Boer History1908 in South Africa: Godée’s Van Riebeecks Gebed, and Amery’s Times History Still Issuing
Amery’s Times History Still Issuing at London
At London this year L. S. Amery’s The Times History of the War in South Africa, volumes I to VI, still ran, 1906–1909. Those volumes began two years ago. Last year they had not closed. This year they had not closed. They were due to close next year. Peace between Britain and the two Boer republics — the South African Republic and the Orange Free State — was signed at Vereeniging on the 31st of May 1902. Last year’s particular books of the war were Lieutenant G. R. Witton’s Scapegoats of the Empire at Melbourne, and the Reverend C. Spoelstra’s Bouwstoffen at Cape Town. This year’s Times volumes were not another lieutenant’s testimony, and not another gathering of church minutes. They were the same Times history of the whole war, still issuing at London six years after Vereeniging. The bibliography that listed Amery at London from 1906, and still listed him through last year, still listed him through this year and on to 1909. [6]
What hung on those volumes still issuing this year was the camps’ account the war had left behind. The erection of the concentration camps was no act of magnanimity on the British side to protect non-combatant Boer families — as Joseph Chamberlain and other British government persons had proclaimed. It was the outcome of the British military aim of bringing the war to a speedy end. From March 1900 the military increasingly set themselves to soften the resistance of the burghers in the field by inflicting suffering on their families. When the destruction of dwellings near the rail achieved little, they, following the methods of General Weyler in Cuba, went over to a policy of total devastation, and then to concentration. In the camps the families of the fighting burghers were not given the treatment to which they as prisoners of war could lay claim under the Hague Convention. From the outset the camps — often erected on badly chosen grounds — were completely overcrowded and therefore ideal places for the spread of epidemics. A Times history still issuing this year at London still had that spring and those tents behind it. [6]
The families of fighting burghers were placed on half-rations. The food issued — especially the meat, sugar, and meal — was of wretched quality, while vegetables, fruit, and fresh milk were not supplied at all. Lloyd George, speaking in the British House of Commons on the 17th of June 1901, showed that the quantity of food was less than the amount allowed in England to criminals under hard labour. That claim was never rebutted by the government. On the 18th of February 1901 he had already put the object in the same House: to force the Boer fighters, who had sacrificed everything for their freedom, into infidelity to their own ideals by the spectacle of their starving and suffering children. In the Free State camps, where rations were put out to tender, Champion and Co. held the tender at 9 pence a day per white inmate; a considerable part of that sum was profit, so the value of the daily ration to each adult stood below 9 pence. Humphreys-Owen cited a letter from the public press working from the Blue Books the cost of rations in October at from 3 pence to 5 pence a head — nothing like sufficient for any but the poorest food — and remembered that a gaol visitor thought they had done well if they fed inmates for 2 shillings 6 pence a week. So many camp inmates died that the whole civilized world was shocked. Child mortality in particular was terrible, and soon — especially after the revelations of Emily Hobhouse — raised a storm of criticism inside and outside England against the British government. Those figures and those speeches were the figures and speeches a Times history still issuing this year still had to set beside its own volumes. [6]
To protect its good name, England was at long last obliged to send out a committee of ladies to investigate and, following their report, to bring revolutionary improvements into the camps. Those improvements were carried through only after the end of 1901. It was therefore only during the last few months of the war that conditions in the concentration camps were bearable. That state of affairs was reflected by the death-rate, which from the end of 1901 fell sharply in increasing measure, until against March 1902 it was normal. The Boer generals and fighting burghers did not know of this sharp decrease, and the camps in the end served the military object for which they were founded. The dying there of 26251 women and children besides 1676 men above 16 — mostly greybeards — 1421 of them old men — softened the resistance of the Boers in the field. Between a quarter and a fifth of those brought to the camps perished during a period of about eight months, May to December 1901. A Times history whose volumes London still issued this year still opened on that death-rate. [6]
