Panaij van Boegies: Slave - Bandiet - Caffer

Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town Panaij van Boegies: Slave – Bandiet – Caffer by Gerald Groenewald Introduction In spite of the phenomenal amount of paper the Dutch East India Company (VOC) administration of the Cape (1652-1795) left behind, there is only very rarely enough information available in the archival record to sketch the life of an individual slave, even in bare outline.1At most one can hope to trace records of sale or, if lucky, get a vivid glimpse into the daily lives of slaves and their owners in the records of court cases. The latter group of material indeed forms the major source of our information concerning the social lives of slaves, but, as is inevitable given the very nature and limitations of such records, they only allows us to see these individuals at a specific point in time, and then mostly in extraordinary circumstances. The fortunate discovery of at least two court cases at the Cape in which the slave Panaij van Boegies was involved affords an unusual opportunity to follow the life of one slave over some years. Further research made it possible to trace the paper trail back even further, so that Panaij becomes one of the very few enslaved people at the Cape during the eighteenth century about whose life before arrival here something is known. What is even more remarkable, is that his life illustrates something of the vicissitudes or possibilities that existed for enslaved people in the VOC empire. Even amongst this most unfortunate group of individuals there were gradations based on status–slaves were not necessarily simply or always ‘slaves’. 591 Eminent inmates 592 From Diaspora to Diorama In what follows I will attempt, on the basis of the available documentation, to reconstruct in chronological order what is known about Panaij’s life. It is not much, a whole life reduced to a a few pages, but it does enable us to follow the fortunes of one man who was unlucky enough to become enslaved and then to fall foul of the law in the eighteenth-century Dutch empire. Before enslavement As with almost every other slave during this period, nothing is known about Panaij’s life before he was enslaved. From his toponym, though, we know that he was ‘from Bugis’.2 Bugis was the name given to the people who made up several kingdoms in South Sulawesi, living just north of their long-standing enemies, the Makasserese. Although the Bugis played a major role in the Dutch subjection of the Makasserese and formed an enduring alliance with them,3 this did not prevent the importation of slaves from the area. During the second half of the seventeenth century, the Dutch started to import an increasing number of slaves from the eastern parts of the Indonesian archipelago, and after the fall of GENERAL MAP OF INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town Makassar the largest single source of slaves from this part of the world became South Sulawesi.4 These slaves were destined for the headquarters of the Dutch colonial empire in the east, Batavia. Although some of them were redistributed to different parts of the empire, Batavia consumed huge numbers of slaves. By the last quarter of the seventeenth century, more than half the population of the city consisted of slaves, while freed slaves (the so-called Mardijkers) further formed a substantial 17% of the total.5 In the course of the eighteenth century slaves from Bugis came to outnumber those of any other single region, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century, almost one out of every four slaves in Batavia was a Bugis.6 Panaij van Boegies therefore formed part of a significant cultural grouping in the heterogenous world of Batavia. Other than that, we know nothing about his life in that city, except that he had belonged to one Wandella, described as ‘the Malay captain’.7 This most likely means that Wandella was the leader of the Malay kampung in the city. Since the seventeenth century, in an attempt to curb unrest, the various ethnic groupings living in Batavia were segregated, with each group having to live on an allocated plot of land, called kampung, under its own headman. This person was responsible for the order in and the administration of his kampung, and had to liaise with the Dutch authorities.8 The Malay population in Batavia was very small, forming only about three percent of the total in the late seventeenth century9, and formed a relatively closed group consisting mostly of Muslim merchants and traders living on the west side of the city.10 Panaij appears therefore to have had an eminent owner. Not that that seems to have helped him much. Panaij first enters the historical record (as far as we know) on 7 August 1730 when he appeared before the Schepenenbank (Court of Aldermen) on the charge of ‘putative arson’.11 Sadly, the minutes of the court proceedings provide no details of the crime and all we know is that Panaij ‘continued to persist with his denial’.12 The sentence delivered by the aldermen is quite revealing, not only of the serious light in