The Dutch Century: The Great White Hunter—Southern Africa

By Carl Douglass

The Great White Hunter—Southern Africa is the third and final book of the Dutch Century Trilogy. It covers the last two-thirds of the 1600s, during which the Dutch exercised considerable control of all sub-Saharan Africa. Among the Dutch who spent significant portions of their lives in the region were farmers, traders, builders, mariners, and slavers. And, most interesting, some intrepid long-distance hunters. They sought fortunes as rewards for museum-quality mounted specimens, success beyond their wildest imaginations from the elephant tusk/ivory trade, and adventure—always adventure. They were brave and hardy souls who faced hardships of miserable travel in oxwaggons, difficult to manage native helpers, balky oxen, mules, and horses. In addition, there were problems of tribalism, close calls from fearsome beasts, including lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos, crocs, and dangerous men. Piet van Brakel explored the lower half of the African continent while still a fugitive from the dangerous Dutch VOC. To succeed, he had to control the vicissitudes of weather—floods, droughts, winds, starvation, and great thirsts. He was the baas, the bwana who had to deal with all unseen and unknown surprises. That included: animal attacks, Arab slaver/killer invasion, war with ruthless Zulu impis, poisons, malfunctioning guns, and misbehaving men of his safari team. He lost six of his nine lives, accumulated hard-won treasure twice, and gained incomparable friends and success beyond measure. Such a life was never a sure thing for the man. How he accomplished, that is the stuff of legend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publication Consultants
• Release date: Aug 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781637471159

Carl Douglass

Author Carl Douglass desires to live to the century mark and to be still writing; his wife not so much. No matter whose desire wins out, they plan an entire life together and not go quietly into the night. Other than writing, their careers are in the past. Their lives focus on their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON, AND A TIME TO EVERY PURPOSE UNDER THE HEAVEN: A TIME TO BE BORN, AND A TIME TO DIE…

Aboard the Z-Louisa Hendrika, mid-ocean, in the year of our Lord, October,1652

Piet Corneliuszoon Van Brakel sat stiffly on the infirmary examining table casting a thousand-yard stare out the porthole seeing nothing, and feeling nothing, as the two-foot waves moved methodically past unacknowledged. It was becoming dusk, then dark, and the full moon shown through the porthole shining a gentle spotlight on the body of his wife, lying in grotesque dishabille on the birthing table across from him. His young wife lay dead in the moonlight; his heart died that night with his bride.

The sister, Emmerentje Ariaensdochter Van de Berg, walked quietly and stood beside the silent captain.

"Captain Van Brakel, you have done everything you possibly could and more than most men would, to protect and save your dear wife. The passengers and crew stand in awe of what you tried to do and what you accomplished. Your wife is with the angels now, but you are the father of a beautiful little baby girl. You must mourn, but you must live. Please allow one of the crew to escort you back to your cabin. You need rest, and the good men and women of the crew can handle the ship while you grieve and come to grips with what has happened and what must be done.

Leave the final care of dear Anneke to me. I will wash and dress her with the help of the mortuary officer; so, you can next see her in her beauty, and not as she is now.

Piet looked up dully–almost uncomprehendingly–and nodded.

Call Andries, please, Sister.

He is waiting outside the door, Sir, as he has during the entire time of your trial. He has the children with him now. I must say that he has kept a loving vigil through it all, Sir.

As I would expect.

Andries helped Piet to his feet, clasping him in a bearhug until the captain could stand safely on his own. He took the zombie-like widower to his bed, stripped off his clothes, washed off the blood from the delivery, gave him a stout portion of grog, and put him under the covers. The grog and extreme weariness brought on a dreamless sleep of fourteen hours.

The sea never changed. There was nothing but the ocean—Mediterranean—for as far as any eye could see in any direction. Piet Van Brakel had lost hope along with every other good quality, and he could not imagine this voyage ever ending. In fact, they were nearing Malta, and every man and woman on all the Van Brakel ships had their eyes fixed on a 360° horizon to be the first to see a pirate or corsair fleet. Then all eyes fixed on a Maltese corsair headed towards them. They were surprised that they had not seen the Christian pirates before now.

Andries held up the navigation charts and showed Piet that—by his best reckoning—they were more than fifty nm east of the militant island. The Maltese were too far from home and had only one ship; so, all the Van Brakel fleet had to deal with now were the Barbary pirates for the time being.

That’s all? grumped Piet, with a peevish look on his face.