The fear gradually seized the leaders among the fighting burghers that if no end were made to the concentration camps the whole Afrikaner people would die out. The chief considerations that led, on the Boer side, to the conclusion of the Peace of Vereeniging were therefore two. First: that the war policy followed by the British military authorities had led to the total devastation of the territory of both Republics, with the burning of places and towns, the destruction of all means of subsistence, and the exhaustion of all resources needful for the maintenance of the families, the existence of the armies, and the continuation of the war. Second: that the placing of the captive families in the concentration camps had led to an unheard-of state of suffering and disease, so that in a comparatively short time about 20000 of their dear ones had died there, and the dreadful prospect had arisen that by continuation of the war their whole race might in that way die out. In its history the concentration-camp system would always shine — as Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman put it — as an offence against civilization, as a military mistake, and as a political disaster. Amery, even as his Times history excelled at passing over or covering British misdeeds, wholly condemned the principle of farm-burning as a means of intimidation and acknowledged that it was a complete failure. “The application of a system which, even in India, has long provoked criticism and disapproval,” he argued in volume IV, pages 494–495, “was the least happy of Lord Roberts’s inspirations and must be plainly set down as a serious error of judgment, due to the fact that he persisted in regarding the Boers when once their chief towns had been occupied, not as regular combatants but as rebels, who rather required punishment than defeat.” Those were the sentences a Times history still issuing this year at London still had to carry, six years after the tents came down. [6]
Godée’s Van Riebeecks Gebed in Gereformeerd Maandblad
The paper that named this year among the founder’s print was E. C. Godée Molsbergen’s Van Riebeecks Gebed, issued in Gereformeerd Maandblad. Last year’s particular books at the Cape and overseas were Spoelstra’s bouwstoffen at Cape Town and Witton’s scapegoats at Melbourne. This year’s article was not another Times history, nor another lieutenant’s book, nor another gathering of church minutes. It was a named article on the prayer with which Jan van Riebeeck opened his Council, put into type two hundred and fifty-six years after he anchored in Table Bay. The same writer later issued the documented biography De Stichter van Hollands Zuid-Afrika, Jan van Riebeeck in 1912. This year’s Maandblad article was the prayer, not yet that book. What hung on it was that the prayer which opened the Council on the voyage, and then at the Cape, was no longer only a heading in the resolution-book. It was an article, issued this year, while Amery’s Times volumes still ran at London. [1]
That prayer first stood over a Council at sea. On the 30th of December 1651 a hard westerly wind found the flagship Drommedaris so cranky — top-heavy — that she could carry no sail. Van Riebeeck summoned the skippers of the Reijger and the Goede Hoop on board and held the first meeting of the Broad Council, the highest authority of the little fleet. He wrote the minutes in his own hand under the prayer known as Van Riebeeck’s prayer. The prayer was probably drawn up in the Netherlands before the voyage, and it shows a close resemblance to other prayers composed for seamen bound for the East Indies. Skippers Hooghsaet and Turver, with Davit de Coninck and Van Riebeeck, feared that a squall and a high sea could capsize the flagship. The best plan, they decided, would be to run for the south coast of England and take in ballast. Wind and weather wrecked that plan. A north-north-east wind drove the ships rapidly south-west out of the Channel. Eight glasses into the first watch — just before midnight — a great wave laid the Drommedaris right on her side before she came upright again with a shudder. That night was an anxious night for everyone on board. This year’s Maandblad article still named the prayer under which those minutes were written. [2]
