Cape Melting Pot the Role and Status of the Mixed Population at the Cape 1652-1795
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CAPE MELTING POT THE ROLE AND STATUS OF THE MIXED POPULATION AT THE CAPE 1652-1795 AS TRANSLATED BY DELIA ROBERTSON FROM GROEP SONDER GRENSE DIE ROL EN STATUS VAN DIE GEMENGDE BEVOLKING AAN DIE KAAP 1652- 1795 BY H.F. HEESE, M.A., PH.D ANNA DE KONING “MIXED” WIFE OF OLAF BERGH OLAF BERGH PORTRAITS OF ANNA DE KONING (ELLIOT COLLECTION E3313) AND OLAF BERGH (ELLIOT COLLECTION E2820) USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE CAPE ARCHIVES REPOSITORY CAPE MELTING POT THE ROLE AND STATUS OF THE MIXED POPULATION AT THE CAPE 1652 - 1795 AS TRANSLATED BY DELIA A. ROBERTSON FROM GROEP SONDER GRENSE BY H H.F. HEESE, M.A.; P .D. ISBN 0620-34153-X For my mother Aileen Patricia Kaufmann 1920-1999 from her I learned to own my womanhood and to value my female strength and my father Duncan Cecil Robertson 1918-1992 from him I learned to always question; and that it is possible to learn, evolve and grow to your final breath from them both, I learned to be forthright 4 © 2015 Delia Robertson 5 © 2015 Delia Robertson ABOUT CAPE MELTING POT When first published in 1985, Groep Sonder Grense, Dr. Hans (H.F.) Heese’s seminal work on the interracial relationships among the residents of the early Cape (1652-1795) had a profound effect on South African society. The reader is reminded that in 1985, when Groep Sonder Grense was first published, South Africa was in the grip of one of its most repressive periods in history. The government, under the leadership of then President P.W. Botha, responded with extreme violence to a freshly invigorated struggle against apartheid. The year 1984 had seen the launch of the United Democratic Front, in essence a newly public internal wing of the African National Congress, whose leaders were born out of the 1976 Soweto Student Uprising. Imbued with a militancy that responded with ever greater defiance to ever greater repression, these young leaders were determined to take the struggle to the heart of the ruling community. In exile, the ANC leadership had little choice but to sanction a shift in the armed struggle away from inanimate and military targets such as power lines and military bases, to animate and non-military targets, including so-called “soft” targets, i.e. civilians. This period was marked by widespread state sponsored violence, government dirty tricks, and the introduction of the pervasive Joint Management System in which the reach and control of the security apparatus was extended to every aspect of human activity. During this crucial time, Dr. Heese exposed, more comprehensively and more scientifically than anyone before him, the racially mixed origins of South Africa’s so- called white population. Many “white” families, along with the so-called coloured population, descend from interracial unions between the European occupying population, imported African and Asian slaves, the indigenous populations, and their vari-hued offspring. Groep Sonder Grense was published only in Afrikaans by the Institute for Historical Research of the University of the Western Cape. As a result it passed by many potential readers (in South Africa and abroad) who it may have reached if it had also been published in English. In the year 2000, with Dr. Heese’s very kind cooperation, it was decided to translate Groep Sonder Grense into English, published under the title Cape Melting Pot. This version, is now being published on CD in a searchable format. In the 20 years since Groep Sonder Grense was first published, some of Dr. Heese’s findings have been updated by new research. In those cases where I am aware of later research that updates, supplements or refutes the original, I have directed the reader to the subsequent work in footnotes, thus: [. .] Because of the classical nature and importance of the original, it was decided to keep Cape Melting Pot, with a few exceptions, true to the original text. Delia Robertson Translator & Publisher 6 © 2015 Delia Robertson 7 © 2015 Delia Robertson ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am deeply indebted to Hans Heese for allowing me to undertake this task and for his support and encouragement throughout. Hans also provided additional entries for the appendices and checked the manuscript for accuracy and intent. I am especially grateful for his help in settling on the English title. My brother Patrick Robertson gave up hours of leave time to wade through a first draft. His incisive comments and notes put me back on track at a time when I was floundering. My interest in this period was piqued by Mansell Upham. I am grateful to him for sharing some of his seemingly boundless knowledge, for help with Old Dutch phrases and words and for the amendments he provided