Are SA Venter’s and US/German Venters related to each other ?

Jan Adriaan Venter born 20 June 1881 and Christina Adriana du Plessis. Image taken circa 1906. Grandparents of Piet Venter

About a year ago my friend in the USA, Robert Venter, and I, asked ourselves the question formulated above. We had already been able to trace our earliest known ancestors back to two persons who were born in two different localities in Germany in the 17th and early 18th centuries, respectively. Robert’s earliest known ancestor was Johann Adam Venter, born in Roth, near Meisenheim in the Palatinate, in 1715, and my own earliest known ancestor was Hendrik Conrad Venter, who was born Heinrich Conrad von Dempter, in Hamelin, during 1663.

There are believed to be 60000 Venters in South Africa, so we are a large family. There are 189 Venters in the German Phone Book, and there are also a number of Venters in the USA – our guess is that all of them might be descendants of German emigrants to the US. In fact, Robert’s grandfather was an immigrant from Germany.

There was no way in which Robert and I could connect any of our ancestors in Germany by paper-genealogy, to find out whether we are related, and so we went the route of comparing our Y-DNA results. Robert’s Y-haplogroup, and that of another American Venter (and a Fenter), is R1b1 – a haplogroup is a group of persons classified according to specific DNA characteristics. I was the first SA Venter to have had my own Y-DNA tested for a project run by Robert, and the results showed that my Y-haplogroup is R1a. This also showed up in the tests done on four other SA Venters, who like me, can trace their lineages back to Hendrik Conrad Venter.

The fact that the five SA Venters shown on the chart belong to the same haplogroup (R1a), is hardly surprising, because this was the expected result, unless there was some non-paternal event in someone’s male ancestry that would have broken the ‘lineal’ chain or standard ‘pattern’ of Y-chromosome markers. Such markers are passed on unaltered, except for some random mutations, through many generations, from father to son, in any family lineage. Bearing all of this in mind, we are now almost in a position where we can state positively that SA Venter males are R1a’s, and that our ancestor, Hendrik Conrad Venter, must also have been an R1a.

Photo of Johann Venter born 12 November 1871 in Roth, Germany and Elizabeth Weinig (USA) grandparents of Robert Venter.

Are R1a and R1b1 Venters related? The answer is no! At any rate, a family relationship cannot be proved within conventional genealogical time frames – on the contrary, we would have to go back a few millennia to find a common ancestor. And he would apparently have been a person living somewhere in the Caucasus, whose haplogroup would have been R, or R1.

This article is an abridged version of an article called, “How many ‘Venter-lines’ world-wide?”, which obviously has a much broader scope. We are hoping to find out how many different lines of ‘genetic cousins’ we have – people with the Venter surname, or similar surnames.

Click here to see the Venter Tree. The People highlighted in red are those who have had their DNA tested

Persons who can help us in this research can contact the authors  here. 
Article written by Piet Venter (South Africa) and assisted by Robert Venter (U.S.A) .

The British population of Natal during 1820-1857 was largely made up of the Immigrants from the Cape (including 1820 Settlers and their descendants). From 1824 Cape colonists had filtered into Natal for purposes of trade and/or settlement. A significant boost to their numbers occurred after Natal had been annexed to the Cape in 1845 and a civil service of almost entirely Cape men was structured for the new District.

Also in the mid-forties a small number of Cape colonists trekked to Natal from Buntingville in Pondoland. These, former residents of Butterworth, had abandoned their homes as a result of disturbances during the Seventh Frontier War. They came in two parties, in 1846 and 1847, the latter group being led by James Calverley.

Soldiers discharged from British regiments serving in South Africa The greatest number of these had served in the 45th Regiment, which was stationed in Natal from 1843 to 1859. Among other regiments whose members settled in Natal were the 27th (it was two companies of the 27th that marched to Natal with Capt. T.C. Smith in 1842), the 72nd, the 75th, the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers. A sprinkling of Royal Naval men also came to the Immigrants from Britain and Ireland.

Most of these settlers arrived between 1849 and 1851. Some emigrated independently, but many came under the aegis of one or other emigration scheme. Before detailing the various groups it is necessary to sound a note of caution with regard to the occupations of the emigrants as they appear on the passenger lists. For an emigration promoter to receive a drawback on his deposits with Her Majesty’s Land and Emigration Commissioners, each emigrant despatched had to be approved by the Commissioners, and then a certificate issued by the Natal Government attesting to the emigrant’s good treatment on the voyage and his location on his allotment had to be obtained. The Emigration Commissioners stipulated for Natal that the approved occupations were those of labourer, mechanic, tradesman, farmer, or persons of small capital. To meet these requirements many an emigrant’s calling was falsified on his emigration certificate. The emigrants ex Haidee were an exception. By and large they were what their emigration certificates stated – tradesmen, small farmers or firm labourers.

Natal Cotton Company
Among the earliest group of British immigrants to Natal were the 26 settlers imported by this Cape Town based company which had been allotted 22 750 acres on the Umhloti river. In lieu of part of the purchase price the company had undertaken to introduce immigrants to grow cotton, construct roads and buildings and generally develop their land. In 1848 the company arranged with the Cape immigration authorities to take over certain government immigrants to the Cape ex Duke of Roxburgh, and divert them to Natal. The Company was unable to carry out its undertakings and the land reverted to the Crown.
J.C. Byrne Co’s Natal Emigration and Colinization Company
This company handled the greatest number of immigrants. John Swales Moreland was the agent in the Colony. Areas where the settlers were located included Plessis Laager, Little Bushman’s River, New England and the farms Slang Spruit and Vaalkop and Dadelfontein, all in the vicinity of Pietermaritzburg, land on the Umhloti (viz. the land previously allotted to the now defunct Natal Cotton Co. and commonly known as the Cotton Lands), land on the Tongaat and Umhlanga rivers, and land on the river Illovo (including the estates Dunbar, Beaulieu, Harmony and Little Harmony). Villages laid out on these locations included Thornville to serve the Vaalkop and Dadelfontein settlers, Verulam, Mount Moreland and New Glasgow on the Cotton Lands, Byrne for the allotments near the sources of the Illovo including Dunbar, and Richmond as a centre for Beaulieu, Harmony and Little Harmony. Two of Byrne’s ships, the Ina and the Conquering Hero sailed from Glasgow and Scotsmen were in the majority amongst the passengers. The Unicorn ex Liverpool also carried a number of Scottish people.

The Christian Emigration and Colonization Society
This was a co-operative scheme initiated by William Josiah Irons, and was at first under the patronage of the Earl of Verulam. About 400 settlers came to the Colony under this Wesleyan-orientated society. The bulk of these were shipped and provided with land under arrangement with Byrne & Co. They were located as a group on the Cotton Lands. ‘Verulam’ had been chosen by Irons as the name for the centre of population for his settlers, and the site for Verulam was chosen by a committee of these settlers in March 1850.

Buccleuch Settlers

Another group to come out under arrangement with Byrne & Co. was some of the tenantry of the Duke of Buccleuch’s Hampshire estate, Beaulieu. They joined the Lady Bruce at Portsmouth and were settled near Richmond on the Beaulieu estate.

Richard Merchant Hackett
Hackett, a London Ship owner, advertised a scheme offering better terms than Byrne & Co., viz 30 acres for a £10 deposit, instead of Byrne’s 20 acres. This scheme also aimed at attracting Wesleyans. These settlers came out on the Hebrides and were located on lots near the Karkloof river, viz. 67, 68, 69 and 75. Hackett’s agent in England was Thomas Bond who himself took passage on the Hebrides, while Henry Milner was his Natal agent. (Edwin Griffiths later acted with power of substitution granted by Milner.) Hackett afterwards joined with John Lidgett in despatching emigrants on the Nile, Choice and John Bright.

John Lidgett
Another London shipowner and a prominent Wesleyan, Lidgett offered terms similar to those of Byrne & Co. Here again Wesleyans were to the fore. The first ship despatched was the Herald. Thereafter he co-operated with Hackett, sending further shiploads on the Nile, Choice and John Bright The Natal agents were at various times, J.E. Methley, Robert Anderson, then James Archbell and Richard Lawton. By Oct. 1853 Edwin Parkinson had the agency. These settlers were located on the farm Riet Vallei, the name given their village being Lidgettown (now Lidgetton). The nearby lots 70, 71 and 72 (3 281 acres) were also purchased by Lidgett.