Piet, that’s good. You made a little joke. Maybe you can get over this. Try and have hope.

I do need to work on myself. I owe it to the children and the crew.

And to yourself, my friend, equally as much to yourself.

Piet shrugged. He had been exercising furiously since the day he had taken to his bed, in order to take his mind off his despair. He had wrestled, boxed, and done Jiu jitsu, with the toughest men on board until they begged off when he asked them for another match. They were becoming afraid of him, that he might not remember that it was just a training exercise. His fencing partners came to the same conclusion, and he felt even more alone. He was cranky. It seemed to him that he had not had a full night’s sleep since the death of Anneke.

They passed into the Sicilian Strait about fifty nm south of Sicily, and Piet ordered the fleet to move further south, closer to Tunis, because he feared the Sicilian pirates more than he did those hovering in the coves and marshes of northern Africa.

Piet turned the captaincy of the Hendrika over to the first mate for the next two days and spent every waking moment with his children trying to prepare them to be able to understand death and to know what was going to happen during the funeral of their mother. He tried to put the best face on it he could, but he was not sure that he was succeeding.

Each time when he finished a little monologue to teach the children, Greta would finish with Where’s Mama?

Despite his every effort to avoid dreaming, Piet could not avoid falling asleep and—in his dreams—seeing the aanspreker walking about the ship. He was dressed in black, from his dark knee-breeches and long cloak to a three-cornered hat adorned with black crepe streamers. The aanspreker stopped at every door and tapped on the shoulder of every sailor, to convey his one message: someone was dead.

The day of the funeral was bright, and sunny, with gentle winds and ocean currents. That brightness and pleasantness was in direct contradistinction to the mood among the mourners on the Hendrika. The entire crews and passengers of the three original Van Brakel ships gathered to pay their respects, making the main deck overcrowded, and the upper deck—main and promenade—all the way fore and aft nearly full. Every person—including children—was dressed in their formal best to honor a truly loved woman, wife, mother, and the person with dozens of best friends. At Piet’s request, the funeral and internment were to be formal and in keeping with the Dutch Reformed Church and the traditions of the Dutch navy.

At the stroke of noon, the boatswain piped "All Hands on Deck, and everyone came to attention. The Master-at-Arms stood by the mainmast and removed his hat. The congregation followed suit. Piet stood holding Greta and Angel. Andries held little Zonneschijn Sunni" Pietinella Van Brakel. The Van Brakel boys stood against their father’s stout legs, and the da Montefeltro children stood in the shade of their parents.

The acting captain, First Mate Hendrick Vandermere, ordered Attention on deck. The person of honor approaches!

The six pall bearers carried a flat board shoulder high holding the completely enshrouded form of Anneke. A profound hush fell over the mourners; even the waves and the seagulls seemed to be quiet.

The board was placed leaning against the main deck railing, then the pall bearers saluted and made sharp about-faces and stepped away. Piet, his children, Andries, and the da Montefeltro family, stepped forward to gaze down at the shrouded form. Acting Captain Vandermere took his place at Anneke’s head beside the mortician’s mate. Vandermere nodded. The mortician’s mate glanced at Piet, who returned his nod.

Piet barely choked back a sob. Very slowly and reverently the mate undid the small stitches of the flap that covered Anneke’s face. There was an audible and communal gasp. Anneke was radiantly beautiful, her golden blond hair flowing around her now peaceful and lovely face. Everyone who could get a glimpse realized that she was dressed in an extraordinarily beautiful Turkish gown; they had all been informed that this was her wedding dress. No one but the ship’s mortician and Piet knew that Anneke’s body was sewn into the sailcloth and fine linen with weights: ice, rocks, and cannonballs.

Piet and Zander asked if they could kiss their mother one last time.

No, boys, I’m sorry; but she is very cold; and I do not want that feeling to be the last you remember of your mother.

They nodded in realization, and both began to cry softly. That made Greta cry, and Sunni always cried when Greta cried. Somehow, they all knew that it was not a time for loud sounds. Piet gulped down a gullet of weeping and gritted his teeth to keep from bursting into a flood of hot tears. Andries bowed his head and let his tears flow unashamedly into his beard.

First Mate Vandermere announced, "We are gathered on this solemn occasion to honor the dearly departed Anneke Blandina van den Voor-Hees Van Brakel who has been taken from us before her time. Our shipmate and Jewish Rabbi Menasche Itskowitz, will now intone the Yizkor Prayer for the mother.