for the appendices. COMMENT BY THE AUTHOR I was honored when Delia Robertson approached me to translate and publish in English my Groep sonder Grense. At the time of research and writing in the early 1980s, I had a purely local, mainly Afrikaans speaking readership in mind. It never entered my mind that Groep sonder Grense would become so controversial and be quoted from during numerous parliamentary debates - which eventually led to the scrapping of the Mixed Marriages Act and Immorality Acts. Delia Robertson managed to reflect the original content and academic intent of the Afrikaans publication. At the same time she magnificently succeeded in translating the text for an English-speaking, universal readership. I am proud to be associated with Cape Melting Pot. HANS HEESE 8 © 2015 Delia Robertson 9 © 2015 Delia Robertson CONTENTS ABOUT CAPE MELTING POT ............................................................................... 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... 11 COMMENT BY THE AUTHOR .............................................................................. 11 PREFACE - ORIGINAL ...................................................................................... 15 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 19 CHAPTER 1 - MELTING POT 1652-1795 ............................................................ 27 1. UNIONS BETWEEN WHITES AND SLAVES ...................................................................................................... 28 1.1 MARRIAGES BETWEEN WHITES AND SLAVES ......................................................................................... 28 1.1.2 MARRIAGES OF WHITES TO SLAVES BORN AT THE CAPE (VAN DIE KAAP) ...................................... 30 2.1 EXTRA-MARITAL UNIONS BETWEEN WHITES AND SLAVES ................................................................... 34 2.1.1 EXTRA-MARITAL UNIONS BETWEEN WHITES AND “RACIALLY PURE” FEMALE SLAVES .................... 35 3.1 MARRIAGE BETWEEN WHITES AND FREE COLOUREDS ........................................................................... 38 3.1.1 MARRIAGES OF WHITES WITH FREE COLOUREDS ................................................................................ 39 FIGURE 1.1 DESCENT OF JOHANNES BASSON .................................................................................................. 40 3.1.2 MARRIAGES OF WHITES TO COLOUREDS (BORN AFTER THEIR PARENT(S) WAS (WERE) FREED) ..... 41 3.1.3. WHITES WHO MARRIED DESCENDANTS OF COLOURED IMMIGRANTS WHO WERE NEVER ENSLAVED ....................................................................................................................................................... 43 CHAPTER 2 - COLOUR AND ECONOMIC STATUS ............................................. 45 1. “WHITE” STATUS GROUP ....................................................................................................................... 49 1.1 EUROPEANS ......................................................................................................................................... 49 TABLE 2.1 TAX ROLL OF WILLEM SCHALK VAN DER MERWE, 1663-1705 ...................................................... 52 TABLE 2.2 TAX ROLLS FOR HENNING HÜSING, 1682-1716 ............................................................................. 52 1.2 INDIVIDUALS OF EUROPEAN ANCESTRY BORN AT THE CAPE .......................................................... 53 1.3 INDIVIDUALS OF PART SLAVE ANCESTRY BUT ACCEPTED IN EUROPEAN SOCIETY ........................ 53 2. “COLOURED” STATUS GROUPS ................................................................................................................... 54 2.1 FREE-BLACKS OF ASIAN/AFRICAN ANCESTRY .................................................................................. 54 2.2 FREE-BLACKS OF MIXED ANCESTRY ................................................................................................... 56 2.3 FREEBORN IMMIGRANTS OF EASTERN ORIGIN ................................................................................. 57 2.4 FREEBORN OF MIXED DESCENT .......................................................................................................... 58 3. THE SPREAD OF WEALTH AMONG THE FREE RESIDENTS OF THE CAPE ................................................ 58 3.1 THE RESIDENTS OF CAPE TOWN ........................................................................................................ 58 TABLE 2.3 SLAVES PER HOUSEHOLD IN CAPE TOWN (FARMS EXCLUDED) .................................................... 58 3.2 THE FARMING COMMUNITY IN THE CAPE DISTRICT ............................................................................. 59 TABLE 2.4 RATIO OF SLAVES PER WHITE FARM OWNER WITH A WHITE WIFE ...............................................