which arson was viewed, but also of the practices of the VOC’s penal system: 593 594 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama ‘the prisoner is to be sent from here to a place which would please the honourable High Council of these lands, where he would be riveted in chains and remained banished, to labour on the public works for his whole life, without ever being allowed to come here again, on the pain of a heavier punishment’.13 From slave to bandiet With this, Panaij entered a new phase of his life. The shift from slave to bandiet (convict) was perhaps not as momentous as that from free man to slave, but it was significant enough to change the course of one’s life. From being at the mercy of a particular owner, he now became a prisoner of the mighty VOC which could employ him in their stretched-out empire as it saw fit. Slaves were not the only ones who could become bandieten – free Asians and European servants of the VOC found guilty of criminal offences were continually sentenced to this, the least enviable of all categories into which the VOC could fit people under its control. The Schepenenbank left the choice of Panaij’s place of banishment to the discretion of the Council of Indies, the chief governing body of the Dutch colonial empire. Four days after Panaij’s sentence, the Council resolved that he, together with two Chinese named Tsia ki Etko and Tsia Tsoeijko,14 be sent on the ship Hogersmilde to the Cape of Good Hope ‘in order to remain banished there on Robben Island for their whole lives in accordance with their respective sentences’.15 This was no isolated incident. Kerry Ward has recently illustrated to what an intricate extent the various parts of the VOC empire were connected through the use of penal transportation and banishment. The ability to send prisoners and political exiles to any of its territories – whether or not, as in most cases, those territories wanted them–was one of the key mechanisms through which Batavia maintained power as seat of government.16 Banishment was considered a harsh penalty but was nonetheless regularly imposed on offenders of all ranks, and throughout the Company period thousands of people were banished to various parts of the empire.17 Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town And so, during August 1730 Panaij and his fellow bandieten set sail on the Hogersmilde with which, after a journey of about four months, they reached the Cape in early December 1730.18 On the 15th of this month some scribe noted in the annotation book of the bandieten who arrived here from both Batavia and Ceylon that one Panaij van Boegies has arrived, jotting next to his name the reason for his arrival at the Cape: ‘sentenced by the honourable aldermen to labour his whole life in chains’.19 With this Panaij became part of the small colony of convicts on Robben Island. Robben Island From 1731 onwards, Panaij van Boegies is mentioned in the annual census taken of prisoners on the island. In the first year of Panaij’s life there, the records list 98 persons classified as bandieten.20 This number is in keeping with the average number of bandieten at the Cape in the mid-eighteenth century which usually hovered around 100.21 Not all of these lived on Robben Island. Of the four groups into which these lists were divided, those of the largest single group were stationed to work at the Cape ‘batteries’22 – it is significant that of the 44 people in this category, only four were slaves: the rest were all Europeans, seemingly all former VOC servants.23 In fact, in 1731 the vast 595 596 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama majority (67) of the bandieten were listed as Europeans. A further group of bandieten in Cape Town consisted of those individuals who were sentenced ‘to labour on the public works alongside the Company slaves’. In this year only four were listed in this group, three of whom were women – in fact the only women bandieten for this year. These people presumably also lived alongside the Company slaves in the Slave Lodge.24 On Robben Island there were fifty bandieten, 27 of whom were listed as Europeans.25 The group designated as ‘Indians’26 had a very eclectic make-up: only seven seem to have been slaves, including Panaij (four of these were Company slaves). The groups described as Chinese, ‘Moors’ and Javanese each contained three individuals.27 Four people came from Srilanka [Ceylon], two of them being called ‘Singhalese’, while only one was categorised as a Khoe. The remaining two were high-ranking exiles: one ‘Angenata’, styled the ‘former head of Japan’, and Denge Mamouti, who in the rolls is described simply as ‘the so-called Prince of Ternate’.28 It is alongside these 49 other bandieten that Panaij found himself forced to stay on Robben Island. To guard over these prisoners, the Company had stationed there in 1731 a sergeant with nineteen soldiers.29 Although the lists were drawn up separately for Europeans and people of other races, this did not mean that they were segregated. Little is known about the life experience of bandieten on