Menasche stood straight and proud, all in black, his beard newly trimmed.

This is the Yizkor Prayer for the mother of Piet, Zander, Greta, Zonneschijn Pietinella, and baby Angelien. These children are saying Yizkor" for their mother, Anneke.

"Yizkor E-lohim Nishmat imi morati, Anneke, Shehol’chah l’olamah, Ba-avur sheb’li neder Etayn tz’dakah ba-adah.

Bis-char ze T’hay nafshah tz’rurah Bitz-ror hacha-yim Im nish-mot Avraham, Yitzchak v’Yaakov, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel v’Lay-ah, V’im sh’ar tzadikim v’tzidkaniyot Sheb’Gan Eden.

V’nomar: Amayn"

[Transliteration: "May the Lord remember the soul of my mother, my teacher, who has gone on to her world, because—without making a vow—I shall give to charity on her behalf.]

"As reward for this, may her soul be bound in the Bond of Life, together with the souls of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah; and together with the other righteous men and women in the Garden of Eden.

Now let us respond:

Amen."]

Menasche sang rather than reciting the Hebrew Text for the Yizkor Service in Memory of One’s Mother. His strong baritone voice was soft, mellifluous, and mournful. There was not a single dry eye on deck.

After a brief moment of pause, First Mate Vandermere voiced the Dutch Reformed Church and Lutheran Church prayer for the dead at sea:

Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our sister departed, and we commend her body to the deep; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his glorious body; according to the mighty working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself.

At a nod from First Mate Vandermere, the young Japanese waitstaff girls—dressed in their most beautiful embroidered red silk kimonos unobtrusively and with heads bowed—moved silently and placed bouquets of Beehive ginger, Costus Barbados, Heliconia, Frangipani, Fire Lily, Anthurium, Sumatran orchids: [Moth orchids, Vandas, huge Sugar-Cane orchids, dark orchids, Gold of Kinabalu orchid, lime green ‘Chica’, yellow and red showoffs, bright pink Frae, bushel basketfuls of unnamed elegant orchids], and Bougainvillea on the diminutive shrouded figure.

There was some reason to make haste. By policy, tradition, and law, 17th century mariners prohibited the use of formaldehyde to embalm the dead. It was strictly forbidden among Jews and Muslims. The midday sun was now baking the decks. Touching a metal object would leave a burn mark. It was time.

First Mate Vandermere looked over at Piet for guidance. Piet’s sallow face was devoid of emotion; he was drained. He nodded. He also knew it was time.

Vandermere said to the Master-at-Arms, Summon the pallbearers.

The Master-at-Arms spoke out in his stentorian voice, Pallbearers, fo’ard harch!

The enlisted men marched to the pallet holding Anneke, took firm holds, and lifted her waist high. They walked in unison slowly and sedately to the railing and set the forward edge of the pallet on the railing. Vandermere beckoned the family and the Japanese girls.

Piet spoke in a low and lonesome voice, Boys, Greta, come and say ‘good-bye’ to Mama.

The two boys choked out a good-bye; Greta cried, I want my Mama, and Sunni and Angelien began to cry even though only Sunni had even the vaguest notion of what was going on or what she had lost.

Piet nodded again to the first mate and the pall bearers. The inner end of the pallet slowly began to rise creating a progressively more obtuse angle. The Japanese girls handed all the children bunches of the beautiful flowers. The weighted and shrouded figure began an inexorable slide towards the cobalt blue ocean. The descent increased in velocity, and finally, Anneke Van Brakel dropped into the sea. The children marked the spot on the ocean surface where her shroud was last seen with their flowers. First Mate Vandermere saluted.

Farewell, good captain, he said almost in a whisper.

A woman put her hand on Piet’s forearm; and for lack of something better to say, gave Piet one of the old and overworn standard comments for funerals, Dear Man, it was a beautiful funeral.

Piet felt a new depth of his sorrow; now it was rage.

He restrained himself with supreme difficulty. He remained outwardly silent, but inwardly he was whispering, There is nothing beautiful about it. The beauty is gone. I will never see beauty again.

He knotted his fists into his eye sockets, knelt on the deck, and gave over to an outpouring of sorrow that many there feared would cause him great harm. It was not just Anneke’s funeral; it was the funeral of his hopes. Andries—the mountain of a man and the pillar of strength—curled up on the damp misted deck and cried inconsolably like a baby.

