Dutch Colonial Archaeology the Cape of Good Hope

Dutch Colonial Archaeology: the Cape of Good Hope

The Dutch Golden Age (1584 -1702) Milkmaid 1658 -1660 Vermeer Girl with a Pearl Earring 1665 -6 Vermeer

The Dutch Golden Age (1584 -1702) Portrait of the Syndics of the Cloth-makers’ Guild - Rembrandt

The 17 th century Dutch World

Cornelis de Houtman 1565 -1599 Discovered a new sea route to Indonesia challenging the Portuguese monopoly on Far Eastern trade and starting the Dutch Spice trade By 1600 dozens of Dutch merchant ships were travelling east. The intense competition among Dutch merchants had a destabilizing effect on prices driving the government to insist on consolidation in order to avoid commercial ruin

The Dutch East India Company - VOC Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC (United East India Company) established 1602 Granted a 21 year monopoly on trade in Asia by the newly formed States-General of the Netherlands First multi-national corporation, and first company to issue stock Possessed quasi-governmental powers. Could declare war and negotiate peace , establish colonies, and mint own coins

The Dutch East India Company - VOC The VOC consisted of six Chambers (Kamers) in port cities: Amsterdam, Delft, Rotterdam, Enkhuizen, Middelburg and Hoorn. Delegates of these chambers convened as the Heeren XVII (the Lords Seventeen) Of the Heeren XVII, eight delegates were from the Chamber of Amsterdam

In 1619 the Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company, Jan Pieterszoon-Coen took 19 ships and siezed Jayakarta The city was re-named Batavia and became the headquarters of the VOC in Asia Statue of Jan Pieterszoon-Coen in Hoorn

VOC headquarters - Amsterdam VOC was an important trading concern for almost 200 years It paid an 18% annual dividend on investments Declared bankrupt and formally dissolved in 1800

VOC possessions and debts were taken over by the government of the Batavian Republic (modern Java) The VOC's territories became the Dutch East Indies These were expanded over the course of the 19 th century to include the whole of the Indonesian archipelago Became Indonesia in the 20 th century

Khoikhoi Colonial Encounters The Khoikhoi ("people") or Khoi are a division of the Khoisan ethnic group of south-western Africa, related to the Bushmen (San) They are pastoralists and migrated south into the Cape peninsula c. 2, 000 years ago. Animal husbandry (sheep and cattle) gave them a stable, balanced diet and they lived in larger groups than the hunter -gatherer San. Khoi migratory bands came into contact with European explorers and merchants from c. AD 1500; these encounters often led to violence

Death of Francisco de Almeida, Viceroy of the Portuguese Indies, Table Bay, 1510

Dutch Settlement of Cape 1652 1648 – 60 survivors of the wrecked Dutch ship the Haerlem sheltering on Table Bay for 1 year before being rescued 1652 - VOC establish permanent settlement there to provision passing ships en route to Amsterdam or the East Indies Jan Van Riebeeck sent to claim territory, checking there were no English ships in the Bay before laying claim, with orders from the VOC: “As soon as you are in a proper state of defence you shall search for the best place for gardens, the best and fattest ground in which everything planted or sown will thrive”

Dutch forts

Second Dutch fort built 1666 -1679

Second Dutch Fort 1666 -1679 The forts was originally built on the beach, but the land has been reclaimed and the sea is now 2 Km away

Dutch called khoi Hottentots (it means "stutterer" in Dutch, although the word "stotteraar" described the clicking sounds used in Khoisan languages When the Dutch East India Company enclosed Khoi grazing land for farms, war broke out The Khoi were steadily driven off their land exposed to smallpox

Bitter disputes when the Cochoqua realized that the Dutch were not simply seasonal visitors

Early 18 th century Cape Town: fort, garden, grid

Greenmarket Square 1762 by Johannes Rach

Slaves First boatloads of slaves arrived in Table Bay in 1656 The subsequent massive expansion of wheat and vine cultivation depended on slave labour In 1731 slaves formed 42 per cent of the population of Cape Town Most slaves owned by VOC. Half of these were women from Madagascar, Mozambique, East Indies

VOC Slave Lodge

VOC Slave lodge Towards the close of VOC rule in 1790 s two thirds of the Cape Town population were classified as slaves. Slavery in Cape Town was abolished by British in 1834 (emancipation 1838)

Themes in the archaeology of colonial settlement in Southern Africa The Archaeology of Impact Carmel Schrire excavated VOC Oudepost I & II, and explored contemporary herder sites of the Cape west coast. “ I became an archaeologist because I wanted to drive around in a big Land rover, smoking, cursing, and finding treasure” Carmel Schrire Digging Through Darkness, 1995

Oudepost I ‘Old Post’ 1669 -1732 Initially established to head off French, 120 km north of Castle of Good Hope, garrisoned by 4 -10 men, living off the land shooting game, invading gatherer niche.

Oudepost I ‘Its linkages with the great East India Company, of which it was no more than a mote in the sunbeam, are seen here in Bellarmines from north Europe, Delft from Holland, French gun flints, Dutch pipes for smoking tobacco from Brazil and Virginia, porcelain from China and Japan, martavan stoneware from Java’

Themes in the archaeology of colonial settlement in Southern Africa The Archaeology of the Underclass Martin Hall worked on at the estate of Vergelegen near modern day Somerset West, looking for evidence of slave lives. He also excavated within the Grain Store at the Castle and other sites in Cape Town

Themes in the archaeology of colonial settlement in Southern Africa The Archaeology of the Mind J. Gribble has applied Glassie’s structuralist approach buildings to vernacular architecture of the Verlorenvlei area on the Cape west coast

Themes in the archaeology of colonial settlement in Southern Africa The Archaeology of the Text Yvonne Brink studied the emergence of new architectural forms in the Cape countryside. In the early 18 th century farmers were marginalized by the official VOC hierarchy, so responded in a “language” of material culture