Knowledge and Colonialism: Eighteenth-Century Travellers in South Africa Atlantic World
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Knowledge and Colonialism: Eighteenth-century Travellers in South Africa Atlantic World Europe, Africa and the Americas, 1500–1830 Edited by Wim Klooster Clark University and Benjamin Schmidt University of Washington VOLUME 18 Knowledge and Colonialism: Eighteenth-century Travellers in South Africa By Siegfried Huigen LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 On the cover: “Coba Caffer Captein” (Gordon Atlas, G75). Courtesy of the Rijkspren- tenkabinet, Amsterdam. This book was originally published as Verkenningen van Zuid-Afrika. Achttiende-eeuwse reizigers aan de kaap (2007). This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Huigen, Siegfried. Knowledge and colonialism : eighteenth-century travellers in South Africa / by Siegfried Huigen. p. cm. — (Atlantic world : Europe, Africa, and the Americas, 1500–1830 ; v. 18) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17743-7 (hbk. : alk. paper) 1. Cape of Good Hope (South Africa)—Description and travel. 2. Cape of Good Hope (South Africa)—Description and travel—Sources. 3. Travelers—South Africa—Cape of Good Hope—History— 18th century. 4. Europeans—South Africa—Cape of Good Hope—History—18th century. 5. Ethnology—South Africa—Cape of Good Hope—History—18th century. 6. Ethnological expeditions—South Africa—Cape of Good Hope—History—18th century. 7. South Africa—History—To 1836. 8. South Africa—Colonial infl uence. 9. South Africa—Description and travel. 10. South Africa—Description and travel— Sources. I. Title. II. Series. DT2020.H85 2009 968.03—dc22 2009017888 ISSN 1570-0542 ISBN 978 90 04 17743 7 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishers, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Preface ......................................................................................... vii List of Illustrations ...................................................................... ix Chapter One Wagon Routes: An Introduction ............................................ 1 Chapter Two Peter Kolb’s Defence of the “Hottentots” (1719) ................ 33 Chapter Three Expeditions from Fort Lijdsaamheijd: The voc and the Geography of Southern Africa in the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century ................................................................ 59 Chapter Four Trade and Science: Reports of the voc Expedition by Hendrik Hop from 1761–1762 .............................................. 75 Chapter Five Xhosa and Khoikhoi “Households”: Representations of Inhabitants of Southern Africa in the Gordon Atlas ............ 93 Chapter Six The Adventures of a Surinamese Frenchman in South Africa: The Travel Accounts of François le Vaillant .... 119 Chapter Seven A ‘Black Legend’ of Dutch Colonialism in the Travels (1801–1804) of John Barrow .................................................. 147 Chapter Eight Batavian Colonial Politics and Travel Accounts About South Africa ....................................................................................... 169 vi contents Chapter Nine The First Ethnographic Monograph: De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika (1810) by Lodewyk Alberti ..................................... 191 Chapter Ten Conclusion: Knowledge and Colonialism .............................. 209 Annex One Independent Editions and Translations of Peter Kolb’s Capvt Bonae Spei Hodiernvm in the Eighteenth Century ........... 241 Annex Two Structure of the Nieuwste en Beknopte Beschryving van de Kaap der Goede-Hope ................................................................................ 245 Sources and Bibliography ........................................................... 247 Index ........................................................................................... 