IN TROUBLE IN THE ORANGE FREE STATE

JACOB SELIGMANN IN THE ORANGE FREE STATE BY ADAM YAMEY In the early part of the second half of the 19th century a number of people left Ichenhausen in Bavaria to seek their fortune in and around the small town of Rouxville in the Orange Free State, the Southern African Boer Republic. Many of them were related to each other by matrimony or by blood (by sharing a common ancestor, Jakob Seligmann of Ichenhausen 1775-1842.: see Figure 1). Most of these migrants either stayed in Africa or retired to Germany after making their fortunes. My mother's paternal grand-uncle Sigmund Seligmann (1856-1939) was one of these pioneers. He came out to Rouxville in 1874, and after working there for two years, he moved to Lady Grey, then, later, to Barkly East where he opened his own business in 1885. This was very successful: he retired to Germany in the late 1890s after having transferred the running of his business to some of his nephews, including my mother's father, Iwan Bloch (1886-1931) Iwan Bloch arrived in South Africa in 1903. He succeeded some of his older nephews as director of his uncle's firm a few years later.. Sigmund's brother Jacob Jacob was most likely known as "Jakob", but to avoid confusion with his grandfather Jakob, I have chosen to anglicize his name. Seligmann (1846-1900), also from Ichenhausen, differed from his relatives in that after spending some time in Africa he moved to the USA Jacob Seligmann was one of the 18 children of Isak Rafael Seligmann (1813-1870), the only son of Jakob Seligmann. On the Seligmann family tree, "Die Nachkommen des Jakob Seligmann", drawn in 1933, and revised in 1966, by Reinhold Seligmann, the son of Jacob's brother Sigmund, there is the following note, in German, next to Jacob's name, "1846-1900. Rouxville (Süd Afrika) dann Chicago".. This essay tries to determine his story. Jacob went to South Africa following in the footsteps of his cousin Henry Bergmann Henry was a son of Jakob's daughter Klara (1807-1884) who was a sister of Jacob's father Isak Rafael Seligmann. Klara married Lazarus Bergmann from Dittenheim. (1831-1866) who was probably the earliest of Jakob Seligmann's descendants to migrate to South Africa. In 1849 Henry arrived in Cape Town where he joined the recently established firm of Mosenthal Brothers. Besides developing commerce within South Africa the Mosenthal brothers Gabriel Kilian came from Germany to Cape Town in the early 1830s and opened a branch there of the Frankfurt based commercial firm, Kilian and Stein, of which he was a partner. In 1839 Joseph Mosenthal, from Kassel, arrived in Cape Town and joined Kilian and Stein as a clerk. In 1848 with several of his brothers who had come out to the Cape from Germany, they together established the firm of Mosenthal Brothers. For more detail, see, "A History of the Jews in South Africa", by Louis Herrman, publ. by The South African Jewish Board of Deputies, Johannesburg: 1935. The innovation of Mosenthals' was the provision of transport and storage, which facilitated the hitherto impossible trade between the remote interior of the country and large commercial centres such as Cape Town. In so doing they increased the geographical extent of the markets for the produce of the rural farmers. The Mosenthal firm, "…set up a nexus of trading-houses that extended over all the eastern and midland farming districts and well into the Orange Free State." (See Herrman, , page 209.) were responsible for bringing many German Jews into the country See page 303 of "The Jews in South Africa " (by G. Saron and L.Hotz, publ. by Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1955), "….the Mosenthals brought from Germany a considerable number of their co-religionists who settled in various parts of the Colony, and like them showed a keen aptitude for business " Furthermore, "The Mosenthals and their industrial and commercial activities were the means of introducing into South Africa nearly half the Jewish families who came to this land between 1845 and 1870 (See Herrman , page 216.). Henry Bergmann Henry Bergmann was an important businessman (In the 1857 volume of "Cape of Good Hope Almanac", publ. by J. Noble and Vand de Sandt: Cape Town, the following is written in the entry for Aliwal North, "Messrs. Mosenthal, Bergmann and Co. have also a very extensive business establishment".). He was also a member of the Divisional Council and on the town's Immigration Board (See 1857-1862 volumes "Cape of Good Hope Almanac"). his