The Haidee Settlers
Many Yorkshire-men came to Natal in these years. One scheme that catered for them exclusively was the Wesleyan-orientated co-operative scheme conceived by Henry Boast. The committee assisting him consisted of Samuel Cordukes, Robert Smith (c. 1804-1881), Richard Brough, Joseph Smith, William Lund and James Tutin. The latter two preceded the main party on the Herald in order to find suitable land.

Benjamin Lofthouse was also involved, he travelled around Yorkshire interviewing would-be settlers. The ship chartered, the Pallas, was declared un-seaworthy by the Emigration Commissioners on the eve of sailing with the result that the emigrants were detained at Hull pending the fitting out of another vessel, the Haidee. On some of the emigrants applying to the courts for redress it was found that Boast and not the shipowner, Joseph Rylands, was technically liable for paying them subsistence money. The strain of these difficulties resulted in Henry Boast succumbing to ‘brain fever’ before the Haidee sailed. His widow Mary kept the party together and they finally sailed in July 1850. Lund purchased the farm Mielie Hoogte about 20 miles from Pietermaritzburg for the immigrants. York was the name given to the village laid out for them.

The Murdoch / Morewood Settlers
George Pavitt Murdoch, a clerk in the employ of Byrne & Co.’s solicitors, and Capt. Richard Wilson Pelly, R.N., modelled their Natal Company’s scheme on that of Byrne, but offered 10 acres per child instead of five. The first batch of 95 immigrants arrived on the Ballengeich, and more followed on the Justina. E. Morewood was the agent in Natal and also apparently supplied some capital. These settlers were located on Lots 69 to 71 on the coast between the Tongaat and Umhlali rivers.

The Garrod / Johnston Settlers
Dr Charles Johnston and William Garrod gathered a small party which came out on the John Gibson. Garrod acquired land on the Tongaat river, viz. Lot 86 (508 acres).

Young Zulus in dancing costume by G.F. Angas “The Kaffirs Illustrated – 1849″

The McCorkindale Settlers
In April 1856 another sizable party arrived on the Portia. This group, nearly 80 strong, was collected by Alexander McCorkindale who in the sixties was to form a company to introduce immigrants into the Eastern Transvaal (New Scotland on the border of the Swazi country). Included in this party were members of both his and his wife’s families, and 22 young boys from reformatories who has been apprenticed to him. These settlers were located on the Sinkwazi river near the Zululand border. The intention was for them to grow cotton.

Colenso’s Mission Party
Another cohesive group were the passengers of the Jane Morice, which arrived in May 1855. Bishop Colenso had chartered this vessel to bring his missionary party to Natal, so few of those on board were immigrants as such, although a number were to end their days in the Colony. Besides the mission party there were also some of Colenso’s friends, and a few ex-parishioners on board.

Immigrants from Mauritius.
During the period under study there was a limited immigration from this island. A. Drummond, George Williamson (1800-1881) and famiIy, the Rathbones and the Shires were among those of British stock to reach Natal in this way. J. R. Saunders had also lived in Mauritius.
The Mauritius element, both French and English, with its experience in sugar cultivation and manufacture, gave an important fillip to this Natal industry, then in its infancy.

Natal suffered a set-back starting in 1852 when the newly-discovered Australian goldfields drew off a number of her colonists. Four ships sailed direct for Melbourne, viz. the Hannah and the Sarah Bell in 1852, the Wee Tottie in 1853 and the Golden Age in 1854. In addition many others sailed for Australia via Mauritius or the Cape. Some had no intention of returning, but others had, leaving their families in Natal. Throughout the rest of the 1850s there was a trickle returning from the Antipodes. This was not confined to those whose families had remained in the Colony.

For more information about these settlers check http://www.shelaghspencer.org
Article by: Shelagh O’Byrne Spencer

Excerpted from the book, The Story of the Settlement: Grahamstown As It Was, Grahamstown As It Is, by T. Sheffield, Published by T. and G. Sheffield, Printers and Publishers, High Street, 1884.

Chapter IX – Arrival and Landing of the British Settlers
FRUITFUL of events as were the first fifteen years of the present century here in South Africa, in Europe they were much more so. Bonaparte and his French armies had given battle to every nation in Europe, and had succeeded in overpowering each in succession. By the might of his great genius, and by the bravery of his devoted soldiers, he had brought every European country, with one or two exceptions, into subjection to himself. But, not content with having Europe as his battle-field, he had invaded our own continent, and marched his armies, though defeated at the Pyramids by Abercrombie, into lands famous in Holy writ. Practically alone and unaided, it remained for England to break the spell of his brilliant career. In Egypt, in Palestine, in the heart of Europe, in Spain, and lastly on the field of Waterloo his armed hosts were met and defeated; in every sea his fleets were sunk or captured; and, finally, the great and brilliant man himself had to submit a prisoner of war to England.

Peace at last prevailed. But the reaction from the exciting times of war to the quiet of industrial life, and the cessation of that lavish expenditure of money which the prosecution of such a war involved, led to dire distress. Many thousands of men were thrown out of employment, and the distress among the lower and middle classes of the United Kingdom was most intense. Outlets for the superabundant population had to be sought for, and attention being called to the Cape of Good Hope as a suitable field for emigrants, the House of Commons, on 12th July, 1819, on the motion of Mr. Vansittart, then Chancellor of the Exchequer (afterwards Lord Bexley), it was decided to expend £50,000 in sending out to the Eastern Districts of the Colony some 4,000 souls. The scheme was heartily taken up, and, on applications being invited, no less than 90,000 were sent in! Out of this great number about 4,000 were selected, and in due time embarked from England in twenty-six emigrant ships. The following list of vessels, the names of their commanders, and the dates of their arrival in Table Bay or Simon’s Bay will perhaps be of interest:

Although the number of the British Settlers who came out by these vessels is roundly stated as 4,000, there were not quite so many in reality. There were 1,020 men, 607 women, and 2,032 children, the total being thus 3,659 souls.

It is not our purpose to follow the course of each of the above twenty-six vessels on their voyage out, or to attempt to recount the varied board-ship experiences on the wide Atlantic of the motley throng who had left home and fatherland for good and for aye, “for better or for worse,” to make a new home for themselves, and perhaps to found a nation of sturdy Anglo-Saxons in this Southern land. The voyage was a far different one to that of emigrants by steam ships in these times. The salt “junk” was tougher and the sea-biscuits much harder fare than is provided now-a-days for Government emigrants. But the Settlers were coming out to rough it, and doubtless they had made up their minds to do so from the very first. Many pleasant reminiscences of that voyage out could be told by some of the voyageurs; but they are not here to tell them. Few remain among us, and those who live are too feeble to trouble much about past reminiscences, – they await the end of their pilgrimage in calm hope for the future. Only one of these twenty-six vessels met with any kind of casualty worthy of record as one. That vessel was the Ocean, on board of which was the Howard party. She called at Porto Praya, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, and while lying at her anchorage there, in the dead of the night, her passengers were rudely awakened from their repose by the loud booming of a cannon, and by the tearing through the rigging of a cannon ball from one of the batteries.

The excitement consequent upon this act of hostility towards the ship, lying as she was in a friendly port, was, as may be imagined, very considerable; but while the affrighted emigrants were conjecturing as to the cause of it, a second discharge followed, the ball this time striking the ship with such force that it was feared the masts would go by the board. The excitement and consternation were intense. But yet another ball was sent hissing towards the apparently doomed vessel, this time falling short, and diving into the sea with a noise resembling the plunge of a red-hot shot. The shot which had struck the vessel was a nine-pounder, and entered the storeroom only three feet below the floor of Mr. Howard’s cabin. A hostile schooner, it was afterwards explained, had visited and fired upon the port a few weeks previously. A schooner similarly rigged had entered the harbour with the Ocean, and sentinels at the batteries were ordered to keep close watch on her. A boat, it was thought from this schooner, was seen approaching the shore, and fearing hostile intentions, the shots which had so nearly wrecked the Ocean had been fired at it, with the result stated.
All the vessels arrived at their destination in due time, the Chapman and the Nautilus reaching Table Bay simultaneously, and subsequently in Algoa Bay on the same day, viz., on the 9th April, 1820. The landing took place on the 10th April, the first of the British Settlers to set foot upon the land of their adoption being Mr. W. T. Collen, who leaped ashore from the first boatload of Settlers to have the honour of being first to land. He lived until the 21st September, 1883, when he died in Grahamstown at the ripe old age of 82 years.

