Cape of torments Slavery and resistance in South Africa Robert ROSS Routledge & Kegan Paul London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley First published in 1983 by Routledge & Kegan Paul plc 39 Store Street, London WC1E 7DD. 9 Park Street, Boston, Mass. 02108, USA, 296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne, 3206, Australia, and Broadway House, Newtown Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 1EN Printed in Great Britain by T.J. Press (Padstow) Ltd., Cornwall <u Robert ROSS 1983 No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except for the Quotation of brief passages in criticism Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data ROSS, Robert, 1949 July 26- Cape of Torments. (International library of anthropology) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Slavery - South Africa - Cape of Good Hope. 2. Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) - Social conditions. 3. Direct action. 4. Government, Resistance to. I. Title. II. Series. HT1391.R67 1983 326'.09687 82-21476 ISBN 0-7100-9407-8 IV For Tilla and in memory of Johanna Contents Acknowledgments viii Abbreviations ix Glossary x 1 Introduction l 2 The Beginning and the Setting 11 3 The Structure of Domination 29 4 The slaves and the Khoisan 38 5 Hanglip 54 6 The Slaves and the Sailors 73 7 The Slaves and the Africans 81 8 The Impossibility of Rebellion 96 9 Conclusion 117 Appendix: The Hanglip maroons 122 Maps 125 Notes 127 Bibliography 146 Index 154 va Acknowledgments The archivists and librarians of the various institutions in which the research for this book was done were invariably most helpful. These include the Algemeen Rijksarchief and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Den Haag, the Cape Archives and the South African Public Library, Cape Town, the Cambridge University Library, and the Afrika-Studiecentrum and the University Library, Leiden. The Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research provided funding for a short research trip to Cape Town in 1979, for which I am most grateful. My colleagues at the Centre for the History of European Expansion and the Sub-faeulty of History in Leiden made the atmosphere for work there remarkably congenial. In particular, long discussions and collaborative writing with Dick van Arkel, Pieter van Duin and Chris Quispel have done much to further my understanding of early South African society, which I hope has been reflected in this book. Mevr. R. de Kock-Ververda proved a competent and highly enthusiastic typist. In the course of researching and writing this book, I have benefited from the advice and knowledgë of a host of friends who responded to my requests to catch all the runaway slaves they came across, or who have read and commented on the manuscript in its various incarnations. Specific contributions have, I hope, been fully acknowledged in the notes, although there are some that can only been alluded to, without further reference. These include, in alphabetical order, William Beinart, Leonard Blussé, Henry Bredenkamp, Jaap Bruijn, Stan Engerman, Verny February, Femme Gaastra, Herman Giliomee, Hans Heese, Adam Kuper, Tilla van der Loon, Canby Malherbe, Susie Newton- King, John Parkington, Neil Parsons, Jeff Peires, Mary Rayner, Christopher Saunders, Rob Shell, Andy Smith, Christian Uhlenbeck and Nigel Worden. If, from this list, I single out Tilla van der Loon, it is not only for her critical reading. There . re very many other reasons for it, which she knows too well to be told, at least in public. vin Abbreviations 'AYB': 'Archives Year-book for South African History' CA: Cape Archives c.s.: Cum suis 'JÄH1: 'Journal of African History' LR: Landrost 'RCC': G. McC. Theal (ed.), 'Records of the Cape Colony', 36 volumes, London, 1896 -1905 'RCP': 'Resolutions of the Council of Policy' 'SSA1: 'Collected Seminar Papers of the Institute of Common- wealth Studies, London, The Societies of Southern Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries' VOC: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company), and also the archives of that body, held in the Algemene Rijksarchief, The Hague XVII: The Heren XVII, the Directors of the VOC IX Glossary baas: boss, master, hence baasskap: mastery. Bastard: of mixed descent, hence Bastard-Hottentot: someone of mixed Khoisan and white or slave descent. Bomvana: an Nguni-speaking group living in the southern Transkei Bosjesmans-Hottentot/Bushman: see San. burgher: citizen, a man who has been accorded rights of citizenry, and thus no longer in the service of the VOC. burgherraad: burgher council in Cape Town, also member of the Council. burgherwagt: civilian watch in Cape Town, see also ratelwagt. Caffer: in the eighteenth Century this had t wo meanings (1) Xhosa, or more generally African, (2) hangman's or fiscaal's assistent. Cochoqua: A Khoikhoi group in the south-west Cape. coeligeld: see koeligeld. complot: plot, hence complotteren, to plot. coopman: merchant, an official rank in