265 Illustration Section PREFACE South Africa played an important role in the formation of an image of Africa in Europe during the ‘long eighteenth century’. The deep interior of the country was accessible only from the Cape. Except for a few settlements along the coast, the rest of Africa south of the Sahara was a closed territory to Europeans until the nineteenth century. This book analyses how Southern Africa was represented in words and images during the period when the Cape Colony was under the jurisdiction of the voc (Dutch East India Company) and the Dutch state (1652–1814). Southern Africa was explored by travellers of various nationalities and with various objectives. Besides the landreizigers (overland travel- lers) employed by the voc, who explored only the economic potential of the interior, scientifi c travellers also arrived in South Africa in the eighteenth century. These men—most of them from other countries than the Netherlands—came looking for answers to questions that occupied European scholars. Everything between heaven and earth attracted their interest. They usually published their fi ndings, and in this way they sometimes reached a large audience. In this book I have generally emphasised the ethnographic repre- sentations in travel accounts and in images. All travel accounts have something to say about the culture and the appearance of the indig- enous population. The extent of the ethnographic description could range from incidental remarks to, in exceptional cases, a complete book on an indigenous population group such as De Kaffers aan de Zuidkust van Afrika (The Kaffi rs on the South Coast of Africa), written by the Dutch army offi cer Ludwig Alberti in 1810. I also refer to zoological and cartographic representations in passing. The full manuscript of the original Dutch version of this book, which was published in 2007, was read by Ena Jansen, Jean Kommers and Helize van Vuuren. Adriënne Zuiderweg and Kees Rookmaaker read some chapters. Herman Roodenburg made valuable comments on an earlier version of chapter 5 that had appeared as an article in the Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek; Marijke Meijer Drees did likewise with chapter 8, which had been published in a different form in Nederlandse Letterkunde. The comments of these readers were very helpful. Jean Kom- mers in particular very generously supplied additional information and viii preface comments. Many other people also offered assistance during the research for and preparation of the manuscript. To all of them my sincere thanks. I also thank Tony Moen for the translation into English and Stellenbosch University for providing funds for making the translation possible. Stellenbosch, February 2009 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Cover illustration. Portrait of Xhosa chief Coba, wearing a Dutch gren- adier’s cap. (Rijksprentenkabinet, Amster dam, Gordon Atlas, G75) Figure 1. The Heerenlogement, west of the present Clanwilliam (pho- tograph by author) Figure 2. Inscription by François le Vaillant on the wall of the Heeren- logement (photograph by Brandaan Huigen) Figure 3. Woman with the infamous Hottentot apron, i.e. elongated labia minora (François le Vaillant, Voyage, 1790). In the collection of Vaillant drawings in the Library of Parliament in Cape Town there is a life-size drawing of this phenomenon that has never been published Figure 4. Schematic map of the extent of the Cape Colony in 1712 and in 1798, after the offi cial determination of the border Figure 5. “Camp de la giraffe” (Camp of the giraffe). In the foreground the prepared skin of a giraffe (François le Vaillant, Second Voyage, 1795) Figure 6. Dr Mossop with his car tracing a route followed by the voc travellers. Mossop was an amateur historian and motor-car enthusiast (E.E. Mossop, Old Cape Highways, 1926) Figure 7. Portrait of Peter Kolb (Peter Kolb, Capvt Bonae Spei Hodiernvm, 1719) Figure 8. Title page of Peter Kolb’s Capvt Bonae Spei Hodiernvm, 1719 Figure 9. A child being abandoned by the Khoikhoi (“was sie mit Zwill- ingen thun”—what they do with twins). The different ways in which a child can be abandoned are indicated with the letters C, D and E in the illustration (Peter Kolb, Capvt Bonae Spei Hodiernvm, 1719) Figure 10. After one testicle had been surgically removed, the “capon- maker”, according to Kolb, urinated on his patient to conclude the ritual (Peter Kolb, Capvt Bonae Spei Hodiernvm, 1719) Figure 11. Frontispiece of the fi rst, Amsterdam edition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discours sur l’inégalité of 1755. The illustration is based on an anecdote Rousseau had borrowed from Kolb. It shows how a Khoikhoi man who had come to know European civilisation returns his clothes for an indigenous loincloth x list of illustrations Figure 12. The trading post at Delagoa Bay in 1722, drawn by Jacob de Bucquoi (Nationaal Archief, The Hague, VEL.856B) Figure 13. Nicolas Sanson’s map—“Pays et Coste des Caffres: Empires de Momotapa Monoemugi &c.”—used by the voc employee Van de Capelle as proof that Monomotapa could be reached by river boat (N. Sanson, L’Afriqvue, en plvsieurs cartes novvelles, 1656) Figure 14. A recently discovered natural wonder, the giraffe (Nieuwste en beknopte