THE PRE-WRITTEN HISTORY OF THE AREA THAT BECAME CAPETOWN

Prehistoric inhabitation of the district is well established by researchers from several disciplines. About three MYA, the first hominids existed in this area, followed by Homo erectus, and finally, Homo sapiens came into existence. About 2,000 years ago the Khoe-speaking peoples migrated towards the Cape Peninsula from the north. This countryside was before that occupied by nomadic forager !Ui speakers. The pastoralist influx eventually brought herds of cattle and sheep into the region, which then formed part of a larger grazing land that was seasonally rotated. It was the !Uriǁ’aekua—Highclansmen, often written in Dutch as Goringhai-qua—who were the dominant local people when the Europeans first sailed into Table Bay. This clan is said to be the ancestral population of the !Ora nations of today—the so-called "Korana" people. These original inhabitants of the area—the Khoekhoen—called Table Mountain Huriǂ’oaxa—the ocean-emerging mountain.

In the Kemetic History of Afrika, Dr Cheikh Anah Diop writes, "The ancient name of Africa was Alkebulan. [mother of mankind] or [garden of Eden] which is the oldest and perhaps, the only word of indigenous origin discovered by researchers.

THE FIRST SOUTH AFRICANS

The history of South Africa dates back thousands of years. The Bushmen—who were hunter-gatherers—roamed the land of sub-Saharan Africa until the immigration of the more aggressive Bantu people. Most of the information of these two groups’ early existence comes from archeological evidence. In fact, remains of some of the earliest human ancestors have been found there, in an area known as the Cradle of Mankind. For example, the Sterkfontein Caves were the site of the discovery of a 2.3 MYA fossil Australopithecus africanus, and a human ancestor called Homo naledi lived in southern Africa between ~241-335 TYA.

Anthropologists found the first skull belonging to a Homo naledi child deep in a cave. The skull’s remote location suggests these ancestors ritually buried their dead. Early humans migrated from this region, and migration has remained a major factor in the formation of identities in southern Africa. Over the centuries, people from other parts of Africa, from Europe, and from Asia, migrated into what is today South Africa. In the third to sixth centuries CE, northern Bantu groups migrated into southern Africa from central Africa, establishing agricultural settlements and displacing many of the traditionally hunter-gatherer Khoisan. That represented a major African geo-political-social shift.

The Khoikhoi/Khoekhoe/Khoisan were the first inhabitants of southern Africa and one of the earliest distinct groups of Homo sapiens, enduring centuries of gradual dispossession at the hands of every new wave of settlers–including the Bantu–whose descendants make up most of South Africa’s black population today. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ANC [ruling African National Congress party] has embarked on a mission to redistribute land. But this process has largely excluded the Khoisan, because South Africa does not acknowledge them as the country’s first peoples, and their land was mostly taken long before the apartheid era. Now, a growing movement of indigenous activists believes the time has come to take back what should rightfully be theirs.

Prior to the arrival of European colonists, a variety of ethnic and linguistic groups lived in the southernmost region of the African continent. The egalitarian San lived by fishing, hunting, and gathering, while the more hierarchical Khoikhoi—men of men—were primarily herders. For centuries, they lived in small communities of 20 to 80 families related by blood and marriage; a male leader was marked by a degree of wealth, distinctive clothing, and in some cases several wives. While these groups once occupied much of what is today South Africa, newcomers migrating from other parts of Africa gradually displaced them. Over thousands of years, the new-comers integrated many San and Khoikhoi into their communities and pushed the remaining San/Bushmen to the most arid regions of the interior and the remaining Khoikhoi to the territory’s southwestern edge.

The new Bantu arrivals were mostly farmers and herders who spoke languages from a large African language group known as Bantu. As the migrants settled in various parts of the territory, people living in close proximity gradually developed distinct languages and cultures, creating new ethnic groups. For example, the modern Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele, and Swazi, ethnic groups all trace their origins to an earlier group, known as the Nguni, and their languages today remain mutually understandable.

Over time, smaller groups gradually merged into larger political communities, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes by force. The process of group formation remained fluid until relatively recently. For example–until the late 1700s–the Zulu were a small group in the east. Under the leadership of several powerful kings, especially Shaka Zulu—who came to power in 1816—the Zulu conquered a number of neighboring groups. Those who would not submit to Zulu rule had no choice but flight or death and some moved as far north as modern-day Zimbabwe over time. Today, South Africa includes ten large African ethnic groups and a number of smaller groups. Together these African ethnic groups constitute over 80% of South Africa’s population.