As a memento of the Settlers’ Jubilee held in Grahamstown in 1870, Mr. A. Wilmot published a poem, in commemoration of the landing of the Settlers in 1820, which we have been permitted to make use of. It will be found in an Appendix. It is a worthy tribute to the brave men and women the “story” of whose career in South Africa we are about to enter upon. It tells us in elegant rhyme of their departure from home and from fatherland; of their eventful voyagings hither; of gallant struggles of no ordinary kind; of battles fought and of battles bravely won; of ravaged farms and desolated homesteads; of horrid massacres and gallant deeds in defence of all that to man is most dear; of victories over barbarous enemies and of triumphs over cruel fate; of energy and perseverance without parallel, perhaps; and of the eventual establishment of a prosperous Settlement. It is a record of the doings of brave men and noble women which deserves a place in a more worthy “Story of the Settlement” than this can pretend to be, and we therefore feel honoured in being permitted to re-publish it.

Aided Immigration from Britain to South Africa

Summary

What is the significance of the Great Trek in a demo-cratic South Africa of the 21st century? This article examines the different perspectives – historical to modern – on the movement of Boer/Afrikaner trekkers from the Cape Colony into the interior of southern Africa from 1835/6.

The movement of Boer/ Afrikaner trekkers from the Cape Colony into the interior of southern Africa from 1835/6 became known as ‘the Great Trek’ for three main reasons:

- From soon after the event, writers called it ‘great’ because they wanted to distinguish it from earlier Boer treks, for the Boer people had been moving into the interior for well over a century by the time the Great Trek took place. (Another way of distinguishing this movement from the earlier treks was by calling the earlier trekkers ‘trekboers’ and those who went on the Great Trek ‘Voortrekkers’.)

- Secondly, the Great Trek was an organised affair, not individuals acting on their own. It was an ‘emigration’, as the most important South African historian of the nineteenth century, George McCall Theal, called it: the ‘emigrants’ did not want to break all ties with the Cape Colony, but did intend to set up new states in the interior.

- The third and most important reason why historians have used the term ‘Great Trek’ is because of what they saw to be its significance.

Early account

The main overall account of the Great Trek for half a century was Eric Walker’s book of that name, published in 1934, on the eve of the centenary of the event. Though he had come to South Africa from England, Walker was caught up in what he saw to be the ‘romance’ of what he called a ‘great adventure’. He did point out that fewer people went on the Great Trek than on other treks that took place at roughly the same time, though he did not know – and neither do we – precisely how many black servants accompanied the Boers into the interior.

Even though Walker’s Great Trek included Boer migration from the Cape colony over more than a decade (1835 to 1848), only some twelve thousand Boers were involved in that process. More Mormons left Missouri and Illinois, and they moved together over greater distances than the Boers. They also encountered more significant physical obstacles. The Voortrekkers advanced by what Walker called ‘easy stages’, and he tended to play down the military challenges from the African societies they encountered in the interior.

Walker related the Great Trek of the early nineteenth century to the trek of Afrikaners from the countryside to the cities in his own day, but he did not extend his comparisons, either to black treks in nineteenth-century South Africa or to the treks of Native American people in the United States, let alone the movement of black people from the South to the North of the United States in the early twentieth century.

Nor did Walker concede that in a sense the Great Trek was reversed by the British conquest of the Boer republics in the course of the Anglo-Boer/South African War, for if the aim of the Trek had been to establish independent states in the interior, that independence was brought to an end in 1900. Walker claimed, instead, that that the Great Trek ‘earned its title’, for it was ‘the central event in the history of European man in South Africa ‘, which ‘set the stage for all that was to follow in South Africa from that day to this’.

Modern perspective

From our vantage point, seventy-five years after Walker wrote, this appears a ridiculously Eurocentric vision.

Afrikaner perspective

That the Great Trek continues to resonate among Afrikaners can be seen, say, in the autobiography of F W de Klerk, for whom stories of the Trek were central in his childhood – three De Klerks were among those Voortrekkers killed by the Zulu king Dingane in 1838 – and whose earliest memory is of being taken in 1938 to the laying of the cornerstone of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, at the ceremony to mark the centenary of the Great Trek. For De Klerk, the ‘last Trek’ of the title of his book published in 2000 was the journey that took him to the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in May 1994 – a journey of a new kind for Afrikaners, this time not to win territory but to survive into the twenty-first century by surrendering political power.

From a very different perspective, Norman Etherington, Professor of History at the University of Western Australia, rejects the idea that there was one ‘Great Trek’. For him, the Boer ‘Great Trek’ was but one among a number of treks that took place in early nineteenth-century southern Africa that deserve that name. He wishes to get away from an ‘ethnic’ interpretation, which privileges the importance of the Boer Great Trek, and instead to bring together separate histories – those involving white people and those involving blacks.

He argues that the various treks were part of one overall process of change, and that the root cause of the ‘transformation’ involved was expansive forces coming ultimately from Europe. The Voortrekkers were not backward economically, he maintains, but helped carry capitalism into the interior.

White presence established

Such arguments have not convinced most historians. In passing, N Etherington in his The Great Treks. The Transformation of Southern Africa, 1815-1854 does in fact recognise that the Boer trek had consequences out of proportion to its size. One does not have to accept the exaggerated views of Walker, let alone all the mythology that Afrikaner nationalists wrapped around the Great Trek, to accept that the Boer Trek was a fundamental event in the long history of white conquest of southern Africa.

It carried whites into the far interior, and involved in it was massive defeats of the Zulu, among others, and much dispossession. Though the white presence in the interior for long remained fragile – we now know that a number of African states, including the Zulu and the Pedi ones, continued to pose significant challenges to white authority long after the trekkers were established – the whites were not to be dislodged (except briefly in the Soutpansberg).

White rule firmed over time over all of what is now South Africa, and lasted for over a century, and a significant white presence survives after the transfer of political power from whites to blacks in 1994.

Long-term consequences

From the perspective of the early twenty-first century, the Great Trek no longer seems a central event in the history of South Africa, but Etherington’s desire to downplay its significance will not wash. Yes, it cannot be seen in isolation, as an event only in the history of those who became known as Afrikaners, but must be seen in the context of other treks, by the Rolong, the Griqua and others. Yet the more it is seen in context, the more the Great Trek stands out as the most important trek of all, because of its long-term consequences.

It was not until 1910 that a united South Africa came into being, but such a state was prefigured and made possible by those who moved out from the Cape into the interior in the late 1830s and early 1840s and set up new white states in other parts of what became South Africa. The Great Trek, therefore, remains important.

(Prof Christopher Saunders)

Extra information:

The Voortrekkers

The ‘Voortrekkers’ were a group of some 10 000 Afrikaners and about 4 000 coloured servants who left the border districts of the Cape Colony from 1835 onward in an organised manner to seek a fixed abode north and east of the Orange River.

They left for various reasons, but as a result a commitment to a common destiny and an own identity, different from the British policy, took root among them. They believed that they could realise their values, characteristics and interests only in a free and independent state.

The Voortrekkers left the Colony in five main groups. The leaders of the first groups were Louis Trichardt, Hendrik Potgieter, Gert Maritz, Piet Retief and Piet Uys. The first Voortrekker government was elected on December 2, 1836, at Thaba Nchu by the followers of Hendrik Potgieter and Gert Maritz, then totalling about 1 400 to 2 000. A burgher council of seven members was elected, Potgieter became laager commandant and Maritz was elected president of the burgher council and also magistrate.

On April 17, 1837, the second Voortrekker government was established at the Vet River. Retief was elected governor and military commander, while Maritz was elected magistrate and president of the so-called Council of Policy (later Volksraad) of seven members. Potgieter remained commandant of his trek party. On June 6, 1837, a temporary constitution, the so-called Nine Articles, was adopted. Piet Uys did not acknowledge this constitution.

Differences of opinion on the direction of the trek led to every leader trekking on his own with his followers. Retief trekked over the Drakensberg to Natal, while Potgieter, Maritz and Uys trekked in the direction of the Vaal River. While the Voortrekkers in Natal were involved in a ferocious fight with the Zulus, the so-called Council of Representation of the People, consisting of 24 members, and a constitution came into existence in February/March 1838. This Council became the Volksraad of the Republic of Natalia. A commandant-general would be the military commander, but no provision was made for a head of state.

