1790 Isaak De Villiers Jansz
This case is one of very few which provide insight into the lives of slave children.1 Lakij, a young slave boy, was whipped and put in chains by his owner, Isaak de Villiers Jansz Lakij complained to a neighbouring burgher, who sent him to the landdrost.
We do not know if any action was taken against De Villiers.2 This brief episode shows the demands made on young slaves, as well as being another indication of the role the authorities could play to check the excesses of slave owners.
Footnotes
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The children of female slaves were also slaves, the property of their mothers’ owners. They could be sold at any age at their owners’ will, although in practice most were kept with their mothers until they were at least of an age to be of greater value. They were defined as children in the opgaafopgaafThe annual census return, for tax purposes, which enumerated burgher families, knechten, slaves, livestock, and crops sown and harvested. Only the names of the household head and spouse were recorded. tax returns until the age of 16 for boys and 14 for girls (reflecting the primacy given to child-bearing for women and to labour for men). They worked with the women and other slaves during peak labour periods, and were also, as in this case, used when older as child-minders or for domestic jobs around the house or farm. See Mentzel 1925: 90 and Worden 1985: 88. ↩
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The case was not sent to the Council of Justice. ↩
1/STB 3/12 Criminele Verklaringen, 1786-1793, unpaginated.
Statement given, on the requisition of the titular merchant and landdrost, the honourable Hendrik Lodewijk Bletterman, and in the presence of the undersigned heemradenheemradenThe origin of this word is uncertain, but is connected to the Dutch words heem (‘homestead’) and raad (‘councillor’). This was the title of a free burgher who served on the Collegie van Heemraden in the rural districts of the Cape, usually for a term of two years., the honourables, Christman Joël Ackerman and Pieter Gerhard Wium, by the little slave boy Lakij, about 12 years old, belonging to the burgher Isaak de Villiers Jansz, going as follows:
That some days ago, the testifier, who had to look after the youngest child of his owner, was ordered by his mistress to fetch a basket from somewhere else, and went to do this and left the child alone on the stoep, and when, a moment thereafter, he heard it crying, he ran back and saw that it had fallen off the stoep.
That his mistress, who discovered this, informed his owner of it, who then had him laid down on the ground and held tight by four jongensjongensLiterally ‘boy.’ In Dutch it was common to use this word also to refer to male servants, irrespective of age. At the Cape, however, this usage was extended to slaves and then became exclusive, so that jongen (also in the deflected form jong) came to mean ‘male slave’, such that Afrikaans lost the use of the word to mean ‘boy’ and instead uses seun (from Dutch zoon) for both ‘boy’ and ‘son.’ In this primary meaning, the word has become obsolete in modern Afrikaans, except for the archaic terms tuinjong (‘garden boy’) and plaasjong (‘farm boy’), in the sense of male workers of colour., while his owner beat him on his buttocks with a sjamboksjambokThis word entered seventeenth-century Dutch via Malay (tjambok) or Javanese (sambok) from Persian (châbuk). It is a whip cut from thick animal skin, usually hippopotamus or rhinoceros, and was already known in the Dutch East Indies as an instrument for punishing slaves. At the Cape it was also used to beat draught animals with. (as the visible scars thereof, as well as lashes previously received on his back, themselves also proved this to the aforementioned heemradenheemradenThe origin of this word is uncertain, but is connected to the Dutch words heem (‘homestead’) and raad (‘councillor’). This was the title of a free burgher who served on the Collegie van Heemraden in the rural districts of the Cape, usually for a term of two years.) and afterwards, when his mistress said that the testifier was a rogue and would run away after receiving the beating, he had a chain put on his leg.
That by eventide the testifier left home and went to the burgher Isaak Minnaar to complain over this; that the said Minnaar kept him that night with him and the following day sent him to Stellenbosch.
There being nothing further to relate, the testifier asserts to be convinced of the accuracy of his statement as in the text, declaring it to be the whole truth.
Thus related at the office of the secretary in Stellenbosch on 11 January 1790.
This mark X was set down with his own hand by the testifier.
As delegates, [signed] C. Joël Ackerman, P.G. Wium.
With my cognisance, [signed] J.P. Faure, secretary.
Relaas gegeeven, ter requisitie van den koopman titulair en landdrost, de heer Hendrik Lodewijk Bletterman, en ten overstaan van de ondergeteekende heemraden, d’ edele Christman Joël Ackerman en Pieter Gerhard Wium, door het slaven jongetjen Lakij, oud circa twaalf jaren, toebehorende den burger Isaak de Villiers Jansz luijdende aldus:
Dat den relatant, die het jongsten kind van desselfs lijfheer moesten oppassen, door desselfs lijfvrouw, voor eenige dagen geleeden, gelast zijnde om elders een mand te halen, tot dat eijnde was heen gegaan en het kind op die stoep alleen gelatende, een ogenblik daarna hetselve horende schreijen, schielijk terug gelopen en toen gezien had dat het van de stoep was gevallen.
Dat desselfs lijfvrouw, die daarop toegekomen was, zulx aan des relatants lijfheer gewaarschuwt hebbende, denselven hem relatant door vier jongens op de grond hadden doen nederleggen en vasthouden, terwijl gemelde zijn lijfheer hem relatant met een sjambok op de billen geslagen (gelijk daarvan, zowel als de, bevorens op de rugge ontfangene slagen, den opgemelde heemraden ook den zigtbare wonden zig vertoonden) en voorts op het zeggen zijner lijfvrouw, dat hij relatant een schelm was en, na die bekomene slagen, zoude drossen, hem een ketting om het been had gedaan.
Dat den relatant tegens den avond van huijs was gegaan na den burger Isaak Minnaar om daarover klagtig te vallen, gemelde Minnaar hem ’s nagts bij zig gehouden en daags daaraan na Stellenbosch had gesonden.
Niets meer verklarende, geevt den relatant voor redenen van wetenschap als in den text, betuijgende zulx de zuijvere waarheijd te zijn.
Aldus gerelateerd ter secretarije aan Stellenbosch, den 11e Januarij 1790.
Dit merkteken X is van den relatant eijgenhandig gesteld.
Als gecommitteerdens, [get.] C. Joël Ackerman, P.G. Wium.
In kennisse van mij, [get.] J.P. Faure, secretaris.