Robben Island, but we do know that they all slept together in what was referred to as the ‘craal’. They all, in spite of former rank, status or ethnicity, had to toil together at the tedious jobs of collecting shells and cutting limestone and slate. The Company was unwilling to spend too much money on provisions for these lowest-ranking members of its labour force, and there were numerous complaints from the bandieten about the little food they received.30 Even less is known about Panaij’s individual experiences on the island, and one must presume that he worked and lived alongside his fellow bandieten during his first years there. Yet, for a couple of days in July 1735 he again enters the historical record, outside being merely a name on a list. The events in which he became Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town involved vividly shed light on the living conditions and social relations on Robben Island, and it is to these events that we now turn. In an attempt to accommodate the prisoners’ complaints about their meagre rations, but without increasing the costs of their imprisonment, the Cape authorities finally agreed to allow the bandieten to supplement their diets with the fish they themselves could catch.31 And so we find Panaij van Boegies setting out early in the morning of 22 July to catch crayfish. He soon discovered that his bait was missing, and when enquiring after it from his fellow prisoners, he was informed that the Dutch bandiet Rijkhaart Jacobsz had taken it and gone with it to the beach. Upon finding him, Jacobsz addressed Panaij in Portuguese, proposing that they have sex, which Panaij refused, uttering terrible curses and hitting Jacobsz in the face. Panaij at once went to the sergeant to inform him of this and (only after he had finished his fishing) Jacobsz was questioned by the sergeant.32 Since sodomy was a capital crime, the sergeant decided to send Panaij and Jacobsz to Cape Town by boat in order to be interrogated by the Fiscal, the chief legal officer of the colony who also served as prosecutor in serious criminal cases.33 And so, on 26 July Panaij gave his testimony at the Cape and must have stayed there a bit longer, because on 1 August he verified his testimony in front of delegates from the Council of Justice and in the presence of the accused Jacobsz.34 With this, Panaij disappears from the story, but the fate of Jacobsz was sealed, since Panaij also told the fiscal of the rumours that Jacobsz had had a long-standing sexual relationship with the only Khoe on the island, one Claas Blank. After several sessions with the fiscal, these two confessed and on 19 August 1735 they were drowned together in Table Bay in accordance with the sentence of the court.35 The events surrounding Panaij and Rijkhaart Jacobsz briefly lit up the everyday reality of living as a bandiet on Robben Island: the ongoing search for food, the lack of privacy, the living together of people from a broad range of social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and the various forms of interpersonal relationships possible in this restrictive environment. After this event, Panaij van Boegies once again recedes into the semi-darkness of official 597 598 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama documentation: all we know is that his name continues to be listed as a bandiet on the island. However, in 1743 the third life-changing event of Panaij’s career in the VOCempire occurred. Following his name in the census for that year is this little sentence: ‘in March 1743 became caffer at the Cape’.36 The caffers stood under the authority of the fiscal, and were headed by a person styled the geweldiger – together they served as something like a police force: enforcing the curfews at night, arresting those who did not willingly surrender themselves and, perhaps most commonly, meting out punishments. Owners could send their slaves to the caffers for ‘chastisement’ and slaves were often sentenced by the Council of Justice to be whipped by the caffers for minor infractions. In addition, they also served as the executioner’s assistants, helping him with the ghoulish tasks of breaking limbs and the other vicious bodily punishments the courts meted out.37 The caffers Not much is known about the caffers as a group of people. We know that they lived in the Slave Lodge alongside the Company slaves, but we do not know what their relationships were with other slaves – was there a differentation in rank? They were certainly treated better than Company slaves by the authorities: they wore special uniforms, were allowed to carry weapons (unlike slaves) and had much greater freedom of movement.38 A far cry from the dismal position of bandiet on Robben Island. It is even possible that the position of caffer had greater status than that of slaves: it is noticable that the administration no longer referred to slaves who became caffers as slaves, but always denoted them by the title ‘caffer’, at least in the court records. This was not the case with bandieten who, despite their sentences, were often still