In the meantime the Winburg-Potchefstroom Republic came into being. Chief commandant Potgieter was assisted by a war council of 12 members. In October 1840 the two republic united: Andries Pretorius was to be chief commandant of Natalia and Potgieter would hold the same position for Winburg-Potchefstroom. The war council became the adjunct council of the Natal Volksraad. After the British annexation of Natal in 1843 the adjunct council proclaimed its independence in April 1844 and adopted the 33 Articles as legal code.

The Natal Voortrekkers left Natal in groups and settled to the west of the Drakensberg. Potgieter trekked further north and founded Ohrigstad in 1845. There more dissension among the followers of Potgieter and the Voortrekkers from Natal arose because the latter group was in favour of the supreme authority of an elected volksraad, while Potgieter as chief commandant would be the supreme authority. Potgieter could not have his way and founded Schoemansdal in 1848, while some Natalians founded Lydenburg.

After Sir Harry Smith had annexed the later Orange Free State on February 3, 1848, Pretorius and his followers departed for Transvaal. Political differences and rivalry now came strongly to the fore. Representatives of the three most important groups (the Pretorius followers of the Western Transvaal, the Potgieter followers of Soutpansberg and the Lydenburgers) held various meetings to promote political unity among the Voortrekkers. Despite Potgieter’s absence, a United Confederation of all the Voortrekkers north of the Vaal River was established under a Representative Volksraad.

Dissension continued, mainly over the question of whether the office of chief commandant should be retained. In January 1851 the Volksraad found a solution to the problem by nominating four commandant-generals, namely Potgieter (Soutpansberg), Pretorius (Magaliesberg and Mooi River ), W J Joubert (Lydenburg) and J A Enslin (Marico). Because the government was ineffectual, Pretorius took the lead in negotiating with the British government regarding acknowledgement of the independence of Transvaal.

This was recognised in January 1852 and that of the later Orange Free State in 1854. The constitution adopted in 1853 for the ZAR was in broad terms a repetition of the executive arrangements of the Republic of Natalia and Ohrigstad. The Voortrekkers had therefore succeeded in obtaining their freedom and independence. At the same time white presence was extended in the interior from the Fish to the Limpopo Rivers and from the Natal coast to the Kalahari Desert.

Source: South African Encyclopedia
(http://www.saencyclopedia.co.za/content/home.aspx)

The Voortrekkers crossing the Drakensberg, by W H Coetzer. (Ensiklopedie van die Wêreld)

Indian Migrants

When sugar was first produced from cane in Natal in 1851, the colony seemed set for a major economic boom. But there was just one snag: the plantation owners lacked a source of cheap labour. At first they hoped that the indigenous people would be able to supply their needs.

But once it became obvious that toiling in the fields for the white capitalist held no attraction for most Zulu`s, planters began to turn their attentions elsewhere.

And they looked – as planters throughout the empire had looked – to India.
Davarum was 30 years old when he put his thumb-print to a document he could not even read: ‘We the adult male emigrants,’ it said, ‘do hereby agree to serve the employer to whom we may respectively be allotted by the Natal Government under the Natal Act No. 14 of 1859 and we all understand the terms under which we are engaged …’

Davarum – or Coolie No.1, as the recruiting officer named him, had no idea where Natal was, let alone the implications of Act No. 14 – but for 10 shillings a month he, and hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, were pre-pared to travel anywhere to escape the poverty and starvation of India.

On 12 October 1860, he and his wife (Coolie No. 2), and their two children (Coolies 3 and 4), joined 338 others aboard the Truro at Madras harbour. A few hours later, the dangerously overloaded vessel began its long journey to south-east Africa.

The fight for “coolie” labour
The go-ahead for Natal to recruit ‘coolies’ in Madras (and Calcutta ) followed protracted and often bitter negotiation between the governments of the colony, Britain and a far from-keen India. As far back as 1851, plantation owners had been demanding the importation of workers from India.

In 1855, Cape Governor Sir George Grey, acting on behalf of a group of Natal farmers, tried to ‘requisition’ 300 ‘coolies’ from Calcutta. Although the Indian Government turned down this request, it promised to reconsider once the colony had stipulated the terms of indenture.

In 1856 the Natal legislature passed an ordinance em-powering the Lieutenant-Governor ‘to make rules and regulations for Coolies introduced into this District from the East Indies’. But in the next year, much of India erupted in rebellion against the rule of the English East India Company that, for decades, had systematically plundered, taxed and exploited the country and its people. By the time the last mutineer had been blown from the muzzle of a cannon, rule in India had passed to the British Crown and, as memory of the horrors of war faded, Indians were given a greater say in the new system of government which developed. Mindful of the racist attitudes of white colonists in southern Africa, and therefore unconvinced that workers would be properly treated, the new Indian administration again turned down a Natal request for ‘coolie’ labour.

By 1859 the labour shortage in Natal had reached crisis proportions – and the ‘Natal Mercury’ proclaimed that ‘the fate of the Colony hangs on a thread, and that thread is labour’. Legislation was rushed through to enable colonists to bring in labour from India at their own expense, and also to allow the colonial government to introduce Indian labourers ‘at the public expense’. Although the government bore the major share of the expenses, planters to whom the labourers were assigned had to pay three-fifths of their passage money of some £8 per head, as well as certain other costs.
The contract, or indenture, provided that a labourer would be assigned to a particular planter for a period of three years (later amended to five years) and then be re-indentured, perhaps to the same planter, for another two years. After a residence in Natal of a further five years as a ‘free’ worker, the labourer had the choice of accepting a free return passage to India or of remaining in Natal on a small grant of Crown land. While they were indentured, their welfare was the responsibility of a ‘Coolie Immigration Agent’, who also assigned them to plantations.

Once on the plantation, treatment of the indentured labourer was not subject to the ordinary master and servant ordinance. Special regulations demanded that the employer provide food and lodging, clothing and any necessary medical attention. He was also obliged to pay wages of 10 shillings a month for the first year, followed by an annual increase of a shilling a month thereafter in each successive year. His workers’ welfare would be guarded by the Coolie Immigration Agent, who would visit each plantation at least twice a year. On the other hand, if a labourer missed work for what his employer regarded as an inadequate reason, a portion of his already meagre wages could be deducted as a fine. If he left his employer’s plantation without a signed Pass, he was liable to imprisonment. Once his five years of indentured service were over, the immigrant Indian was subject to the ordinary law of the colony. It was scarcely an attractive package, but ever-increasing pressure on the land in India led to growing impoverishment of a rural class that owned no land and was scarcely able to survive. Emigration, whether to Natal or any other part of the empire, was an act of desperation in an attempt to secure survival.

The pioneers
On 16 November 1860 the Truro dropped anchor in Natal Bay under the curious gaze of a crowd of white spectators who had come to see the arrival of the Indians. The Coolie Immigration Agent was not at the dockside because, to save money, the Natal Government had not yet formalised his appointment (they did not do so until two days later). Once ashore, the immigrants were herded by armed police into an uncompleted barracks with no toilet, washing or cooking facilities, set amid pools of stagnant water. Here they remained under guard for eight days (during which time four of them died), waiting for their new masters to collect them. The planters wanted only strong, healthy young men – and as rumours began circulating that families would be split up, some of the workers tried to abscond in a bid for freedom. The reaction of the authorities was to build high walls around the barracks.

Although the terms of the agreement between the governments of India and Natal stipulated that families were not to be separated, this did, in fact, occur: a 34-year old woman, Choureamah Arokuim (Coolie No. 99), arrived with her daughters, eight-year-old Megaleamah (Coolie No. 100) and three-year-old Susanah (Coolie No. 101). Although the family was originally assigned to Grey’s Hospital, just over six months later Magaleamah was apprenticed to A Brewer, and Susanah – perhaps aged four by this time – to Isabella O’Hara. Once assigned, the immigrants walked to their plantations, clutching a few pathetic possessions and their rations for the road.

At first, the plantation workers erected their own shacks and were able to cultivate small patches of the surrounding ground for their own account – if they were not exhausted by the day’s work. Later, however, planters were obliged to provide accommodation, building barracks, known as ‘coolie lines’, of corrugated iron, mud, or stone, in which the workers led a cramped and uncomfortable existence devoid of any privacy. A lean-to shed, generally without a chimney, was used for cooking the rations of rice, mealie-meal and ghee, a clarified form of butter.