brother Ludwig (1835-1893: Ludwig's dates are from his Death Certificate: see National Archives of South Africa (NASA): VAB /MHG/ 01 /B1/486, 1893.) settled in Rouxville. By 1860 Ludwig was living in neighbouring Smithfield (see NASA: KAB/MOOC/7/1/286/01/97/1, 1860). and Julius Mosenthal jointly directed a branch of the Mosenthal business located in Aliwal North, including the local branch of the company's bank. Aliwal is a small border town on the southern (Cape Colony side) bank of the Orange River. This river formed the frontier between the British Cape Colony and the independent Orange Free State. In common with a number of Henry's younger relatives A brief note about other related migrants to Rouxville. Leopold Reichenberg had a nephew, Jacob (1869-1940) later known as 'Jack', son of his brother Gerson. According to Ernest Kallmann, a descendant of the Reichenberger family, Jack came to South Africa in 1885. He lived, amongst other places, at Bekker's Kraal, near Rouxville, until about 1894. His first job was in the business owned in Rouxville by Julius Rosenfels (1859-1906),the brother-in-law of Leopold Reichenberger. Two brothers of Julius Rosenfels also came to South Africa: Jakob(1855-1906) and Max(1862-1944). Jacob was a speculator and played for high stakes: his fortunes waxed and waned. Julius and Jakob both retired to Germany (Julius Rosenfels closed his business in Rouxville in 1891, and Jacob returned to Augsburg in about 1893/4). On his return to Germany Jacob became a Privatier and was also the Honorary Consul for the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Max left Rouxville on a trading trip with Thomas Meikle, an early European pioneer in S. Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and was persuaded by Meikle to settle with his family in Bulawayo. In 1894 Max brought his wife and three month old baby into Rhodesia by ox wagon. Many of his descendants still live in Zimbabwe, despite having been dispossessed of their farms by the regime of Robert Mugabe. .In 1994 when the family wanted to celebrate the centenary of their arrival in the country by staging a 20 mile trek in ox wagons along the route taken by their forefather, Max, they faced major opposition from the local authorities, who said, "If they went ahead it would be a declaration of war and they will profusely regret their racist attitude and misguided action". Not wishing to offend, the family abandoned this plan (see HYPERLINK http://www.anc.org.za/anc/newsbrief/1994/news0612 http://www.anc.org.za/anc/newsbrief/1994/news0612 ). , Jacob Seligmann went to the neighbouring town of Rouxville. Rouxville Current African name: Role-Lea Thunya (see HYPERLINK http://www.letsatsigamelodge.co.za/places.htm http://www.letsatsigamelodge.co.za/places.htm ). lies in the southeastern corner of the Orange Free State (see Figure 2). It is the first town reached in the Orange Free State after leaving Aliwal North in the Cape Province (formerly the Cape Colony). It is 34 kilometers north of Aliwal. In 1863 mail from the Cape Colony to the Orange Free State was directed via Zuurbult Farm due to irregularities at Aliwal North. In that year Petrus Wepenaar founded a town on this farm's land, and named it Rouxville in honour of Rev. Pieter Roux, a peripatetic Christian clergyman. Then Rouxville was a centre servicing the local cattle and sheep farmers, as it is today. It became, in the late 19th century, the most important settlement in this corner of the Orange Free State and a seat of government for the district Information about Rouxville's history from HYPERLINK http://www.xhariep.co.za/towns.htm#rou http://www.xhariep.co.za/towns.htm#rou .. The town still exists. It had a deserted feel about it when I visited the place briefly in 2003. Other people, with whom I have spoken, including Harold Hodes, agree with my assessment of the place. In a history of Rouxville "Eeufees Gedenkbooek van die Suidoostelike Vrystaat", by Prof. Dr. C. J. Uys. Publishing details not known. Madeleine Joubert, the curator of the Aliwal Museums in Aliwal North, has kindly translated relevant excerpts of this book, written in Afrikaans. Simon du Plooy, of Potchefstroom, whose great grand uncle was also a prominent early citizen in Rouxville in the 1870s, sent me digital scans of some of the pages of this book., probably the only detailed history that has ever been written of the town, the following are named amongst its prominent early citizens: "Leopold Reichenberg" and "J. Seligmann". As