New Year’s Day 1652 found all three ships slung to and fro by the stormy wind. Snowflakes whirled through the air. Hail clattered on the deck. The ships made, by estimate, 120 sea miles on that first day of the new year. The rest of the week ran quieter. They were now on the open sea, and whenever a sail showed on the horizon everyone wondered whether it was a Turk, a Biscayan, or some other rover. On Christmas Day, still in the Narrow Seas, with the wind east, they estimated 26 miles from Texel on a south-westerly course, and lay to between 20 and 23 fathoms to avoid the Flemish shoals. The three ships had left Texel on Sunday the 24th of December 1651 in the name of the Lord: Drommedaris, Reijger, and Goede Hoop, without waiting for the Walvis and the Oliphant, which could not get out of the Balgh for low water. Those were the ships and that was the New Year over which the prayer this year’s article named had already been spoken. [2] [1]
Later, at the Cape, the same prayer opened the Council meetings on land. Van Riebeeck, after secretly determining the signals, wrote the signal-letters out in his own hand. With the aid of those letters and his letter of the 15th of March 1660 it became possible to identify several other documents in his handwriting, among them the prayer with which he opened his Council meetings, and the minutes of the first three meetings of the Council held on board the Drommedaris. Strangely, nowhere in the original Journal does his handwriting appear. The first 70 pages or so of the original document have been lost. The Commander is usually referred to in the third person. Even when he was away from the little settlement the Journal was steadily continued at the fort — at Robben Island on the 24th–25th of February 1656, and at Saldanha Bay on the 3rd–9th of December 1660. This year’s article on the prayer still stood over that identification: the prayer was his, written in his hand, and it opened the Council at sea and then at the Cape. [1]
The man who spoke that prayer belonged, on his father’s as well as his mother’s side, to the respectable, well-to-do middle class of the Dutch Golden Century. The Van Riebeecks were an old family from the neighbourhood of Utrecht; the name already appears in 1388 among the highest officials of Wijk-bij-Duurstede. His father, Anthonij Janszoon van Riebeeck, married a daughter of Govert Anthoniszoon, mayor of Culemborg. Jan was born at Culemborg in 1618 — so this year’s writer had it — or on the 21st of April 1619, the date later established. His mother died at Schiedam on the 7th of November 1629, when he was eleven. His father died in May 1639 at Pernambuco in Brazil, then in the possession of the Netherlands West India Company, and had seen very little of his son. Van Riebeeck entered the Company’s service as a junior surgeon. The Hof van Holland was wrecked at Sierra Leone on the 14th of July 1639; he reached Batavia only at the end of July 1640, fifteen months after leaving Holland, and soon left medicine for commerce and administration. At Schiedam he met Maria de la Quellerie, ten years his junior, whose grandfather had been a French nobleman who became a Huguenot preacher and escaped the Massacre of St Bartholomew by crossing to England and then to Holland. They were married in 1649. Those were the people over whom this year’s article on the prayer still stood. [1]
The Landing, the Fort, and the Council Prayer at the Cape
The prayer this year’s article named was spoken over a refreshment station that had not yet been marked on the sand. On the 6th of April 1652 the weather was calm with a variable wind. The ships lay toward the present Camps Bay, quite close inshore. Van Riebeeck sent the sloop with the bookkeeper Adam Hulster and the second mate Aernt van Jeveren to the tail of Lion Mountain, with instructions to go round the corner and find out what ships — and how many — might be lying at anchor in Table Bay, without even showing themselves. They returned about 2 hours before dark and reported that there were no ships, so the fleet stood in. A fine southerly breeze came at the last moment. Shortly after sunset the Drommedaris and the yacht Goede Hoop came to anchor safely in Table Bay in 5 fathoms, sandy bottom, off the Fresh River — the stream that flowed from Table Mountain through the valley to the sea approximately where Adderley Street later ran. Skipper Hooghsaet, who with the Reijger had held more to seaward, remained outside. They had been at sea for over three and a half months without calling at any place of refreshment, and the health of the men had been rather undermined. That was the evening over which the prayer this year’s Maandblad still named had now to be spoken on the shore of Cabo de Boa Esperance. [1]
