Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel, and Other Historical Sketches

by George McCall Theal

Spirit of the Country Districts.

The governor’s brother, Frans van der Stel, who was not in the Company’s service, had a farm at Hottentots-Holland. He was intensely disliked by the other burghers, on account of his assuming an air of superiority over them, and, depending upon his relative’s support, doing pretty much as he liked. He was in the habit of requiring them to plough his land, to convey his produce to town, and perform other work for him, under threats that if they did not he would see that they should regret it.

There have never been people less inclined to submit quietly to grievances, real or imaginary, than the early colonists of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein. Even at this infant stage of the settlement’s existence they showed that great difference from the inhabitants of Capetown which is observable to the present day. They did not know it then, but it was they who were destined to impart that spirit of hostility to oppression and wrong which has ever since marked the country people of South Africa. It is not without reason that the farmers of the distant north and east to-day regard Stellenbosch and Drakenstein as the mother settlements of the country, and look upon Capetown almost as a foreign city. The spirit of the town is widely different from that of the country. And in 1705, when the first great struggle against tyranny and corruption commenced, the very best men of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, those who had filled the posts of elders and deacons in the church, of heemraden in the district court, and of officers in the militia, were those who threw themselves into it. Among them was Jan Willem Grevenbroek, the most learned man in South Africa at the time, who had retired from the Company’s service, and had recently been an elder at Stellenbosch. His name should command the respect of students of ethnology, though his work has been to some extent distorted by a later writer. He took as active a part in the movement against the governor as was consistent with his character as a modest and godfearing student, though his name does not appear on the principal memorial that will presently be referred to.

Historical Sketches.

The farmers did not know that instructions in their favour had been sent out by the directors, which the governor had disregarded, but they saw plainly that nothing but ruin was before them if matters went on longer as they were then going. The governor was turning every possible source of profit to his own account and that of his relatives and friends. He had eighteen different cattle stations or enormous grazing farms beyond the mountains, and would allow no one but himself and his brother to use the pasture there. His horned cattle numbered, as afterwards ascertained, fully a thousand head, and his sheep were eighteen thousand eight hundred all told. He had a vineyard sixty-one morgen and a half in extent at Vergelegen, and besides his plantations and cornlands there, he had taken possession of another tract of land nearly a hundred and nineteen morgen in extent, upon which he was growing wheat. His expenditure was very small, for he made use of the Company’s servants largely to do his work, and he paid no tithes of his grain to the Company, as the burghers were obliged to do.[69]

The governor had the first entry into the market, and high prices from foreign ships went into his pocket. Then his brother Frans at Hottentots-Holland, his father at Contantia, and the secunde at Elsenburg followed, and by the time all their produce was disposed of little indeed was left that the burghers of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein could sell to good account. In another way too the governor’s conduct was believed to be such as to forfeit the respect of the burghers, who were godfearing men. In his domestic life he was said to follow closely the example of our Charles II, and it was asserted that he had given strict orders that the ten commandments were not to be read in the church when he was present.[70] There is no way of either proving or disproving these charges against him, but the fact that they were made shows in how little esteem he was held.

Grievances of the Burghers.

In 1705 some of the farmers determined to complain to the Indian authorities, and they succeeded in forwarding to the governor-general and council at Batavia a list of charges against him. It was a dangerous thing to do, for if their names should become known, and no redress be afforded, they knew, that they would be made to feel the governor’s vengeance. The council was not regarded as any check upon him, and the military power was entirely at his disposal, so that to brave his anger was an act requiring more than ordinary moral courage. It was the commencement of the struggle against corruption and tyranny by the burghers of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein.

Historical Sketches.