I cannot be completely certain that the latter was my relative Jacob Seligmann, I will refer to him as "J. Seligmann" when describing what is written about him in the aforementioned history According to information from Thys du Preez, there were only two J.Seligmann in South Afrca, the other being Julius Seligmann who lived in the Cape Colony. This Julius may well have lived for some time at Lady Grey where he was made bankrupt in 1861 (See NASA: KAB/MOIB/2/1173/f.367 1861-1867).. Leopold Reichenberger Leopold Reichenberger was a younger brother of Lazarus (Ludwig) Reichenberger (1835-1909) who came to South Africa in 1855 and was a business partner of Henry Bergmann in Aliwal North. For evidence that Ludwig Reichenberger was in partnership with Henry Bergmann see, for example, NASA: KAB/CSC/2/2/1/140/01/24/1, 1861. This document relates to an action in 1861 to recover a debt. The following was written, "Henry Bergmann and Ludwig Reichenberger trading at Aliwal North under the style of H. Bergmann & Co…..". (born 1846, in Ichenhausen) was known also as Leopold Reichenberg Many members of the Ichenhausen family called Reichenberger shortened their name to Reichenberg (information from Ernest Kallmann).. Leopold arrived in South Africa and in 1873 The marriage was celebrated in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Information from copy of Marriage Certificate, kindly provided by Harold Hodes, a Reichenberg descendant. married Henry Bergmann's niece Mathilde Rosenfels In this way the Ichenhausen families of Reichenberger and of Seligmann were united in Rouxville not merely by business but also by matrimony. who was a first cousin once removed of Jacob Seligmann. Jacob married the year before. In November 1872 he married Hendrina Carolina Hendrikse in Rouxville The marriage process began with the issuing of a Special Licence in Bloemfontein in October 1872. It was concluded in Rouxville on 14 November 1872. The wedding was officiated by BO Leitson in Rouxville, with H.Hendrikse and F. Hellman as witnesses. (Information from Johan Pottas who extracted it from a database of all the Mariages in the Free State, compiled by Niel Botha of Bloemfontein.) . His bride was the daughter of a clergyman in Graaf Reinet. The town of Rouxville was established officially in 1863, but it took a number of years to become the seat of a Magistrate (Landdrost). The reason for this delay was opposition by the neighbouring town of Smithfield, some miles north of Rouxville across the Caledon River. One of the reasons given by Rouxville for wanting its own Magistracy was the difficulty of getting criminals to trial when the River Caledon was in spate. In 1869 the town of Rouxville sent its first petition to obtain its own Magistracy to the Volksraad Volksraad: House of Assembly of the Orange Free State.. Leopold Reichenberg was among its 108 signatories See: Uys, p.43. Leopold Reichenberg was appointed Postmaster of Rouxville in 1870 (see Saron & Hotz, page 325). Harold Hodes told me that there is a street in the town, which was named after Reichenberg.. A second petition, containing 60 signatures, followed the first, and was written by Leopold Reichenberg in 1870 See Uys, page 48.. Reichenberg's petition included the information that already in 1870 Rouxville could boast of having three shops, a bakery, a slaughterhouse and two hotels with bars, and there were plans for much more growth See Uys, page 54.. After Rouxville had been granted a Magistrate, a committee of burghers was set up to advise this dignitary. The committee whose role was to ensure the execution of the town's regulations included: "Heemraad Heemraad; the County Court, and also the title for a member of it. Leopold Reichenberg" and "J. Seligmann". From the its founding on the land of Zuurbult farm, which was originally established as a Church farm, until 1876 the town of Rouxville was run by a Committee of Management, which was independent of the Church. Between 1873 and 1876 the Church purchased all rights of management of the town from this Committee. "J. Seligmann", vested with Power of Attorney, acted as a seller to the Church of the rights and claims of the Committee on the town, built on this farm, See Uys, page 117.. Both Jacob Seligmann and Leopold Reichenberger eventually left Rouxville. Leopold Reichenberg (before 1881) retired to Germany Information from Ernest Kallmann.. He had been a popular figure amongst the Afrikaner people in Rouxville. In a letter, dated April 