to Fort Frederick for protection during the late disturbances, and had failed to receive it: the fort had been abandoned by the British soldiers as one of the preliminaries of the restoration. The representatives of the Batavian government, on assuming authority, found no part of their administration requiring such prompt attention as the affairs of the East. [4]
A deputation of eastern colonists petitioned the new governor to visit the distant frontier and see for himself the conditions under which the people were living. Janssens had been in the chair less than a month. Van Jaarsveld was in a grave. The Zuurveld still sat west of the Fish. That petition is why, on the 3rd of April, he left Capetown overland for Fort Frederick. [4]
Slave Import Stopped — 11 April 1803
On the 11th of April, with the governor already on the road east, the governor and council of policy proclaimed from the Castle of the Cape of Good Hope that, provisionally and until further notice, no permission would be granted to embark or import cargoes of male or female slaves. The paper was signed J. H. Neethling. It must have been something of a shock to inhabitants of the Hogan type — the merchants who, under Yonge, had bought leave to land Mozambique cargoes. A standing rule was that no negro should be landed without special leave of the government being first obtained. [3] [4]
Both De Mist and Janssens were of opinion that the mistake of introducing negro slaves into the country was not too late partly to repair. If Europeans in considerable numbers could be obtained as immigrants, and further importations of blacks be prevented, in course of time the negroes already in the country might have a tract of land assigned to them where they could live by themselves, and the remainder of the colony thus be made a European settlement. Holding these views, the authorities were averse even to the sale of a few slaves from ships that called, and though in several instances under pressing circumstances such sales were authorised, the number of negroes added to the population while De Mist and Janssens were at the head of affairs was very small. The April paper did not free those already in the country. It stopped the cargoes. That is why it sat with the Hogendorp scheme that was even then putting men ashore: European labourers and artisans, and no slaves in the new settlement. [3]
Craig had landed 350 from a Portuguese vessel in 1797 when the labour market was loud. The governor who signed the stop was already overland toward Fort Frederick. What hung on the 11th of April was a Batavian choice: fill the labour gap with Europeans, or keep buying cargoes. For the three years of this government, the choice was the first. [3] [4]
Buchenroeder and Van Hogendorp — April 1803
One of the most enterprising men in the Netherlands at this time was Gysbert Karel van Hogendorp. He formed a plan of colonising a tract of land in the neighbourhood of Plettenberg’s Bay, by which he hoped to benefit both the mother country and the dependency. He was to receive from the government a grant in freehold of an extensive district, comprising forests as well as ground adapted for tillage and pasturage. The government was to provide free passages from the Netherlands for such persons as he should send out: farm labourers and artisans, who were to enter into a contract to serve him after their arrival in South Africa for a stated time at fixed wages, after which they were to have plots of ground from 30 to 100 acres assigned to them. He was then to provide them with stock to farm with, for which he was to receive interest in produce for 25 years. He intended to have a portion of the land cultivated on his own account. A magazine was to be erected for the storage of produce until it could be exported, and for the sale of clothing and other goods. There were to be no slaves in the new settlement. [3]
A saw-mill, with the best appliances then known, was constructed and made ready to be forwarded to South Africa, for he intended to prepare timber for exportation. The production of wool was another of his objects, and with this view he purchased a flock of choice Spanish sheep, which he kept under his own eye in Holland, that he might be able to send out rams yearly. He took as an associate a retired military officer named Von Buchenroeder, who had a very high opinion of his own abilities, but who — as Janssens said — succeeded in nothing, because he was a mere theorist. In Holland there had been living for some time a colonist named Hermanns Vermaak, one of those banished for political opinions during the British occupation, who did not fail to speak of the land of his birth in the highest terms. He returned in 1803 as one of Van Hogendorp’s agents in South Africa, the attorney-general Beelaerts van Blokland being the other. [3]