called slaves, free-blacks, soldiers or whatever the case may be. However, the improvement of the physical lot and status of bandieten who became caffers came at a price: because of their association with executions and the fact that they operated as agents of the fiscal, the caffers were hated and despised, at least by the settler population, who in the 1780s insisted that Europeans be appointed as constables since it was deemed unfitting for ex-convicts to arrest Europeans.39 Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town We do not know much about the background and composition of this group of people. Whether they themselves offered to become caffers or were approached by the authorities is not known. Nor do we know why people chose to become caffers or even whether they were in fact all formerly bandieten or slaves. But the case of Panaij does give some possible pointers. Panaij was the first bandiet on Robben Island to have become a caffer in more than ten years, and the only one to have done so in 1743. Yet, the following year saw a spate of bandieten from the island becoming caffers: no fewer than four were appointed caffers in September 1744: Hendrik Pietersz van Gale, Januarij van Bengalen, Cornelis Brugman van Macassar and Samon Vrijbalier van Batavia. In the same year a bandiet labouring on the common works at the Cape also became a caffer, namely the former Company slave, Valentijn van de Caab.40 This sudden spate rather suggests that there might have been a shortage of caffers41 and that these men were recruited to fill vacant positions.42 Of the six new caffers of 1743-44, at least three were slaves, but the fact that Pietersz, Brugman and Vrijbalier had patronyms or surnames in addition to their toponyms, suggests that they may have been free-blacks or even mulattos.43 Moreover, with the exception of Valentijn, who was Cape-born, all of these were from the East, which confirms the statements of historians that caffers at the Cape were mostly Asian-born.44 Thus, after 12 years on Robben Island with hard labour and poor food, Panaij van Boegies removed to Cape Town where he roamed the streets in his caffer uniform and presumably lived in and ate at the Slave Lodge along with his fellow caffers, most of whom also appear to have come from the East. Not enough is known about his life as a slave in Batavia to claim that it was an improvement over that, but it was certainly better than being a bandiet on Robben Island. And it is in his capacity as caffer that we again meet Panaij in the archives of the Council of Justice when, on the evening of Saturday, 22 February 1744, the slave Barkat van Timor attacked his owner, the prominent free burgher Abraham Cloppenburg, and afterwards fled to the attic of the house, where he barricaded himself and refused to come down. 599 600 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama The wounded Cloppenburg had the geweldiger and the caffers called, who arrived there at half past ten and tried by various means, but without any success, all through the night to get at Barkat. Finally, in the early morning hours, Panaij managed to enter the attic and to catch Barkat unawares. A fight ensued and Panaij got wounded, but during the struggle his colleagues got a chance to come up as well, and they succeeded to apprehend Barkat. Panaij was asked to testify against Barkat, who was eventually sentenced to be broken on the wheel.45 Conclusions With Panaij van Boegies busily performing his duties as a caffer of the fiscal at the Cape of Good Hope, he disappears from the historical record. Nothing more is known about him, other than that he remained a caffer until at least 1748.46 After that year there is a major lacuna in the bandieten rolls, and when they become available again in the 1760s, his name is not to be found on them. Presumably he died47 or, if he was lucky, got send back to Batavia, although that is unlikely given his life sentence. This is all that is known of him. Three court cases in which the subject of this note briefly appears as slave, bandiet and caffer, respectively, may not seem much to the modern reader used to full and detailed biographies. But merely being able to sketch the briefest outline of a slave’s life, to say nothing about filling parts of it with telling detail, is a major feat for the eighteenth century Cape. There is no other caffer who served at the Cape about whose background so much is known. Panaij’s heady career in the underclasses of the VOC empire started with his enslavement by the Dutch or their agents, and it is to them, their legal system and imperial network that he owed much of his misfortune. Yet, on the other hand, had it not been for these couple of pages preserved in the VOC archives we, today, would have known nothing whatsoever of Panaij; and his life, like those of so many other slaves, would simply have been enveloped by the darkness of the past, almost as if it had never existed.48 Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town Endnotes for Panaij van Boegies 1 This is a slightly expanded and revised version of an article with the same title which originally appeared in the Quarterly Bulletin of the National Library of South Africa 59/2 (2005), 50-62. 