The diversity of the population has presented a challenge for how different groups live together. Conflict between the groups has never been inevitable; at times, diverse groups lived together peacefully. They traded mealies, corn, pumpkins, meal, dried peaches, potatoes, and onions for rice, tea, sugar, and a sheep made into sausages.

But as the territory became increasingly prosperous, with lush farmland and the mining of diamonds and gold, some groups sought to keep the country’s wealth for themselves by controlling and excluding other groups. The history of struggle for control and for resources shaped how groups came to understand their own identities.

Some 22,000 years ago, the Khoisan were the largest group of humans on earth. Today, only about 100,000 Khoisan/Bushmen remain, many of whom now live in poverty, their cultural traditions endangered. There were several reasons for that sea-change in the lives and success of the Khoisan, such as changes in the climate. Before 22 TYA, the southern part of Africa where the Khoisan live—was wetter with more frequent and more reliable precipitation compared to the dryer western and central parts of the continent where other groups lived. A dryer climate meant fewer wild game and less food, which translated into fewer children. In that period, other populations dropped significantly while the Khoisan’s population stayed about the same. But after the last ice age ended, the climate changed; and the other African populations expanded concomitant with the beginning of exponential growth of humans across the earth.

7+ billion people now live on earth making it very difficult for us to comprehend how few people lived in the past. About 10,000 years ago, there were not more than 1 million on the entire planet. 100 TYA, only a few 10,000s. The whole genome sequences analyzed by geneticists show that there was a time when the non-Khoisan peoples were not doing as well as the Khoisans.

The Bantu people migrated into the area from the Niger River Delta, initially living peacefully with their Khoisan neighbors. Rock paintings depict encounters and integration between the two groups. In addition, artifacts from Khoisan societies have been found in Bantu settlements.

However, eventually the arrival of the more vigorous Bantu spelled the end of Khoisan culture and their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, which is even now being further replaced by herding and agriculture. The most important thing being lost is the language. This is a click language in which tongue clicks serve as consonants. Linguists believe that the more clicks you have, the older the language is; and this one has five, the most of any. There is also beautiful traditional music and singing being lost.

As the societies evolved, the Khoikhoi made their colonies along the coastal waters, while the San remained inland. The integration of these two groups is known as the Khoisan.

The arrival of White Europeans led to further major problems for the original inhabitants. The basic problem is that their traditional lands lie in the middle of the world’s richest diamond field. Gem Diamonds company—in a nod to preservation of Khoisan culture—has cooperated with a South African aid agency, Vox United, to dig a water hole for the Bushmen; but the government has made it difficult to dig more and has done nothing further to provide the Bushmen with water.

When the Europeans arrived—1,000 years after the Bantu—the Khoisan were the first to fight against them, leading to a series of 17th century wars between the Khoikoi and Dutch settlers. Their native resistance culminated during the 18th century in battles that came to be known as the Bushman Wars. Eventually, smallpox decimated the majority of the remaining Khoisan population, making it easier for settlers to take their land and then force the natives to work on it.

In historical time—essentially, within the past 250 years in this region—these native peoples were widely distributed below the Cunene, Okavango, and Zambezi, river systems—in the modern states of Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Smaller numbers were—and are—found in southern Angola and Zambia. The once large population of San in South Africa has been completely eliminated leaving a comparative handful; perhaps 20 percent of contemporary Khoikhoi are still found there.

The written history of the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa began when Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias became the first modern European to round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed along the whole coast of South Africa on his way to India, landed at St Helena Bay for 8 days, and made a detailed description of the area. The Portuguese—attracted by the riches of Asia—made no permanent settlement at the Cape Colony region. However, the VOC [Dutch East India Company] settled the area as a location where vessels could restock water and provisions. Changes came inexorably into a colonial community derived largely from Dutch, German, and French, immigrants, and from widespread illicit unions and marriages with slave women and their offspring. The early settlers interbred with the Khoi, and the colony’s population was swelled by European immigrants who included girls from Dutch orphanages and Huguenot exiles from France, shipped out by the Company

The new populace in the new region began to call themselves Afrikanders.

CHAPTER TWO

THERE IS ONLY ONE HAPPINESS IN THIS LIFE, TO LOVE AND BE LOVED.