Both De Mist and Janssens were very willing to assist in the settlement of industrious European immigrants. In April 1803 Major Von Buchenroeder arrived with a party of immigrants, consisting of 22 men, 4 women, and 5 children, when all that was possible was done to aid him. It was believed in Holland that the whole country in the neighbourhood of Plettenberg’s Bay was capable of supporting a dense agricultural population, and as Janssens had formed a different opinion, he did not assign a tract of land to Van Hogendorp, but advised that the most suitable vacant ground should first be selected by a competent person. Von Buchenroeder regarded himself as the best judge of a proper locality, and he made a tour along the coast. Before his return to Capetown intelligence of the outbreak of war in Europe was received, which practically put an end to the colonisation scheme. [3]
Another party, consisting of 15 men, 6 women, and 16 children, was sent from Holland by Van Hogendorp. These people never reached South Africa, as they were forwarded by way of the United States, and preferred to stay there instead of proceeding farther. Meantime the men brought out by Von Buchenroeder ascertained that employment could readily be had in Capetown on terms much more lucrative than the wages for which they had contracted before leaving Holland. Van Hogendorp had advanced them money for outfits, and his agents tried to keep them to their engagements; but most of them gave ceaseless trouble. Von Buchenroeder, too, worried the government with long memorials and endless complaints, until the commissioner found it necessary to deal very abruptly with him. A tract of land in the valley above Hout Bay was offered to Van Hogendorp’s agents to make a trial with, and the major was sent back to Holland. The April landing had been meant as European labour without slaves. What it left on the ground was a few men at Capetown wages, a theorist on a ship home, and a scheme the new war had killed. [3]
Janssens East — April–June 1803
On the 3rd of April, little more than a month after he had been installed, Janssens left Capetown and journeyed overland to Fort Frederick. Arriving there on 8 May, he found awaiting him a detachment of the Waldeck regiment under Major Von Gilten, which had been despatched thither by sea — 150 men. He also found Vanderkemp and the Khoikhoi under his care, who had abandoned Botha’s farm some time before. Upon close inquiry he learned that many of these people who had once been in service with farmers had good reason of complaint on the ground of ill-treatment. He fully approved of the plan contemplated by Dundas, of assigning a tract of land for their use where they could be under the guidance of missionaries, and he offered for this purpose any vacant ground that was available. [3] [4] [7]
A commission, consisting of the commandants Botha and Van Rooyen, Dirk van Reenen, and Gerrit Oosthuizen, was appointed by the governor to act in conjunction with the reverend James Read, Vanderkemp’s nominee, in selecting a suitable place. They chose a tract of land about 6700 morgen in extent, lying along the Little Zwartkops river, between the loan farms of Thomas Ignatius Ferreira and the widow Scheepers. On the 31st of May the governor gave his formal consent in writing to the occupation of this place by the Khoikhoi under supervision of missionaries of the London society, and at Vanderkemp’s request named it Bethelsdorp. The permission thus given was confirmed by De Mist a few months afterwards. Order could therefore be enforced in the immediate neighbourhood of the fort. The governor found it advisable to remove two farmers much disliked by the Khoikhoi on account of their harsh conduct. Thomas Ignatius Ferreira of Papenkuilsfontein — later Cradock Place — who had installed himself as unofficial commandant in the empty fort, he ordered with his sons Stephen and Henry to reside near the drostdy of Swellendam; Jan Arend Reens he sent to Stellenbosch. [3] [4]