2 While it is true that slave toponyms were sometimes inaccurate and that the same slave might appear in different documents with varying toponyms, it is significant that in all the documentation concerning Panaij, both the Batavian and Cape material, he is called ‘van Boegies’. It could be that Southeast Asian slave toponyms were generally more accurate in Batavia than at the Cape. 3 The alliance with the Bugis was crucial in the Dutch war against the Kingdom of Gowa during the late 1660s and the final capture of Makassar in 1669, Leonard Y. Andaya, ‘Perspectives on the VOC-Bugis military alliance’, paper read at the international conference: ‘The VOC – famous and notorious: two hundred years in perspective’, Stellenbosch University, 3-5 April 2002. 4 Markus Vink, ‘“The world’s oldest trade”: Dutch slavery and slave trade in the Indian ocean in the seventeenth century’, Journal of World History 14 (2003), 131-77, at 143-44 and Remco Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo: the ethnic and spatial order of two colonial cities, 1600-1800’ (dissertation, University of Leiden, 1996), 122-25. It should be pointed out, however, that many of the slaves who came from South Sulawesi were brought to Batavia by private traders and not, primarily, VOC-sponsored slave trading expeditions. 5 H.E. Niemeijer, Calvinisme en koloniale stadscultuur: Batavia, 16191725 (Almelo, 1996), 26, cf. also pages 43-51. By 1729 slaves formed 62% of the inner city population, Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo’, 312. 6 Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo’, 126-27; S. Abeyasekere, ‘Slaves in 601 602 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama Batavia: Insights from a slave register’ in A. Reid (ed.), Slavery, bondage and dependency in Southeast Asia (St. Lucia and New York, 1983), pages 286-314, at 290-91. 7 State Archives, Cape Town repository (henceforth: CA), CJ 2562: ‘Vonnissen der persone dewelke zoo van Batavia als Ceijlon herwaarts gesonden zijn’, f. 415. 8 On the development and implementation of this, see Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo’, 168-81. 9 Niemeijer, Calvinisme en koloniale stadscultuur, 26. 10 Niemeijer, Calvinisme en koloniale stadscultuurbid, 72. 11 ‘gepresuponeerde brantstigtingh’. The transcript of the court proceedings was forwarded to the Cape authorities and is preserved in CA, CJ 2562, f. 415-16. 12 ‘blijf bij sijn gedaene examinatie en ontkentenisse ten vollen persisteeren’, ibid. It is possible that the original papers pertaining to the case may still be amongst the documents in court cases of the Schepenenbank in the National Archives in Jakarta. 13 ‘condemneeren den gev. van hier versonden te werden, ter plaetse, daer het de Ed. Hooge Regeeringe deser landen gelieven zal, om aldaar in de ketting geklonken te zijnde, voor al zijn leven ad opus publicum sonder loon, te arbeijden en verbannen te blijven, sonder ooijt hier, wederom te mogen komen, op peene van swaerder straffe’, ibid. 14 The Chinese, mostly traders, formed the single largest ethnic group (54%) of the free inhabitants of Batavia by this date, Raben, ‘Batavia and Colombo’, 312. They played a crucial role in the economy of the city and added to the distinctly heterogenous culture of Batavia. On them, see Leonard Blussé, Strange Company: Chinese settlers, mestizo women and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht, Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town 1988), 49-155 and Niemeijer, Calvinisme en koloniale stadscultuur, 72-87. 15 ‘om aldaar op het Robben Eijland ingevolge hare resp. condemnatien voor al hare leven gebannen te blijven’, CA, CJ 2562, f. 411. 16 See Kerry Ward, ‘“The bounds of bondage”: forced migration from Batavia to the Cape of Good Hope during the Dutch East India Company era, c. 1652-1795’ (dissertation, University of Michigan, 2002), especially 276-77. 17 Ward, ‘“The bounds of bondage”, 214-23. 18 This specific journey of the Hogersmilde from Batavia to the Cape is not mentioned in J.R. Bruijn, F.S. Gaastra and I. Schöffer, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries (3 vols, The Hague, 1978-87), presumably because the ship was being used in the intra-Asiatic trade: it is listed as having arrived in Batavia from Texel on 7 July 1730 (ibid., vol. II: 412-3), but only to have set out from Ceylon on the return journey on 15 July 1732 (ibid., vol. III: 306-7). When exactly it arrived at the Cape is not known, but it must have been before 15 December 1730 when Panaij was entered in the rolls. In January 1731 the Council of Policy decided to send wheat with ‘the provision ship Hogersmilde’ to Batavia, and during the following month the ship returned to the East Indies, C.G. de Wet (ed.), Resolusies van die Politieke Raad, vol. VIII (1729-1734) (Pretoria, 1975), 122 and 138. 