About 250 grams of dried fish each week was their only luxury. Few barracks were provided with toilets, and analysis of samples of water used for drinking revealed them to be ‘quite unsafe for use’.
Before dawn every day, the sirdar (foreman) rang a bell or, more commonly, struck a bar of iron suspended from a tree, to wake the workers who, after an unappetising breakfast of cold ‘porridge’, marched to the fields so as to begin work as the sun rose. And they worked, planting, digging, breaking new soil, cutting, harvesting, carrying, building, until the sun set. There was a brief break for lunch, which was a repeat of breakfast. It was dark by the time they reached their homes, where they managed another brief meal before falling into exhausted sleep. Sundays were supposed to be free, but few planters observed this.

Also unobserved was the condition that employers of more than 20 Indians should provide elementary hospitals. The ‘hospital’ at the receiving depot lumped all patients` together – men, women and children – regardless of whether or not any were suffering from infectious diseases. Latrines were four holes in the ground, and there were neither water basins nor baths. Corpses were laid out in the open. By 1885 only three plantations had set up sick rooms, and these were worse than that at the depot.

Despite the appalling conditions, few complaints reached the courts. Principally, this was because the worker could not leave the estate without his employer’s per-mission, and because the over-worked Coolie Immigration Agent was unable to visit the estates as he was supposed to. When he did, he was rarely able to speak to the workers in private and, in the presence of employers and sirdars, the workers were afraid to complain, knowing that they could expect even worse treatment if they were found out.

If some part of the worker found peace in death, it was not his body. Cremation, customary in India, was not permitted. In Durban, some ground near a butchery was allocated as an Indian and African cemetery. Workers, anxious to return to work to forestall pay stoppages, sometimes did not bury the corpses deep enough, and they were rooted out and eaten by pigs that had acquired a taste for flesh from offal thrown out by the butchery. Not even in death was there dignity.

Tales of horror
The fact that ‘coolies’ were regarded as units of labour rather than people left them open to widespread abuse. In an editorial which aptly summed up the attitude of white colonists, the ‘Natal Witness’ commented: ‘The ordinary Coolie … and his family cannot be admitted into close fellowship and union with us and our families. He is introduced for the same reason as mules might be introduced from Montevideo, oxen from Madagascar or sugar machinery from Glasgow. The object for which he is brought is to supply labour and that alone. He is not one of us, he is in every respect an alien; he only comes to perform a certain amount of work, and return to India …’

Many did, in fact, return to India, carrying with them horrific tales of life on the sugar plantations of Natal. 

Illegal punishments meted out by employers included flogging. A 10-year-old Indian shepherd, afraid to return to his employer because a sheep had strayed from the flock, was suspended from a rafter for two hours and thrashed with a hunting crop. When released, he ran away and was not seen again. His parents, who worked for the same planter, were beaten on suspicion of taking food to the boy at night. This was an extreme case, but the prevailing callousness is summed up in the case of a man called Narayanan, who returned to his hut one evening to find that his ill wife and child had gone. He walked the plantations for months, vainly searching for his family – until he eventually discovered that the authorities had decided, because of his wife’s illness, to return her and the child to India.

In 1871, confronted by reports and filed statements of abuses, India halted emigration to southern Africa – and the Governor-General of India explained: ‘We cannot permit emigration (to Natal) to be resumed until we are satisfied that the colonial authorities are aware of their duties towards Indian emigrants and that effectual measures have been taken to ensure that class of Her Majesty’s subjects full protection in Natal.’ A commission hastily set up in Natal recommended that flogging be abolished, medical services be improved, and that the Coolie Immigration Agent be given wider powers and the new title of Protector of Indian Immigrants. Once these recommendations had passed into Natal law, together with another that safeguarded the immigrants’ wages, the Indian Government allowed recruiting to resume, and the next group arrived in 1874.

Improvements, however, turned out to be mainly cosmetic and, although the Protector claimed that their fair treatment of immigrants ‘was a credit to the Natal Planters’, the Indian Government raised further objections, claiming that wages were far too low, and that unfairly large deductions were made when a labourer was unable to work because of illness. Living conditions were unsatisfactory, and many labourers were obliged to use water supplies that were dangerously contaminated.

By that time bigotry and discrimination were being increasingly written into the law. In Pietermaritzburg and Durban local legislation provided for the arrest of ‘all per-sons of Colour, if found in the streets after 9 o’clock (at night) without a Pass’. A law of the Natal Parliament restricted Indian rights by classifying them as ‘an uncivilised race’. Natal then unsuccessfully approached the Indian Government with its proposal that labourers should be indentured for the full 10-year period, which provoked indignant reaction. A Bengali newspaper declared: ‘The only difference between Negro slavery and coolie emigration is that the former was open slavery and the latter is slavery in disguise.’ Natal’s reaction was to cease issuing grants of land in lieu of passage money to Indians who had been resident for 10 years and who wished to remain.

Despite their many hardships, Indians, after serving their period of indenture, filled many positions in the colony, some of them to the great indignation and resentment of whites. They were active in agriculture, and by 1885 were virtually the sole producers of fruit and vegetables for Durban and Pietermaritzburg. Others established a fishing and fish-curing industry based on Salisbury Island, while yet others were occupied in coal mining and on the Natal Government Railways. Some went into domestic service or practised a variety of trades. In reply to demands that time-expired workers be repatriated, the Protector was able to say that ‘with but very few exceptions every industry in existence at the present time (1894) would collapse … if the Indian population should be withdrawn’. Their numbers were considerable, sometimes exceeding the total white population, and between 1860 and 1911, when the practice of indentured immigration ceased, some 152 000 Indians had entered Natal.

Not all Indians came to Natal to sell their labour: there were others who came at their own expense, most of them as traders.

Known as Arabs or ‘Passengers’, and most of them Muslims from the state of Gujarat, they began to arrive in the 1870s and constituted the upper stratum of Indians in southern Africa. They associated with the indentured or ex-indentured Indians only so far as trade and labour required it. Yet, racial discrimination did not distinguish one from the other.
The ‘Passenger’ merchants arrived in Natal with considerable capital, and soon set themselves up as storekeepers selling not only to Africans and Indians but, increasingly, to whites. With their shops staffed by members of their families, ‘Passenger’ merchants were able to keep prices below the level the white trader regarded as the minimum on which he could make a profit.

When the first ‘Passenger’ merchants arrived, there were already 10 stores owned by ex-indentured labourers, whose customers were their still-indentured compatriots. By 1880, ex-labourers held 30 of the 37 retail trading licences issued to Indians in Durban – but, from then on, the assertion of the ‘Passengers’ was rapid: within five years, they owned 60 of the 66 Indian stores in Natal.

Wealthier, more confident and ambitious, they formed an elite group, members of which submitted the first petition of grievances to the Colonial Secretary in London. They complained, among other things, of the 9 o’clock curfew, of the lack of interpreters in many courts, of the absence of Indians from juries, and of police brutality and harassment. They also requested permission to open their shops on Sundays, the only time when indentured Indians could do their shopping.

Faced by white hostility and rejection, groups of ‘Passengers’ who in India would never have associated with one another, were drawn together in the fight for political and civil rights. Their situation grew more serious from 1893 when Natal was granted responsible government. It meant that appeals to England or to India were much less likely to succeed.
But in the same year of 1893 a young, London-trained lawyer named Mohandas Gandhi left India to act in a matter concerning two Indian merchants in southern Africa. In Durban, he bought a first-class railway ticket and took his seat in a coach where, during the journey, a white traveller objected to sharing with an Indian. Ejected after refusing to move to a third-class compartment, Gandhi spent a thoughtful night on Pietermaritzburg station, pondering over what he was to call the ‘most important factor’ in directing his future political life.

Article Source: Illustrated History of South Africa
Images: Acknowledgment – Natal Archives
Image Captions (From top to bottom):
Indian Immigrants
Indian Pass
Cane Workers
Natal Immigrants – Port Natal
p Registers: Elliott Collection

It is a difficult matter to realise what a voyage must have been two hundred years ago when we think of our large modern liners plying between Europe and South Africa.
Today the distance is covered within seventeen days, then it took anywhere from four to six months; today the food is kept in ice chambers, then the meat had to be salted and cured. The ships then were small, and living and sleeping space was limited; some of the vessels were no longer than one hundred and fifteen feet. Not only were the people faced by the danger of tempestuous seas, stranding or fire, but they also ran the risk of capture by pirates or a foreign enemy.