Two parties of Khoikhoi who had not chosen to place themselves under missionaries were living near the Sundays. The governor sent friendly messages to their captains, Klaas Stuurman and Boesak; the first accepted an invitation to visit Fort Frederick. Stuurman stated that his followers were thoroughly impoverished, and most of them would be very glad to take service with the colonists if they could be assured of peace and good treatment. He asked for a tract of land on the left bank of the Gamtoos, where he and his people could have their homes, while those who were so disposed could engage themselves to the farmers. He would not hear of a grant nearer Capetown. The governor did not immediately decide, as he wished Stuurman’s clan to move farther westward; but he came to a friendly understanding. The past was to be forgotten on both sides. The Khoikhoi were assured of complete protection of person and property. Before taking leave, Janssens presented Stuurman with a brass gorget inscribed “Capiteyn Klaas Stuurman / Vreede en Vriendschaap / Met de Bataavische Republiek / Den 1ste Maart 1803”. By the governor’s directions, on the 9th of May an ordinance was published by the council requiring contracts between farmers and Khoikhoi to be made in triplicate, upon certain prescribed forms, before an official of position, as no notice would be taken by the courts of complaints against servants engaged in any other manner. On the 19th of June the governor instructed Captain Alberti, second in command at Fort Frederick, to select a suitable tract on the Gamtoos and give it to Stuurman. A great many of these in the meantime had gone into service. The captain was then away hunting buffaloes; his gun burst and shattered one of his arms, from the effects of which he died in November. His brother David Stuurman then became captain of the clan. Boesak would not come in; he and his followers wandered for a time, but did not molest anyone, and ultimately settled down peaceably. [3] [4]
When the colony was transferred, the Khoikhoi regiment in the British service was transferred with it. The regiment was then quartered at Rietvlei, a farm on the Cape flats kept from early times for the use of the government: 259 privates, 30 corporals, and 17 drummers, drawing rations and trifling pay, and requiring to be clothed and housed. At the same place were the seven captains that Maynier had induced to remove from the Zuurveld, with 123 men, 289 women, and 252 children, all fed at the expense of government. Their presence had a very bad effect upon the pandours. To those among them who would not enter service the governor allotted locations of ample size at some distance from the frontier, and furnished them with a few cattle to commence stock-breeding. By these arrangements the disturbances with the Khoikhoi were brought to an end. [3] [7]
Upon Janssens’s arrival at Fort Frederick he sent messengers to the Xhosa chiefs in the Zuurveld. Ndlambe and Jalusa sent councillors to declare that they wished to live in peace; Cungwa and one of the sons of Langa returned that they would meet the governor on the Sundays in five days’ time. On 20 May Janssens left the fort with 56 men of Waldeck, 9 dragoons, and 30 other attendants. At the Coega about a hundred burghers — 108 in another count, under Commandant Van Rensburg — fired a salute of welcome and renewed the oath of allegiance to the Batavian government. Janssens assured them of his paternal care, and pointed out that many of their misfortunes had arisen from their own misconduct. These men joined the procession. The conference took place on the 24th of May on the eastern bank of the Sundays. The chiefs would not venture into the camp on the opposite side, so the governor left his retinue and went across with a few officers and the burgher commandant. Ndlambe, Cungwa, Jalusa, Tshatshu, and others of less note were present, and Stuurman. During three days a discussion was carried on. Delivery of deserters and fugitive slaves could be settled; the removal of the Xhosa from the Zuurveld could not. The chiefs admitted the Fish as the boundary, but declared they could not cross it through fear of Gaika. They were about to attack him; if victorious they would return to their own country. All except Ndlambe expressed willingness to make peace with Gaika if the overtures came from him. Ndlambe would not come to terms with his nephew, whom, he said, he had brought up and knew to be a rascal. They would not promise to stop visiting colonial farms: it would not be peace, they argued, if they did not visit each other now and again as friends. Presents were made; a couple of oxen came in return; some chiefs left before the gifts, too impatient to wait. Janssens was back at Algoa Bay on 27 May. He then issued a proclamation prohibiting the colonists from engaging Xhosa as labourers from the 1st of June, and ordering all in service discharged unless they had been over a year with their employers and wished to remain. [3] [4] [7]