19 ‘bij gem. heeren scheepenen gecondemneert om al sijn leven in de ketting te arbeijden’, CA, CJ 3186: ‘Annotatie boek der bandieten soo van Batavia als Ceijlon alhier aangeland’, f. 14. The two Chinese who were banished with Panaij also survived the journey and their names were entered alongside his. They were each to serve a ten-year term, which they did, as in the margin of this entry there is a note, according to which they were 603 604 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama released on 13 February 1742 and were supporting themselves at the Cape. 20 This, and the following analysis of the figures, is based on the 1731 census of bandieten at the Cape in CA, CJ 3188: ‘Bandieten Rollen, 1728-1795’, f. 4657. 21 James C. Armstrong and Nigel A. Worden, ‘The slaves, 1652-1834’, in Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee (eds), The shaping of South African society, 1652-1840 (second edition, Cape Town, 1989), 124. 22 It is not clear to what this refers. Nigel Penn, ‘Robben Island, 1488-1805’, in Harriet Deacon (ed.), The Island: a history of Robben Island, 1488-1990 (Cape Town and Johannesburg, 1996), pages 9-32 at 21 claims that they were ‘lodged in or near the Amsterdam battery’, but this cannot be right as this battery was only constructed in the 1780s. The heading of the specific list uses the plural, so it may mean that these slaves worked at any number of the different batteries then in operation (such as the Chavonnes battery, which was completed in 1726) or being constructed. It is well possible that they slept in the Slave Lodge at night, seeing that bandieten were usually housed there when not on Robben Island, see Robert Shell, Children of bondage: a social history of the slave society at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652-1838 (Johannesburg, 1994), 195196. 23 CA, CJ 3188, f. 46-49. Of these 44, three died in the course of the year, eight were released since they had served their terms, while two ran away and one was sent (for unknown reasons) to Batavia. Bugis 24 CA,Makassar CJ 3188, f. 56-57. Two of these women’s names, viz. Anna Oeloffsz and Dionisia Hummel, suggest that they may have been free-blacks or mulattos. Although some women were imprisoned on Robben Island in the seventeenth century, it seems as if most female bandieten were subsequently stationed at the Bali Slave Lodge. Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town 25 CA, CJ 3188, f. 50-53. Of these 27, one died, five tried to flee during which three drowned while the other two were returned to the island, and two more were released after having served their terms. It is a myth that there was only ever one successful escape from Robben Island – almost every year there were escape attempts and while most were doomed to failure, there were some successes, see D. Sleigh, Die Buiteposte: VOC-buiteposte onder Kaapse bestuur, 1652-1795 (Pretoria, 1993), 390-92. 26 Indiaanen in Dutch. According to Penn, ‘Robben Island’, 21: ‘They were called Indiaanen primarily to distinguish them from European prisoners, so the term was used loosely and inclusively, gradually including “Bushmen”, “Bastaards”, Chinese, Madagascans, Indians, slaves, Khoikhoi and all others who were not white’. The term presumably came into use because in the seventeenth century most prisoners were in fact exiles from the East Indies and it was later simply extended, ibid., 20. 27 The Chinese include the two who arrived with Panaij. The low number of Chinese (3 out of 98) belies Shell’s statement that most of the convicts were ‘Batavian Chinese’ (Shell, Children of Bondage, 195). If the bandieten rolls for the 1730s are anything to go by, it is clear that at any given time the majority of them were Europeans. Penn, ‘Robben Island’, 21 suggests that the three Mooren might have been Arabs, but the term ‘Moor’ was commonly used in Batavia to refer to Muslims from the southern parts of India, especially the Coromandel Coast, see Niemeijer, Calvinisme en koloniale stadscultuur, 72 and 138. 28 Nothing is known of Angenata or his crimes. It is not known when exactly Denge Mamouti arrived at the Cape as political exile, but he had been here for several years when he was banished in 1722 to Robben Island for inviting slaves and free people to his house for ‘gambling, whoring and other indecent activities’. He died there in 1747, Penn, ‘Robben Island’, 21. 29 Figures taken from Sleigh, Buiteposte, 366. 605 606 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama 30 This description of the living conditions on Robben Island is based on ibid., 381-84. The fullest discussions of the island as a prison colony in the Dutch period are to be found in ibid., 379-92, Ward, ‘Bounds of bondage’, 256-71 and Penn, ‘Robben Island’, 20-32. 31 Sleigh, Buiteposte, 382. 32 This is based on Panaij’s testimony of 26 July 1735, in CA, CJ 339: ‘Criminele Processtukken, 1735’, f. 237-38v. This is of course Panaij’s version of the events, and whether or not this actually happened, is altogether another matter. Jacobsz persisted in claiming right to the end that Panaij’s testimony was false, CA, CJ 17: ‘Crimineele Regtsrolle, 1735’, f. 58 and CJ 339, f. 222. 