Death was of frequent occurrence during the voyage, and the means for combating it limited. The want of fresh food, vegetables and a limited allowance of water caused scurvy. This played havoc with a great number, and it often ended fatally. Water was a precious thing on board, and every precaution was taken to preserve it. To eke out the fresh water as long as possible, the meat and salt pork were cooked in the salt water and thus consumed by those on board. Water was given out on short allowance, but one or two glasses of wine were distributed to make up for it.

Poor people, what agonies they must have suffered sometimes, especially when passing through the tropics! Such, however, were the risks and discomforts which the French Refugees who ventured to leave their country had to run before they found an asylum in the southern hemisphere.

The ships of the Dutch East India Company that brought out the first batches of Refugees were the Voorschooten, Borssenburg, Oosterlandt, Berg China, Schelde, Zuid Beveland, and ‘t Wapen van Alkmaar. The Voorschooten was the first ship to leave Holland, and sailed on the 31st December, 1687. On the 13th April following she was obliged to drop her anchors in Saldanha Bay on account of a strong south-east wind, although her destination was Table Bay.’ Her officers considered it necessary to remain in the bay to effect some repairs. When the Commander at the Castle was informed of her arrival, he despatched the cutter Jupiter from Table Bay with fresh provisions. On her return she brought the Refugees safely to the Cape.
The Voorschooten was a flute of one hundred and thirty feet (Dutch) long. Twenty-two French emigrants were on board. Amongst them were Charles Marais of Plessis, his wife and four children, Philippe Fouché with wife and three children, also eight young bachelors, amongst whom were the brothers Jean and Gabriel le Roux of Blois, and Gideon Malherbe. Jacques Pinard and his wife Esther Fouché had been married previous to the sailing of the Voorschooten from Holland.
The Oosterlandt left Middelburg on the 29th January. 1688, and reached Table Bay on the 26th April, 1688, after a most successful voyage of two months and ten days. She was a much larger built ship than the Voorschooten, measuring one hundred and sixty feet. She brought out twenty-four Refugees. One of then was Jacques de Savoye of Aeth, a wealthy merchant. Jean Prier du Plessis of Poitiers, who had practised as a surgeon, and Isaac Taillefert of Chateau Thierry, a hat-maker, were also on board; they all brought out their wives and children.

Another of the boats to have a most successful voyage was the flute Borssenburg, which left Texel on the 6th January, 1688. She was the smallest of the ships, as she was only one hundred and fifteen feet in length. She cast anchor in the Bay on May 12th, having suffered no deaths amongst the passengers or crew during the voyage, and landed all those on board in a healthy condition at the Cape. Among her passengers was a party of “French Piedmontese fugitives.” The list of names is wanting. I have been unable to trace any particular individual who came out in her.
A most exciting voyage was experienced by the Schelde, a boat of one hundred and forty feet long. She brought out twenty-three French Refugees, men, women and children. Seven or eight days out at sea a terrible storm sprang up, and the skipper was compelled to put into St. Jago. On her arrival at Porto Pravo, he was told that on the previous day an English pirate ship had captured three ships belonging to the English, Portuguese and Dutch respectively. She sailed away almost immediately, and when five days from the Cape ran into another storm. On board were several members of the des Pres family.

On the 4th August, 1688, there arrived in Table Bay the Berg China, which had lett Rotterdam on the 20th March previously. The Berg China was of the same dimensions as the Oosterlandt. There were thirty-four French fugitives on board when she set sail, but the greater portion of the thirty who died on the voyage were Refugees.
When the Zuid Beveland, a vessel as big as the Voorschooten, sailed from Holland on the 22nd April, 1688, she had on board twenty-five Refugees, eleven men, four women and ten children. Amongst them was an important person whose arrival had been eagerly looked forward to by those who had come earlier to the Cape shores. This person was the Revd. Pierre Simond of Embrun in Dauphine, lately minister at Zirikzee. He was to play an active part in the early history of the French community at Drakenstein. Reverend Simond, whose name has been perpetuated today in the Drakenstein Valley by the place Simondium, was accompanied by his wife, Anne de Berault. Amongst the soldiers on board belonging to the Dutch East India Company was Sergeant Louis de Berault, brother of the minister’s wife. In October, 1688, Sergeant de Berault accompanied an expedition to Rio de la Goa to search for some wrecked seamen of the ship Stavinisse. He afterwards settled down as a burgher.

After a run of nearly four months the Zuid Beveland dropped anchor in Table Bay on the 19th August, but it was too late that day for anyone to come ashore. Between eight and nine o’clock next morning the first boat shoved off for land, but a squall of wind suddenly sprang up and upset the boat. Soon everyone was floundering in the sea. Several of the occupants were drowned, including Mr. Cornelis Moerkerke, who was on his way to Malacca to take up his appointment as Fiscal. Both the Schelde and Zuid Beveland lost a number of the French Refugees by death during the voyage. The lists of Refugees who came out in these two vessels are not to be found in the Archives at the Cape nor in Holland. From other documents, however, the names of some are found mentioned as having arrived with her. For instance, the Schelde brought out Charles Prévot, wife and three children, Hercules des Pres with wife and four children, and Abraham Bleuset, which makes a total of twelve out of the twenty-three who embarked.
In the Zuid Beveland came Rev. Simond and his wife, Jean le Long, wife and two children, Estienne Viret, Salomon de Gournay and David Senecal, eight souls out of the number of twenty-five known to have embarked. From the number of Refugees who had sailed by the 1st April, 1688, it is seen that more men than women came out. After the Zuid Beveland had left, sixty-seven men, thirty-three women and fifty-one children had embarked in the various boats, but, as we find upon comparing the lists of those we know set sail and those who landed here, several of them died on the voyage or shortly after their arrival.

About forty Refugees set sail from Texel on the 27th July, 1688, on board ‘t Wapen van Alkmaar, commanded by Captain Carel Goske, and arrived six months after, i.e., the 27th January, 1689. They lost thirty-seven persons by death and brought one hundred and four sick ones, the latter being placed immediately in the Company’s hospital at Cape Town. The French emigrants were sent into the country to their new homes on the 1st February, after they had been given all the necessaries to carry on their agricultural pursuits. The only name I have been able to trace of those who sailed in the Alkmaar is that of Antonie Martin.
About one thousand souls represented by two hundred families, Piedmontese and Vaudois refugees, had taken refuge in Nuremberg. Their number included agriculturists, experienced tradesmen, and four ministers; they all expressed a wish to go to any of the Colonies of the Dutch East or Dutch West India Companies, but on condition that they be allowed to settle close to each other and exercise their own religion. Commissioners, appointed by the Chamber of Seventeen, enquired into the matter, and meanwhile the French and Vaudois fugitives presented a petition asking that certain other conditions be allowed. The petitioners had deputed Jean Pastre Marchand as their spokesmen, who stated that he had been requested by the Refugees at Erlagh and the Vaudois near Nuremberg to plead their cause.
A kindly and compassionate view was taken of the matter by the Seventeen, who decided to settle these people at the Cape of Good Hope, and provide them with free passages and money, and to supply them with building materials on credit. They were to be given provisions and treated on the same footing as the Dutch emigrants. It was thought that after the aged, lame and sick persons had been deducted, there would be between six and seven hundred souls who would be prepared to emigrate.
Arrangements were made for sending out two or three hundred Waldenses or Vaudoisen in the Company’s ship the Schielandt, but afterwards in ‘t Wapen van Alkmaar. Everything was in readiness, but the emigrants declined to go, and the Seventeen wrote to the Cape that “these people, being averse to the sea and long voyage, had changed their minds and settled in Germany, and that forty French Refugees bred to agriculture were being sent out in ‘t Wapen van Alkmaar.”