1881, sent to Leopold, after he had retired to Germany, Hendrik P. Cronje, an Afrikaner who lived in Rouxville, wrote, " We cannot and shall not forget you. All the friends and acquaintances that you mention are well and all say send our best regards to Reichenberg. " Further on the writer makes an interesting generalization about the Boer's attitude towards the Jews, whom they respected, on the whole, as they were regarded as being people of the Bible: " But we Afrikaners regret one thing. Especially in the Free State, here people often say that when a Jew is rich enough he leaves. We regret this as we like the Jewish people. " (Harold Hodes gave me a photocopy of this letter, which is written in Dutch, not Afrikaans. Translations by Masya Spek and Johan Pottas.) Jacob Seligmann did not return to Europe but to Illinois in the USA At that time the home of his older brother Julius (1843-1910). Julius Seligmann married Julius married in the USA 1869, and applied for Naturalization in 1870: Julius must have arrived in the USA by 1869 at the very latest. (data from HYPERLINK http://www.ancestry.com www.ancestry.com). He with his Afrikaner wife, and their four children crossed the Atlantic soon (less than two years) after the time that their youngest child was born. Jacob's family appears in the 1880 US Federal Census US Census, as accessed by HYPERLINK http://www.ancestry.com www.ancestry.com. It will probably never be known for certain why Jacob Seligmann and his family left South Africa for the USA instead of going back to Europe. During the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) most of the official records kept in Rouxville were destroyed Personal communication from Simon du Plooy of Potchefstroom, South Africa , but some documents were preserved elsewhere, in the National Archives of South Africa (NASA), and these offer a possible explanation for Jacob's departure to the USA. On the 9th of October 1878, the Gouvernements Courant, a newspaper published in Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, reported a jailbreak in Rouxville See NASA: NAB/CSO/663/01/1878/3834/1, 1878-1879, which contains the correspondence about Jacob Seligmann's escape from Rouxville. . Sometime during the night of the 5th of October and the early morning of the next day someone called Jacob Seligmann escaped from the jail at Rouxville. A "wanted" notice was published in the same issue of this newspaper, both in Dutch and in English. It read, "WHEREAS PRISONER JACOB SELIGMANN, charged with the crime of FORGERY and FRAUD, did, in the night of the 5th and 6th of October, 1878, escape out of the Prison at Rouxville, with the assistance of one or more persons, Notice is hereby given, that a REWARD OF TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS STERLING will be given…." Two rewards of £25 each were offered: one for the capture of Seligmann and the other for the capture of those who aided him in his escape. The Free State authorities were concerned that Jacob Seligmann would try to escape from the Republic. On the 10th of October an unsigned letter was sent from Bloemfontein to Natal, the neighbouring British colony. It was addressed to no less a person than the Lieutenant Governor of Natal, His Excellency Sir Henry Bulwer, KCMG, For more about Bulwer (1836-1914) who became Governor in 1875, see "The washing of the Spears", by D.R.Morris, publ. by Pimlico: London, 1994, and http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Rotunda/2209/Natal.html. His secretary was the author of "King Solomon's Mines",William Rider Haggard.. The letter begins by telling that a copy of the warrant of Seligmann's arrest was attached, and it continues, "….Jacob Seligmann who was sentenced by His Honour The Chief Justice, at the Circuit Court at Rouxville, on the 27th May 1878, to three months imprisonment, which time has since expired. After that conviction other charges have been brought against him, for which he was to have been tried at the Circuit Court to be holden on the 21st of November next, and for which he was to be detained in prison. " The letter ends by informing the reader that Seligmann had defrauded I am not at all sure that this was proven, rather it was alleged at this stage. several persons of a large amount of money. By the 15th or 16th of October, ten days after Jacob had escaped from prison, the police authorities in Natal were alerted to look out for the escapee. Photographs of Seligmann, sent from Bloemfontein, were distributed. These