On 2 June Janssens set out for Gaika, from whom he had received a message requesting assistance against the Zuurveld people. He crossed the Sundays and Bushman’s, reached the Fish on the 10th, and on the 14th met Buys with twelve Xhosa — four of them Gaika’s confidential advisers — and some English and Dutch deserters handed over as prisoners. Gaika asked the governor to proceed nearer, as he was afraid to go far from his place. On 24 June at the Kat, below the later Fort Beaufort, Gaika came on horseback without saddle, accompanied by his mother — Buys’s wife — two wives, and a retinue of warriors with shields and assegais. A formal agreement named the Fish the boundary. Gaika promised that none of his followers except official messengers should cross it. He would not molest Zuurveld people who returned, but declined positively to make overtures of peace to Ndlambe. He consented to expel the European renegades except Buys, who promised to return to the colony and a few months later kept his word. Several were delivered and watched; eight or ten fled to distant tribes; one — Jan Botha — was murdered by Ndlambe’s people. Gaika dined in the governor’s tent with his ladies, approved the wine though he did not take much, put on a European suit too small for him, and was promised a cloak like the governor’s, later sent with a gold-laced uniform and a horse. The wives displayed more enthusiasm for the wine than the chief. From the Kat the restoration of March now had a paper with Gaika, a gorget with Stuurman, and a name on the Little Zwartkops. The Fish was the boundary on both banks of the paper. The Zuurveld still sat west of it. [3] [4]
War Again — May–September 1803
From the Kat Janssens proceeded to the northern border, to ascertain the condition of the white people and the San. At Graaff Reinet there was no landdrost — Bresler already recalled — the chest empty, the books unintelligible, the public buildings in ruin. The most important posts were filled by ignorant people; disunion and discord prevailed among the inhabitants. Many of the frontier farmers and hunters had left the district and settled in Gaika’s country, joined there by deserters from the British army. The governor did what he could to bring peace and contentment; the majority still loyal to Holland gave him a hearty reception. [3] [7]
He then crossed the Sneeuwberg toward Toornberg and the Orange, and on to Plettenberg’s beacon on the Zeekoe — some twenty miles north-west of later Colesberg, about two hundred yards from the east bank. San there were on surprisingly easy terms with the neighbouring farmers. A messenger met him with a despatch announcing that on the 12th of May, less than three months after the restoration of the colony, war had broken out again between Great Britain and France. The Batavian Republic was so closely allied with the latter power as necessarily to share its fortunes. The governor therefore hastened back to Capetown, without being able to do more than gather what information could be obtained in a very rapid journey. If the alarming news about the situation in Europe had not prematurely recalled him, he would have stayed longer, seen more, and done more. As it was, he had acquired a fair understanding of the problems of the farming communities along the borders, and now concentrated his full energy on defence. [3] [7] [9]
It was now resolved to reduce the garrison of Fort Frederick to half the strength at first intended. Captain Lodewyk Alberti, who was about to take over the command from Major Von Gilten, was instructed to continue urging the Xhosa in the Zuurveld to cross the Fish without delay. In August that officer made a tour among them for this purpose, but was unsuccessful. In September Cungwa came to terms with Gaika, and promised Alberti to leave the colony as soon as his crops were gathered. Ndlambe’s people at this time were making gardens on the western side of the Bushman’s river, though the chief had undertaken not to do so. Parties of them were roaming about lifting cattle wherever they could find an unprotected herd. Cungwa and Jalusa then joined Gaika and together attacked Ndlambe in the Zuurveld, but did not succeed in dislodging him. The belt of land along the coast east of the Bushman’s was thus kept from being reoccupied by the farmers, but the remaining portion of the district of Graaff Reinet was in a fair condition of tranquillity. [3]
Upon learning of the renewal of hostilities, Janssens devoted all his attention to putting the Cape peninsula in a condition for defence and to the increase of his military strength. The English East India Company had a large amount of property in Capetown, under charge of its agent, John Pringle. On the 29th of September 1803 this was declared confiscated, on account of war, and was seized for the government. There was a great quantity of salt provisions, and 11351 pounds in money, which proved very serviceable, as the funds in the treasury were low. De Mist had brought with him from Holland 8333 pounds in money and 33333 pounds in bills of exchange, but that was nearly all expended, and, except for the maintenance of the troops, nothing could be expected from Europe after the renewal of the war. The salt meat and the cash in Pringle’s store were not a colonial surplus. They were what a restored government could seize when the paper that had paid for the restoration was already spent. [3]
