The conditions laid down by the Company to freemen varied slightly in each little colony: there were three along the Blue shadow:
'1. They might fish in the rivers, but not for sale.
'2. The Company would sell them at ploughing time a plough and twelve oxen. The ground should be theirs for ever.
'3. That they should grow tobacco.'
These are some of the rules. Everyone knows the story of how the rules later became unbearable—the fixing of selling-prices by the Company, the paying of taxes, the limitations set on selling produce to the ships.
The conditions, however, and the dangers from the Hottentots on the east side of the shadow, were thankfully accepted.
In the old records there is the entry which explains the position of these little colonies:
'February 21, 1657.
'Fine sunshine, fickle weather.'
'Many having been informed of the intention of the Masters to establish freemen all about and under favourable conditions, a party of five selected a locality on the other side of the Fresh River (Liesbeek), named by us the Amstel, below the forests and beyond it where our woodcutters are, near the crooked tree about three leagues from the Fort, and as long and broad as they wished it, on condition that they were to remain on the other side of the river. Another party of four selected a spot about a league nearer, at the Rondebosjen, on this side of the river or Amstel, from the small bridge leading to the forest as far as the spot chosen for the redoubt, near where the bird trap is to be built. The boundary of that land will be three-quarters of a league long, the river will divide them from the other party, and they will go back as far as they like to Table Mountain and the other mountains. The party of five may go forward towards the mountains of the continent proper, as far as they like; these two parties are therefore stationed right on the isthmus in fruitful soil. The further colony has therefore been named Amstel, or the Groeneveld, and the farthest redoubt will be about quarter of a league beyond it. The nearer colony at Rondebosjen (which is to be converted into a cattle kraal and to be provided with a gate) is to be called the "Dutch garden." A redoubt will also be built there.'