pictures have been lost from the files kept in the South African archives. In November 1879, authorities in Natal drafted a letter I have not seen the actual letter, but I have a copy of a minute dated 7th November 1879, which alludes to it. to the Home secretary of the Orange Free State, reporting on the efforts made to apprehend Seligmann, all of which were in vain. A letter, dated 20th November 1879, was sent from the Government Office in Bloemfontein to the Colonial Secretary in Pretoria in Natal. It includes the following, " I am directed by the President…. to thank your Government for all the trouble taken in the case of Seligmann…." From the tone of this and related correspondence, it seems likely that the escaped prisoner Jacob Seligmann was never recaptured. None of the documentation that I have seen can be used to determine conclusively whether or not the escaped prisoner Jacob Seligmann was also my mother's paternal grand-uncle bearing the same name. One clue as to the identity of the escapee can be found his description that was issued, in Dutch, in the Gouvernments Courant, dated 9th October 1878. A translation of this, written by the Landdrost of Rouxville, exists amongst the correspondence sent from Bloemfontein to Natal. One part of this read, " Nationality, a German Jew……. About 32 to 35 years of age…." The description ends rather unflatteringly by stating that Seligmann has, " ….long thin fingers with very long nails of which he seems to be very proud and is frequently or rather invariably cleaning and dressing them with a knife or suchlike when speaking to one. " My relative was born in Germany in 1846, and was born Jewish. This means that in 1878 he would have had his 32nd birthday. This is compatible with, but is not conclusive proof that, the escapee was my relative. It is possible that there was more than one Jacob Seligmann in Rouxville in 1878 In 1871, the town and district of Rouxville had a population of 2310 (See Uys, page 54).. The National Archives of South Africa contains a ledger See NASA: VAB/LRO/ANDER ARGIEWE/6/1/00/1, 1871-1877. listing all the payments, made in Rouxville during the period late 1871 until December 1875 inclusive, for revenue stamps of various kinds, and by whom they were paid. The name "Seligmann" appears frequently from February 1874 onwards, and, with two exceptions The exceptions are "Ja. Seligmann", and "Jac. Seligmann", each of which occurs once only., in one of two forms: "J. Seligmann" and, less often, "Jacob Seligmann". Sometimes both forms appear on the same page. It may have been that amongst the stamp buyers in Rouxville there were two J. Seligmann, one called Jacob, the other with a now unknown forename. However as J. Seligmann and Jacob Seligmann together seem to have bought more stamps that anyone else in the ledger, it is likely that the clerks who made the entries in the ledger frequently shortened "Jacob" to "J." when making an entry for Seligmann. What is much less likely is that there were two men in Rouxville named Jacob Seligmann both German Jews, and both aged 32 to 35 years. When the escapee Jacob Seligmann was on the run, the authorities in Bloemfontein were concerned that he may have been trying to leave the country. Bearing in mind that Rouxville was a frontier town, very close both to Basutoland (now called Lesotho) and to the Cape Colony, the letter from them contains the following, " It is supposed that Jacob Seligmann has gone though Basutoland to Durban with the intention of embarking from there to Australia or America. " There is a file See NASA: VAB/MHG/1/3/1/56/01/BS31/1, 1877, which contains the documentation relating to the Insolvent Estate of Jacob Seligmann. that may throw light on the reason for the imprisonment of the person in Rouxville who bore the name, Jacob Seligmann. I found this in the Orange Free State archives (now kept as part of the National Archives of South Africa). It contains documents, which are dated June 1877 to May 1881 and has the title "Insolvente Boedel van Jacob Seligmann (gedwongen Sequestratio): District Rouxville". In English this reads, "Insolvent Estate of Jacob Seligmann (compulsory Sequestration): Rouxville District". On 28th June 1877 the High Court of Justice of the Orange Free State ordered the sequestration of Seligmann's assets following the issue of a bankruptcy against him by F.A.Hamelberg acting on behalf of N. Adler and Company of Port Elizabeth. Mr. Charles Orpen The name Edward William Pitt keeps appearing