the VOC hierarchy, hence ondercoopman: undermerchant. Coranna: see IKora. drossen : to runaway, desert, hence drosser, runaway , gedrost, ran away. fiscaal: public prosecutor, head of police. geweldiger: fiscaal's subordinate, in charge of Cape Town's police. Gqunukwebe: mixed Khoisan-Xhosa group. Grigriqua (also Guriqua): Khoikhoi group living near Saldanha Bay. Griqua: Bastard group living north of the Orange River. Heren XVII: The directors of the VOC. Hottentot: see Khoisan. Khoisan: the indigenous inhabitants of South-western Africa, generally divided between the Khoikhoi (or Hottentots), who were herders with a more organised political structure, and San (Bushmen or Bosjemans-Hottentots), who were hunter- gatherers and raiders, kirry: stick, club . knegt: servant, generally a man hired by the VOC to one of the burghers, and acting as overseer. koeligeld: money earned by a slave in Cape Town, generally by retail selling or providing some service, which had to be turned over to his or her owner. !Kora: Khoikhoi group living along the Orange River, and later throughout Transorangia. Giossary xi legger: a barrel of wine containing 152 gallons, mandoor: a slave headman, (in American usage, driver). Mpondo: an Nguni-speaking group living in the eastern Transkei, mud: a measure of volume for wheat and other grains, equivalent to a hectolitre. Nama: a Khoikhoi group living in the north-west Cape and southern Namibia. Ndebele: an Nguni-speaking group, arising after the 1820s, living first in the Transvaal and then in Zimbabwe. Nguni: a Bantu language group, also the people who speak those languages. ondercoopman: see coopman. onderschout: see schout. perstijd: the time of year in which grapes were pressed to make wine. plakaat: edict. politieruiter: mounted policeman in service of the landrost. Poolsche bok: a rack, on which slaves were tied to be flogged. posthouder: the commander of a VOC post. ratelwagt: civilian watch in Cape Town; see also burgherwagt. recognitiegeld: tax for a loan farm. rijksdaalder: the coin of the Dutch republic, worth four Shillings in 1795, thereafter known as Rixdollar. schout: the fiscaal's second-in-command, thus also onderschout, sjambok: a rawhide (or hippopotamus hide) whip. slavenhuys: slave quarters. Sotho: a Bantu-speaking group living in and around Lesotho, taal: language. tamboer: drummer, tap; drinking shop. Thembu: an Nguni-speaking group living north of the Xhosa. Tswana: speakers of a Bantu language closely related to the Sotho, living in Transorangia, the Transvaal and Botswana, uytjes: bulbs. veldcornet: elected head of a subdistrict and its militia. veldkos: wild food that can be gathered. veldwachtmeester: an early designation for veldcornet. volk: people, in South Africa often used for labourers. Xhosa: an Nguni-speaking group living immediately to the east of the Cape Colony. l Introduction In the winter of 1488, Bartholomew Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa. To that point that marks the division between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, hè gave the name 'Cabo Tormentuoso', because of the tempests hc had to endure in nis frail ships. Later, when they realised that the peninsula hè had passed indeed marked the entry to the great trading world of the east that they sought, the Portuguese changed its name to the Cabo de Bonne Esperanze , the Cape of Good Hope. The hopes of Bartholomew Dias and of nis king Joao II were fulfilled. Within a decade Vasco da Gama had reached the west coast of India and for the next Century Portugal was to prey on the commerce of the Indian Ocean and, until that pre-eminence was shattered by the Dutch and the English, to be a power in the world such as it never had been before, nor has been since. But for those who have come to live at the Cape the storms have not yet ceased. Ever since, a Century and a half after Dias's voyage, the Dutch founded a colony there, life has been harsh for many, for most of the people who have lived at the Cape of Good Hope and in the country of South Africa which is the successor of Van Riebeeck's settlement. South Africa has become the most criticised, the most hated, land in the world. It was not so in the past, but that is merely because the criteria by which these things are judged have changed; and because it was not then the exception that it is now that it has become rieh through the industrialisation following the discovery of mineral wealth some hundred years ago. Long before this, though, the Cape Colony was a brutal place. For longer than the period which separates us from abolition the ruling class of the Cape owned slaves, the colony's economy being organised around slave labour. And there has never been such a society that was not brutal in the extreme. A mild slave regime is a contradiction in terms. Slavery is a form of social oppression that is based on the use of force, which is always available to, and frequently employed by, the slave-owning class to impress its will on the slaves.