The above ships brought out the greater portion of the French emigrés to the Cape between 1688 and 1700, and after the former date we find them arriving in small batches. The other ships which brought some of them out were the Zion, Vosmaar, Westhoven, Donkervliet and Driebergen. In the Zion, which left Holland on the 8th January, 1689, and arrived on the 6th May following, came three brothers, Pierre, Abraham and Jacob de Villiers. Writing to the Cape on the 16th December, 1688, the Chamber at Delft said of them: “With this ship (the Zion) we have again permitted the following French Refugees to sail to the Cape and earn their living as freemen, Pierre de Villiers, Abraham de Villiers and Jacob de Villiers, all three brothers born near la Rochelle. We are informed that these persons have a good knowledge of laying out vineyards and managing the same, and thus we hope that the Company will acquire their good service. You are recommended to give them a helping hand.”

Today the name of de Villiers is to be found throughout the sub-continent, and descendants of Pierre de Villiers have given us some of the cleverest men in the legal profession, one of whom was the late Baron de Villiers of Wynberg, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Union of South Africa.
A sad fate overtook the ten men and women Refugees who sailed from Holland in April, 1616, in the Vosmaar. The voyage had been most disastrous. When she arrived in October she had lost ninety-three persons by death, five of whom were of the French emigrants. Of the remainder of two hundred and thirty-six persons who were mostly sick and in a weak condition, only four were left in a good state of health. The Middelburg Chamber wrote to van der Stel that at the request of these French Refugees they had been given permission to proceed to the Cape, and that the Company in granting this did so with the object of populating the Colony. The Directors expressed the hope that they would not be a trouble to the Colony, but that each one would be able to maintain himself honestly by his trade or handicraft. To enable them to do so they were to be given as much help as the orders of the Seventeen required.
Of the five survivors who arrived in the Vosmaar the only name to be found is that of Jacques Bisseux of Picardy, who became a baker.
The Donkervliet and Westhoven both came out in 1699 and arrived on the 20th July and 16th June respectively.4 On the 25th May 1698, the Driebergen, in command of Captain Martin de Jeugd, destined for Batavia, left Holland. On board were five French refugees who, upon their arrival at the Cape on the 3rd September, 1698, settled at Drakenstein as agriculturists. When north of the Canary Islands the Driebergen encountered a pirate vessel, which she took to be Turkish although the boat flew an English flag, and after Captain de Jeugd had warned her to keep off he fired a broadside and shattered her sails. She left the pirate without Damage. A despatch, dated 7th May, 1698, from the Chamber at Delft mentioned the names of the five fugitives sent out with the Driebergen:
Louwys de Ryck alais Louis le Riche, Pieter Cronier alias Pierre Crosnier, Stephen Cronier alias Estienne Cronier, Jean van het tichelje alias Jean du Tuillet, Philip van Renan alias Philippe Drouin.

When the newcomers landed everything had been arranged to receive and convey them to their new homes along the Berg River in the Drakenstein Valley. In 1687 this beautiful and fertile valley had been named by Commander Simon van der Stel after one of the family seats in Holland of the High Commissioner, Hendrik Adriaan van Reede, Lord of Mydrecht, who had come out to the Cape in 1685 to inspect the Company’s affairs. In the same year twenty-three farms along the Berg River were marked out, each measuring 60 morgen in extent, and given to a like number of agriculturists.’ Six wagons were supplied by the Burgher Councillors of the Cape and six by the Heemraden of Stellenbosch, to transfer the new arrivals and their baggage to Drakenstein. The Company supplied provisions which would last them for a few months, and planks to build temporary shelters.

When the farms were allotted care was taken to scatter the French among the Dutch farmers already settled there and those arriving at the same time. Some were given ground in the Stellenbosch district, but the greater number were at Drakenstein and French Hoek. This intermingling of the Dutch and French caused dissatisfaction among the latter. The Landdrost and Heemraden of Stellenbosch were requested to receive the Reverend Simond with the respect and reverence which his office and position demanded, and to assist him, as much as lay in their power, in erecting a house for himself. Upon his arrival he was conveyed to his destination in comfort and ease.
The majority of the Refugees to the Cape possessed little or nothing when they landed. Many had escaped with only their lives. They erected shelters which could be put up rapidly, and did not waste time upon buildings of an elaborate nature. It is reasonable to suppose that the first structures which they built were of a primitive nature, and none would have been of the class so general during the eighteenth century.
What pioneer in a strange land has ever built his first house with all the comforts and architectural beauty in which he indulges when he has made headway and reaped the good results of his work?

We must look back upon the time, two centuries ago, and imagine these Refugees arriving in a beautiful, extensive and wooded valley, where wild animals such as lions and tigers made their lair, where Hottentots in their wild state roamed about ready to plunder the homestead. Under such conditions and with little money or material, only simple and small dwellings would have been erected. Later on, however, when the Colony expanded and the emigrants saw the good fruits of their labours, they built themselves better houses with many lofty and spacious rooms.
Not long after their coming a subscription list was sent round on their behalf among the older settlers of the Colony and Company’s servants. This was readily responded to by contributions of money, cattle and grain. The fund was given to Reverend Simond and the deacons of the Stellenbosch church for distribution. The records in referring to this collection say that it did the older colonists credit and was most acceptable to the Refugees.
Two years later pecuniary assistance from quite a different source was given to the Huguenots. On the 22nd April, 1689, Commander van der Stel wrote to the Batavian Government and complained of the extreme poverty of the French Refugees, who, he said, would not be able to enjoy the fruits of their work for three or four years to come; they were being supported by the Company and from such means as were available from the poor fund. The settlers had no easy task in preparing their land for cultivation. The ground, which had never been tilled since the world began, was overgrown with bush and roots, and it would take several years to produce some return. Their life at first was full of trials; tools and implements had to be obtained from the Company, to whom they became debtors. He asked that a collection might be made for these poor people; this would relieve the Company of supporting them. The petition was not in vain. Although a collection was not made, a bill of exchange for 6,000 rixdollars, or £1,250, was immediately sent over. This bill was drawn on the Cape Government in favour of the Reverend Pierre Simond, the pastor of the French congregation at Drakenstein.

The money had been in the Batavian Treasury for many years, and represented the poor fund of a church at Formosa, one of the Dutch possessions which had been seized by the Chinese pirate Coxinga, who had compelled the Dutch to evacuate it. This money was taken away and placed in the treasury at Batavia. On the 18th and 19th April, 1690, the Cape Government distributed the amount amongst the French community, who were greatly pleased with a present so welcome in their dire distress.’ Another surprise was in store for them the next day; they received from the Commander, through the Landdrost of Stellenbosch, a present of oxen. They returned to their homes highly pleased, alter having thanked the Commander for his kindly feeling and thought for them.
Article: Extracted from: “The French Refugees at the Cape” – C Graham Botha

To Jan van Riebeeck goes the credit for having made the first attempt to provide services for the travelling public in South Africa. Barely two years after the establishment of the settlement at Table Bay, in 1654, he submitted for the consideration of Geraert Hulst, Director-General of the Dutch East India Company, whose ship Parel was lying in the bay, a request that he (Van Riebeeck) provide, for those visitors for whom facilities could not be furnished at the Fort, ‘a boardinghouse (ordinaris), the keeper to be supplied from the Company’s stores and gardens . . .’ 

Within another two years the Council of Policy, presided over by Van Riebeeck himself, approved a request from ‘the housewife Annetje de Boerin, wife of the Company’s gardener, Hendrick Boom, on account of her eight children, to take out the family income by opening an inn for the feeding and accommodation of men going and coming in passing ships’. The principal condition attached was that she must buy all her liquor from the Company’s own store – the first instance in South Africa of what is today called a ‘tied house’.

On 20 Sept. 1656 Annetje’s establishment met with its first competition when Jannetje Boddijs, of Doesburg, wife of the garrison sergeant, was permitted to open another tavern on similar terms. A fine was to be imposed on any member of the community who, during his working hours, indulged in ‘debauches’. From that date the liquor trade has played a major part in the South African hotel industry.

On a visit to the Cape in Oct. 1657, the Commissioner Rijckloff van Goens sr. confirmed the grant of an innkeeper’s licence to Sergeant Jan van Harwarden, to whom was allocated ‘part of an old sheepfold’ at the Fort as accommodation for travellers. From then on, the number of inns increased, most of them being of a primitive type. Among them may be mentioned De Gouden Anker, De Witte Swaen, De Laatste Penning.