in the various papers connected with Seligmann's insolvency. It seems to me that at some stage the handling of this affair was transferred from Rouxville to Smithfield. of Smithfield was appointed as trustee of Seligmann's assets. Seligmann was issued a "Notice of Attachment" at Rouxville on 6th July 1877. This was written both in Dutch and English. As its content is pertinent to this story, here it is in full (with punctuation as I found it), "Jacob Seligmann take notice that I have taken the goods in the attached inventory by notice of an order signed by Albertus P de Villiers, as acting Master of the Insolvent Chamber in the Orange Free State, dated Bloemfontein 28 June 1877 for the compulsory sequestration thereof: and that any person who knowingly the same to have been so attached shall dispose of remove conceal, or remove the said or any part thereof with intent to defeat the said attachment is liable on conviction of such offence to be transported for any period not exceeding seven years or to be imprisoned with or without hard labour for any period not exceeding five years " An inventory followed, and includes what seem to be mostly household effects. Amongst these is listed 2 children's bedsteads. Also present was one baby's cradle. A second inventory was drawn up in September 1880. It consists of a long prose preamble followed by an inventory containing of a list of correspondence books and ledgers (including a books with entries dating back to 1866) relating to Jacob Seligmann's business activities. The preamble contains a brief reference to Jacob Seligmann's escape from prison. This refers to these books as having been left behind, "…door Jacob Seligmann toen by uit de tronk al daar vlugte ….". Which, translated, means, "…by Jacob Seligmann when he fled from the prison…". By December 1880 the decision to distribute Seligmann's assets, in more than one instalment, to his creditors had been taken by the High Court of Justice. By April 1881, it appears that Seligmann's estate had been 'wound up'. This is recorded in a note written in Smithfield, dated 14th April of that year, to which is appended the following handwritten comment, which, in translation, reads, " It was the least of my thoughts that I had to work on the Estate of Jacob Seligmann again. Earlier in Rouxville I had enough to do with him, but this 'Jacob' who comes to the fore is unforgettable in the history here in Rouxville." I have found three instances in which the name Jacob Seligmann is associated with Rouxville: (1) as a member of my extended family, (2) as a jail-breaker in 1878, and (3) as a bankrupt in 1877. Is there any connection between any of these? The escapee, Jacob Seligmann, was of an age and origin not incompatible with having been my relative. The US Census of 1880 contains information that Jacob Seligmann, with his South African wife and four children were living in Illinois. The Census entry for the family notes that all four of his children were born in Africa. As the youngest of these children was two years old in 1880, it would seem that Jacob's wife and children must have left South Africa between 1878 and 1880. A warrant See NASA: NAB/CSO/665/01/1878/4039/1, 1878. for the arrest of a Jacob Seligmann, issued on the 12th November 1878 in Pietermaritzburg, Natal contains the following, " ….Jacob Seligmann, charged with the crime or offence of Forging or uttering In archaic legal language "uttering" means " passing or circulating " something forged such as coins or notes.. a Forged Security." This is suggestive that the escapee had been accused of, but not yet found to be guilty of, some crime of a financial nature. In the documentation dealing with the assets of Jacob Seligmann there is the warning, quoted above, that attempting to interfere with the contents of the assets, sequestrated as a consequence of this bankruptcy, led to a selection of harsh penalties. So if the escapee was indeed the bankrupt, it is easy to understand why escape was an attractive option for him. From what I know of my mother's grand-uncle's family, Jacob had two children born before 1877 and one whose date of birth was 1877. The inventory drawn up in 1877 includes two children's bedsteads and one baby's cradle. One interpretation of this is that the inventory listed the bedding for my relative's children. Based on this bit of evidence there is reason to begin to suspect that the bankrupt was my relative. The mention, in the note attached to the second of the inventories