33 CA, CJ 339, f. 220. 34 CA, CJ 339, f. 238v. 35 The documentation for this case is in CA, CJ 339, f. 218-38v and CJ 17, f. 57-61. The case is briefly discussed by Penn, ‘Robben Island’, 28-29 and also forms the basic material for the recent feature film Proteus (2003), directed by Jack Lewis and John Greyson, although in the film the role of Panaij in the events is cut. 36 37 CA, CJ 3188, f. 292-93. The most important discussions of the caffers in the Cape context are by Shell, Children of Bondage, 189-94 and Ward, ‘Bounds of bondage’, 25256. The institution of caffers was not a Cape innovation, but was borrowed from Batavia where they fulfilled the same tasks, Ward, ‘Bounds of bondage’, 222. Also the use of the term caffer for these people came from Batavia: the Muslims of the Indonesian archipelago called Africans kafir, literally ‘ungrateful’ but by extention ‘unbeliever’. Since, in the early seventeenth century, the first people used in this function were African slaves, the name Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town stuck and became associated with the job, see Shell, Children of Bondage, 189-90. 38 Shell, Children of Bondage, 190-91 and 194. 39 On the changes to the system in the 1780s, see Victor de Kock, Those in bondage: an account of the life of the slave at the Cape in the days of the Dutch East India Company (London, 1950), 168-69. I concur with Ward, ‘Bounds of bondage’, 253-54, who disagrees with Shell’s statement that the caffers ‘occupied a despised echelon of the slave hierarchy’ and were therefore ostracised by other slaves. There is sufficient evidence of contact and co-operation between caffers and slaves to point to the opposite. 40 Valentijn van de Caab, who was a Company-owned slave, was sentenced in May 1735 for having run away, roaming around Table Mountain for several months and stealing sheep with some of his fellowdeserters (also Company slaves). His punishment was to be whipped, branded and to labour in chains for ten years. His testimony is in CA, CJ 339, f. 175-76 and his sentence in CA, CJ 17, f. 44-45. 41 The Cape authorities kept registers of deaths in the Slave Lodge, where the caffers were housed. The database of this source, currently being edited by Rob Shell, reveals that there was an enormous increase in the deaths of inhabitants in 1744: 91 people died that year. This while the number of deaths before this had never exceeded 66 per year and the annual average for the whole decade was under 46. Presumably several caffers were amongst these deaths, hence the sudden need for new ones. I am grateful to Prof. Shell for allowing me access to the database. 42 We know that by this stage Panaij had been on Robben Island for 12 years and Valentijn had been a bandiet for nine. If being a caffer implied such an improvement of one’s lot and the choice was up to them, then they would probably have chosen to become caffers much sooner. The idea that 607 608 Eminent inmates From Diaspora to Diorama bandieten chose to become caffers in an attempt to leave Robben Island and improve their fates, was suggested by Ward, ‘Bounds of Bondage’, 254, and is borne out by the case of Soera Brotto, who was banished from the East to the Cape in 1772 where he laboured as a bandiet on the public works. In 1786 he became a caffer, presumably in the hope that it would change his lot and improve his chances to be sent back. When his request to be returned was refused, he ran amok and killed several people during his rampage. On this case, see Edna Bradlow, ‘Mental illness or a form of resistance?: the case of Soera Brotto’, Kleio 23 (1991), 4-16. It is also significant that Valentijn van de Caab, with only one year of his ten-year sentence remaining, chose to become a caffer, suggesting that this was preferable to being a Company slave. 43 These examples serve as evidence for Ward’s suggestion that the caffers consisted not only of full-breed slaves, as suggested by Shell, but also included mulattos, see Ward, ‘Bounds of bondage’, 252 n. 68. 44 Cf. Shell, Children of Bondage, 190; Armstrong and Worden, ‘The slaves’, 128. 45 The documentation for this case is to be found in CA, CJ 349: ‘Criminele Processtukken, 1744’, f. 99-120, with Panaij’s testimony on f. 11516v. Barkat’s sentence is recorded in CA, CJ 26: ‘Crimineele Regtsrolle, 1744’, f. 15-16. 46 CA, CJ 3188, f. 410-11. 47 The registers of Slave Lodge deaths do not contain any name ‘Panaij’ or its variations. The closest we come to is one ‘Panoalij’ who died in February 1745, CA, C 2499: ‘Attestatiën, 1745’, f. 66. Yet, no toponym is given and he is described as a bandiete jongen. Given that Panaij van Boegies is listed as a caffer until at least 1748 it seems unlikely that he could be this person, in spite of the vagaries of eighteenth-century spelling. 48 I am grateful to Prof. Nigel Worden (University of Cape Town) and Inside the slave lodge in Cape Town Prof. Rob Shell (University of the Western Cape) for their comments and additional information. I am, though, solely responsible for any remaining infelicities. 609