As a rule the lodgers were sailors or soldiers whose demands were modest and who expected shelter for a few slivers a night. Drunkenness and violence were so frequent that the more law-abiding and prosperous strangers, unwilling to use these facilities, usually found lodging in private homes. Not only were the standards higher there, but a steady increase in the demand frequently led to the conversion of such homes into boardinghouses. Describing conditions during the 17305, O. F. Mentzel wrote: ‘Board and lodging can be obtained at these small hostelries for 34 slivers a day; wine is extra, unless it is supplied as part of the meal . . . What has been said above of humble townsmen applies even more forcibly to prominent wealthy burghers, at whose houses captains, superior officers and distinguished visitors sojourn temporarily. The charges and consequently the profits are higher, but the methods are very much the same. At these fashionable houses, board and lodging costs one rix-dollar per diem, with the style of accommodation and the quality of the table of a high standard. Here again extras make the bill mount up.

‘Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the famous French novelist, visiting the Cape in 1768, describes the efforts of rival hosts to secure lodgers from passing ships by sending representatives in boats out into the roadstead. Few records survive of these early hostelries, but we know that the Abbe De la Caille patronised a boarding-house in Strand Street, the site of which is today marked by a memorial tablet. Captain James Cook, the explorer, when he visited the Cape in yes, procured quarters for himself and members of his staff with one Brand, at the rate of half-a-crown a day, ‘for which we were provided with victuals, drink and lodging’.

Hotels in the modern sense made their appearance at the Cape soon after the first British occupation in 1795, the earliest being the Old Thatched Tavern, facing Greenmarket Square, which, despite the disappearance of the original straw roof early in the 19th century, survived, at any rate in name, until 1970. The oldest existing hotel in South Africa seems to be the Houw Hoek Inn in the Houhoek Pass (between Sir Lowry’s Pass and Caledon), which, according to tradition, was founded about 1834.

Very well known in those days in Cape Town was the London Hotel in Hour Street, as well as Morison’s.

Hotel at No. 6 Keizersgracht (now Darling Street), established about 1800 by a Scot of that name. William Wilberforce Bird, in his ‘Notes on the Cape of Good Hope’, described his stay at Morison’s in 1820: ‘We are moderately comfortable, and at a somewhat reduced cost. The charge is six rix-dollars a day, including all expenses. The house is upon the plan of an English boarding-house. A public breakfast at nine; luncheon or tiffin, as it is called, after the Indian fashion (a most essential meal, consisting of meats hot and cold, fruits, wine, etc.) at one; dinner at half-past six. This method is usual at the Cape.

‘Standards of comfort were raised with the opening in 1821 of the St. George’s Hotel at the foot of St. George’s Street, which lasted until the end of the century. Countless others followed, notably Poole’s Hotel in New Street (now Queen Victoria Street), particularly frequented by officials and parliamentarians; Widdow’s Masonic Hotel in Grave Street (now Parliament Street), the resort of Freemasons; and a number of others in the suburbs, notably the Vineyard (on the site of the present Vineyard Hotel in Newlands) and Rathfelder’s, on the way to Constantia. Several early hostelries even gave their names to suburbs, for instance, Drie Koppen, forerunner of Mowbray. Farmer Peck’s Inn at Muizenberg, opened in 1825, was one of the first seaside hotels. Renamed the Grand during the Second Anglo-Boer War, it survived into the 20th century. This had, of course, no connection with the Grand Hotel in Cape Town.

Improved amenities were to be noticed in Cape hotels during the course of the 19th century, especially after the introduction of railways had given a stimulus to travel. In 1893 the Union Steamship Company led the way by opening its own hotel in Cape Town the Grand in Strand Street repeatedly rebuilt and finally demolished in 1973. The establishment of the Grand Hotel led, six years later, to an even more ambitious undertaking by the Castle Steamship Company, headed by Sir Donald Currie, who established a first-rate hotel on the Mount Nelson estate in the Gardens. Designed by English architects and managed at first by a Swiss expert, Emil Cathrein, the Mount Nelson from the outset attracted an exclusive clientele and during the Second AngloBoer War was the unofficial headquarters of the British army and harboured prosperous refugees from the Witwatersrand (hence its nickname ‘The Helots’ Rest’).

Development of hotels in other parts of the country proceeded more slowly, but as early as 1808 there was already an inn beside the warm baths at Caledon. The arrival of the 1820 Settlers gave an impetus to English names and to such customs as the ‘ordinary’ (defined as a fixed-price meal in a public eatinghouse) in the Eastern Province. Among the earliest hotels in Port Elizabeth was the still existing Phoenix, dating back to 1840, while in Grahamstown the Cheshire Cheese (the hotel no longer exists) and similar names reminded the emigrants of the ‘Old Country”

The Boer tradition of private hospitality inhibited the development of hotels in the republics and, although by degrees this factor receded, for a long time both Durban and Pietermaritzburg were in advance of Bloemfontein, Potchefstroom and Pretoria in this respect. The Plough Hotel was one of the earliest in the Natal capital, while, in honour of Prince Alfred, Durban’s leading hostelry was, in 1860, named the Royal, an appellation which persists with great frequency elsewhere.Wayside hotels throughout South Africa were notoriously bad, primitive in their facilities and usually constructed of corrugated iron. Their condition became even more noticeable after the discovery of diamonds, and strangers arriving in Kimberley were frequently offered nothing but canvas. None the less, some of the earlier hotel-keepers there, such as Mrs. Jardine, acquired a reputation for good service and good food. Rough-and-ready were the conditions at early mining centres like Pilgrim’s Rest, Barberton and Johannesburg. In 1886, within a few months of the founding of Johannesburg, the Central Hotel opened in Commissioner Street. It was one of the first brick structures on the gold-fields. Height’s Hotel, one of the leading establishments on the Witwatersrand, dated from 1887, but was demolished some eighty years later. Another early Johannesburg hotel, the Great Britain, in the suburb named City and Suburban, was erected in 1888 and demolished in the 1960s.Barnato and Rhodes helped to produce a revolution in hotel-keeping standards – the former by starting the enterprise which developed into the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg, the latter by causing De Beers to put up a fine hotel on the outskirts of Kimberley and the Chartered Company to sponsor the Grand Hotel at Bulawayo. Equipped in 1906 by the famous London firm of blaring & Gillow at a cost of £750 000, the Carlton’s 200 rooms set an entirely new standard. In Durban, too, there were radical changes, following the opening, about 1880, of the original Beach Hotel, forerunner of the array that today lines the Marine Parade. Here the construction of the Hotel Edward in 1909 further improved the situation, helping to attract the investment of large sums in modern buildings.Hotel development proceeded more slowly in Bloemfontein, where the first hostelries included the Vrystaat Hotel in the 1860′s.

At Pretoria, too, the first hostelries were almost rural in their simplicity, notably L. Taylor’s Edinburgh Hotel in the seventies. Polley’s, originally the Transvaal Hotel, was for many years the premier rendezvous in the Transvaal capital. A still existing early hotel there is the Residentie. Mention must also be made of individual enterprise in unusual places, such as the Hotel Milner, opened by J. D. Logan at Matjiesfontein in the 1880′s, which became a resort popular with many eminent travellers.

After a lapse of generations, the place underwent rejuvenation in the 1970s.In 1882 Anders Ohlsson took over the brewery of the Chevalier Jacob Letterstedt in Newlands, Cape Town; this he modernised and greatly expanded. Ever since his time large South African breweries and liquor firms have been active in the hotel-keeping field, more especially through financial support of lessees; this was the system of ‘tied houses’. Chains of hotels have been relatively few in South Africa until comparatively recent times. Here a milestone was the founding, about 11930, of African Amalgamated Hotels Ltd., owners of leading establishments in Johannesburg and coastal cities.Attempts to improve the standards of hotel-keeping by official action go back to the beginning of the present century, but no practical steps were taken for many years. In 1936 Prof A. J. Norval, of Pretoria, prepared an authoritative survey of the situation in South Africa, published in London under the title. The tourist industry – a national and international survey. This helped to stimulate interest, but not until 1945 was the South African Tourist Corporation established, and only in 1965 was compulsory inspection and classification of hotels introduced. This is now universally enforced, being indicated by grading with varying numbers of stars (up to five) by the Hotels Board. Largely because of this, the rising numbers of well-to-do tourists, and the general influx of capital, even from the United States of America, there has been a sudden upsurge of hotel-building throughout the country. This is still in progress and in it many large companies are involved. 

Source SESA Copyright Naspers