of the assets of the bankrupt Seligmann, of flight from prison, as well as the comment, made later, that Jacob was unforgettable in the history of Rouxville suggests that the escapee and the bankrupt were the same person. Putting this together it may be reasonable to hypothesize that my relative Jacob Seligmann, having been accused of trying to defraud the bankruptcy court, escaped from prison, and fled to the USA. It has been suggested to me that my mother's grand-uncle may have left Rouxville for war related reasons. In the late 1870s there was warfare in South Africa, mostly minor border skirmishes, but there is evidence that Rouxville was not badly affected by this A letter to Leopold Reichenberg in Germany, written from Rouxville in May 1881 by Andries S. Cronje states that Rouxville had not suffered from the war that was in progress. Note that the first Anglo-Boer War only started in 1880, and that Rouxville was quite far from the sites at which the earlier Zulu War had taken place. , so I doubt that this was the cause of his exodus. If we assume, and I must emphasize that this is an assumption, that my hypothesis is correct and that Jacob Seligmann left South Africa because of serious complications of a personal financial nature, then he was not alone in his family to have been in this kind of situation. Jacob's cousin Henry Bergmann, who was a pillar of the community in Aliwal North, had made some poorly judged speculation, which left him £5000 in debt. His particular solution to this dilemma was to take his own life For a fuller account of this, see my article in Stammbaum, Issue 25, Summer 2004.. There is evidence, which I have described earlier, that Jacob Seligmann, like Henry, may have held positions of trust, but in Rouxville. We will probably never know what miscalculation damaged Jacob's business strategies and led him to bankruptcy. Was it his ineptitude, or was he the victim of others who were more ruthless than he was? Rural South Africa, in the 1870s, was, like the Wild West, a savage place with a frontier mentality where people felt that anything was possible, if they could get away with it. As a fellow migrant from Ichenhausen, Isaac Gundelfinger, put it, " Be quite careful in this country and do not rush, do not spill water you do not yet possess." Letter from Isaac Gundelfinger to Jack Reichenberg, dated 19 March 1887 (from "Reichenberg Correspondence", edited by Ernest Kallmann). And possibly anticipating the liberation of the mind that new arrivals might have felt when arriving in a new continent, he picturesquely cautioned that common sense should not be abandoned, " … do not dream that roasted doves fly into one's mouth here. The world is round and it is the same everywhere, here as well as elsewhere." Ibid. Letter dated 7th April 1887. Along with his wife and three young children Jacob Seligmann was, as a result of the sequestration order, deprived of everything that his family would have required to live. Did he attempt to rescue some of his effects, not, as was alleged, in an attempt to defraud his creditors, but merely in order to survive? Did he feel that he had been unfairly accused and/or that, for some reason he was unlikely to receive a fair trial Some of the people who are named as trustees of Jacob Seligmann's Insolvent Estate had formerly served with "J.Seligmann" in the administration of Rouxville. Jacob might have feared that they were insufficiently remote from him to deal with him fairly.? Or did pioneers like him and his cousin take risks in South Africa, which they would have been loath to take in the more constrained environment of their homeland, Germany? We will probably never know. Despite the relatively recent emancipation 1871, in Bavaria. of Jews in Bavaria, the migrants to South Africa, in which new traditions and social constraints had yet to be developed amongst the European settlers, must have felt a greater sense of freedom there. In Germany even after the enfranchisement of the Jews, they lived in an atmosphere of prejudice and circumscription by tradition. South Africa was a new country in which there was little or no hostility toward the Jews and they encountered an atmosphere of much greater freedom of action. Freedom can 'go to the head', and lead to unusual behaviour. As the singer Janis Joplin, put it, "Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose." From a song with lyrics by Bobby Mc Gee. ADAM YAMEY 195 NORTHEND ROAD LONDON W14 9NL GREAT BRITAIN NOTES 11 PAGE 1