De Mist Leaves on Tour — 9 October 1803
On the 9th of October the commissioner-general left Capetown for the purpose of making a tour through the colony and becoming acquainted with the condition and wants of the people. He took with him a number of attendants and a military escort, so that the train had quite an imposing appearance: his son as private secretary, a staff of officers and officials, soldiers, Khoikhoi and slaves, and also his daughter Augusta and her friend Miss E. M. Versfeld. Janssens, recalled from the interior, now concentrated on defence. De Mist, wishing to see his friend’s reports confirmed by personal evidence, set out himself. The special care of the country districts was left to him because the war of the 12th of May had turned the soldier-governor back to the peninsula’s batteries. [3] [9]
Proceeding first in a northerly direction, he visited Saldanha and St Helena bays; then turning inland, he passed through Pikenier’s Kloof, and kept onward to the Hantam. From the Hantam he made his way over the Roggeveld and the Bokkeveld to the land of Waveren — the later Tulbagh basin — where he remained some days to refresh his cattle. He then kept down the valley of the Breede river, and after passing the site of the later village of Worcester he turned to the south to visit the Moravian mission station in Baviaans’ Kloof. More people were residing at that station than at any other place in the colony except Capetown, but it had still no distinctive name, for there were several Baviaans’ Kloofs in the country. At the time of De Mist’s visit there were nearly 1100 people attached to the mission. They occupied about 200 wattle-and-daub cottages, small and scantily furnished, but a great advance upon Khoikhoi huts. Each little cottage stood in a garden, in which vegetables and fruit trees of various kinds were growing. There was an air of order and neatness over the whole place. Five missionaries were there, Rose and Korhammer having come from Europe in 1799 to assist the three who founded the station. They and their wives taught industrial occupations by day; in the evening the whole community assembled in a large and neat building to join in the worship of God. De Mist and the officers of his train had a difficulty in finding words to express their pleasure and satisfaction with what they saw. [3]
From the Moravian village the commissioner-general went eastward through Swellendam to Fort Frederick at Algoa Bay. Here he was visited by Vanderkemp, with whom he had been acquainted in Holland thirty-five years before — a fellow student of Janssens at Leiden in one account. Vanderkemp was dressed in coat, trousers, and sandals, but was without shirt, neckcloth, socks, or hat. In a burning sun he travelled about bareheaded and thus strangely attired. Yet his conversation was rational, and his memory was perfectly sound. He had formed an opinion that to convert the Khoikhoi to Christianity it was necessary to descend in style of living nearly to their level, to be their companion as well as their teacher, and being thoroughly in earnest he was putting his views into practice. [3] [4] [7]
De Mist and his party visited Bethelsdorp, where Vanderkemp and Read were residing. They found no indication of industry of any kind, no garden — though it was then the planting season — nothing but a number of wretched huts on a bare plain, with people lying about in filth and indolence. The Khoikhoi having settled there so recently, it was not to be expected that the place would present the appearance of the Moravian station. The London missionaries had to deal with a wild people, less than a quarter of a century in contact with Europeans, to whom expulsion from the station would be no punishment. The Moravians, on the other hand, were working with people who had grown up among farmers. It was not the absence of improvement that gave De Mist an unfavourable impression, but the absence of any effort to induce industrious habits, and the profession of principles that tended to degrade one race without raising the other. Vanderkemp was loud in complaints against the colonists in the neighbourhood, because they gave nothing towards the maintenance of the station and because they often tried to induce some of the people to leave the school and enter into service. More with a view of keeping the Khoikhoi out of mischief than with any expectation of this institution becoming useful, the commissioner-general made a small grant of money from the colonial treasury towards the funds of the place, and added to the gift some sensible advice. [3]