Sunday the 7th of April opened with a gentle breeze. When dawn had broken they saw the flute Reijger entering the bay; she came safely to anchor alongside at about 8 a.m., praise God. Skipper Coninck, sent ashore with a shallop, 6 armed soldiers, and the seine, returned with a reasonable quantity of fish and a small box of letters of the 25th of February from Jan van Teijlingen, commander of the return fleet last departed. Van Teijlingen had procured only 1 head of cattle and 1 sheep in 11 days, and had left for St Helena on the 26th of February with the Diamant, Nieuw Rotterdam, and Henriette Louise. His letter told the captains still expected that they had horses on board for the men who were to remain in the fort which was to be built, and that they should land them and leave them with the Khoikhoi who spoke English — Harry, or Herry as Van Riebeeck’s people wrote it, who had spent some time on board an English ship, visited Bantam, and acquired a smattering of the language. That evening they went ashore together provisionally to consider more or less where the fort should be built, and had 2 of the local people on board, one of whom could speak a little English. They were fishermen — the Strandlopers, or Goringhaikonas — and the cattle, they gave to understand by broken English and signs, were always supplied by those from Saldania, the Goringhaiquas. [1]
On the 8th of April the Council was summoned — still on board the Drommedaris, the first meeting of Van Riebeeck’s Council at the Cape, the body that on land became the Council of Policy. The prayer this year’s article named was the prayer that opened that sitting. An approximate site had been selected the evening before. They inspected it more closely, found it suitable and large enough, close to the principal Fresh River, which apparently could be led into the moat round the fort — the ground later known as the Grand Parade in Cape Town. That evening from the three ships 100 men were sent ashore to work, and 81 remained on board to guard the ships and bring material: from the Drommedaris some men ashore and 36 on board; from the Reijger 39 ashore and 36 on board; from the yacht 11 ashore and 9 on board. Altogether 181 men, excluding the officers, assistants, and senior surgeons. On the 9th of April, in lovely sunshine, the Commander went ashore early, marked out the fort completely, and returned on board in the evening. The outside polygons, or the outer points of the bastions, were fixed at 21 rods, Rhineland measure — 1 rod equal to 12 feet. The four bastions were later named Drommedaris, Walvis, Oliphant, and Reijger. On the plan of the fort a sick-comforter’s house already had its letter, among the commander’s office, the council chamber and dining-room, and the magazine. [1]
No chaplain had come, despite Van Riebeeck’s plea. The smaller vessels and a station such as the Cape for some years after its formation were provided with men of lower ecclesiastical rank, called Comforters of the Sick, or Sick Visitors. They instructed the children and conducted religious services, but did not administer the sacraments. No one was permitted to be absent from public prayers without good and sufficient reasons, and no one was allowed to worship God publicly in any other manner than that the government approved of. Hendrick Boom the gardener brought his wife and six children. The sick-comforter’s wife was on board, and the senior surgeon with his wife and children, on the Drommedaris. On the 8th of April the daily notes gave the people on the three ships, with women and children: the Drommedaris 102, the Reijger 75, and the Goede Hoop 26. Those were the people among whom the prayer this year’s article named was to be said, morning and evening, in a fort not yet raised above the loose sand. [2] [3]
On the 10th of April the ground was found so loose that firm walls could hardly be made with it. About noon a small band of 9 or 10 people from Saldania arrived, against whom the Strandlopers, who sat outside the tents with their wives and children every day, arranged themselves in battle order and advanced with assegais, bows, and arrows. Skipper Hooghsaet, with the corporal and some armed soldiers, was sent between them, and when they were about half a pederero-shot away he succeeded in arranging a truce. Those from Saldania, by signs and broken English and some Dutch words remembered from the wrecked Haerlem, gave to understand that for copper and tobacco they would bring cattle and sheep within a few days. Skipper Coninck, fishing at the Salt River with 2 assistants and 2 soldiers, returned with 4 bags of mustard leaves and sorrel and a catch of about 750 steenbras. On Sunday the 14th of April, after Sunday service, they went with all the boats to the Salt River and with 3 sweeps of the net caught between 750 and 1000 fine steenbras, on average at least 1½ feet long, besides harders. The prayer this year’s Maandblad named was the prayer that opened the Council over that first fortnight: the anchorage off the Fresh River, the first sitting on the Drommedaris, the fort marked at 21 rods, and the sick-comforter’s house already lettered on the plan, two hundred and fifty-six years before the article was issued, and while Amery’s Times history still ran at London. [1] [6]