— AMANTINE LUCILE AURORE DUPIN [GEORGE SAND]

Aboard the Z-Louisa Hendrika, mid-ocean, in the year of our Lord, October,1652, two weeks later

Two weeks further on, they were in sight of Sardinia, the large island 400 nm across the Tyrrhenian Sea from Naples on the west coast of Italy. Sea going commercial traffic seemed to be proceeding about as they would have expected. No ships on fire or emitting smoke. The closer they came to Sardinia, the more peaceful things appeared; so, Piet ordered a double watch. He did not trust the Sardinians or the Italians any more than he did the Maltese or the Barbary pirates.

Piet was correct to be fearful of the Maltese corsairs, and Andries had every reason to sail with utmost caution when in waters infested with the Barbary Ottomans, known for their inhuman cruelty to ships’ crews and the slaves they kidnapped.

Storm clouds were beginning to gather slowly, Piet and the second mate took note of two patches of blue appearing in the middle of the stormy looking sky, leaving the impression that the storm could break any time.

The mate looked at the gathering storm—with a small area of blue left between the puffy grey clouds—and observed seriously, It’s the Dutchman’s Breeches, Captain. I reckon we’re in for a storm.

Aye mate, it does. Could you call down to the galley for a couple of Dutchmen’s draughts for us. It might be a bit unpleasant up here.

Aye, Sir.

The Barbary Corsairs were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from coastal havens of North Africa—the area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, in reference to the ferocious Berbers who were actually mostly land-based nomadic pastoralists and occasional raiders. Their predations extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa’s Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland at times; but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean where the van Brakel fleet was currently in transit.

In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in Razzias [raids on European coastal towns and villages] mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands, and as far north as Iceland and Greenland. The main purpose of their attacks was kidnapping ships’ crews and passengers to be slaves for the Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Arab slavery market in North Africa and the Middle East. They were not interested in jihad or settling old scores. Slaves of Barbary corsairs could be of any ethnicity, of any of the different religions. Slave marketers were not discriminatory about who was a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, man or woman, adult or child. There was a general agreement among the officers, crew, and passengers, that would be better to die fighting that to submit to the living death of slavery under Islam. Anneke had known better than anyone by her own experience how real that decision should be.

Ten days later, they bypassed Malta by dipping south below the belligerent island which brought them closer to the northern African coast—the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, and Tripoli—known to the Dutch as the Barbary Coast and to be infested with murderous pirates.

Andries cautioned, Captain, would it not be better to angle north away from the coast now that we are getting out of range of the Maltese Corsairs? We are beginning to see more schooners and sloops coming from the south. Any group of them could be pirates.

Or modern peaceful traders, who knows? No galleys?

No, Sir. But then, we are too far out to sea for rowers. Besides, I don’t think the Berbers have used galleys for a hundred years.

I know that, but whenever we pass through here, we are between sharks and killer whales. I find it hard to think, to decide. What do you think we should do?

It was the first time ever that Piet had conceded confusion, self-doubt, or indecision. He had relied on Andries for many years now and trusted that he would not betray the confidence Piet had in him to be able to confess that Anneke’s death had taken something serious away from him—his daring and his ability to assess trouble and to deal with it.

Break off at a 45° angle north and west. We can do better dealing with enemies on the open sea who have no close safe haven for retreat, Andries said decisively.

I said that I cannot deal with my own confusion and lack of self-confidence. Andries, please take the helm and make the decisions. I need to go aft at have a glass of cognac to get myself back together.

Andries assigned an around-the-clock-watch by able seamen at Piet’s bedside; so, the deeply injured sea-captain would want for nothing when he awakened, and privately instructed each man to watch Piet for any indication that he might do himself harm. When Piet returned to the helm, Andries, himself, sat in the bed chamber of the five children watching over them as they fitfully slept. He and Sister Emmerentje took turns minding the new baby, Angelien, as she fussed and needed a change of nappies. The seasoned nurse marveled at the tenderness of the man with hands larger than the baby. All the children were in good hands, she thought.

On the third day past his personal doldrums, Piet began to stir and became aware that he was terribly thirsty and voraciously hungry. Andries came by to check on him as he had done every day. He had his courage up and was ready to give Piet a Dutch uncle talking-to.

Baas, it’s time for you to get up and about, have something to eat, and to clean up. It does no one any good for you to lay about. The children lost their mother, and they need you, their father.

I know. Give me a few minutes. Are the children all right?

They are, but sad, very sad. Greta cannot understand that her mama is gone and that she will not be back. Sunni cries a lot because Greta is sad, and the boys are trying to help. It is not the same as having their papa with them.

"When I’m presentable, bring the five of them over here, and we’ll all make breakfast together. Let’s see if we can ferry the da Montefeltros and some of the Gujarati and Japanese children and their parents to the Hendrika. We can make breakfast into a little party."

That’s the spirit, Piet. The children have to know that life goes on.

They do. Now, give me some privacy, Piet said and even managed a little smile.

Breakfast was a hodge-podge of leftovers, some Dutch, some Venetian, some Gujarati, and some Japanese, food. All of it was surprisingly fresh, and the general mood lightened considerably. Piet pushed his mourning to the back of his mind and was able to give warmth to the children including Jacopo, Quirina, Paolo, and the now thirteen-month-old baby, Innocenta, who squirmed and crawled all over the quarters with Sunni Van Brakel right behind her. The children laughed, cried, fought, spilled, screamed, and gave hugs. The Japanese and Gujarati children added to the din and the generally rather zoological atmosphere. It was something like a return towards normal.

Thereafter, Piet forced himself to come out on deck and to conduct himself as he always did, issuing orders, giving compliments, giving minor reprimands and corrections, and standing at his post by the helm. Only when he was alone, did he permit himself to ruminate on the funeral of his hopes. His life stretched ahead of him… empty. He only allowed his emotions to surface and the tears to flow at night in his bed.

A week later, the van Brakel fleet passed well below Malta, staying to mid channel of the Mediterranean to avoid pirates from Malta, then from Sicily, then from Sardinia, which they could see far to the north. They kept a special watch out for Barbary pirates coming up from the south. The only pirate attacks turned out to be faux—once the pirate fleets got a good view of the large and well-armed van Brakel armada, they made only desultory passes and turned tail and headed back to safe waters.

The wind came up flowing from east to west giving the van Brakel fleet enhanced speed. The Mediterranean was beginning to narrow with Algeria on the south and Spain on the north. With bright sun and light wind, the land was visible on both sides now. As they made their way towards Morocco on the south and began to be aware of significant narrowing; the Strait of Gibraltar and safety were dead ahead. Waters were calm for the most part with easterly winds catching their sails and moving the armada along briskly without requiring the furling of sails. By the time the ships began to notice a narrowing of the waterway as they were approaching the Strait, all of that stopped.

The sky darkened, and the few puffy cumulus clouds turned from white to grey to black. The wind began to pick up, as well. The wind increased; the sky rapidly turned grey-purple; and the basin of the heavens spilled over on them. Visibility diminished to less than two nautical miles, and lookouts lined the decks of all twenty ships to sight any shoals, sand bars, pirate, or Portuguese ships. The channel was now narrow enough to invite a large and brazen pirate fleet to show itself.

Piet was back at the helm.

He said to Andries, Signal flags for all ships—Pirates ho on the port!"

Aye, aye, Sir.

All women and children below decks. All able hands-on deck in full combat gear. Gunners at the ready.

Aye, aye.

People scurried to safety and to battle stations. Sabers rattled; battle flags unfurled and were hoisted up the masts; and cannons were primed.

Archers aboard pirate vessels, the port watchers shouted above the din, almost in unison.

Shields at the ready, Andries yelled.

There was a helter-skelter race to obtain the shields, and the fleet was at full readiness for the rapidly advancing schooners and sloops of the pirates.

The Z-Louisa Hendrika was the lead ship as always, and this time that was a detriment. Before the gunners could get off their first cannonade, a sloop slid up on the starboard; and before the men could react, swarthy bearded and fierce Berbers had thrown up grappling hooks and were climbing towards the deck rails. They carried knives, curved cutlasses, and crossbows, along with quivers of arrows.

The brave seamen and marines on the Hendrika gave valiant battle to repel the boarders, but the numbers were overwhelming. Scores of pirates pulled themselves over the starboard railings and rushed forward slashing and firing short deadly arrows in flurries.

The defenders employed a concept more than a thousand years old. Greek fire had been invented in the 700s by the Byzantines, and the crew of the Hendrika employed the technique of filling metal jars with the incendiary liquid. The pirate sloop’s deck was soon littered with the small flaming bombs, and the ship and its men sunk below the surface in less than three minutes stranding their crewmen on the decks of the Hendrika to determine their own fates.

The small pirate fleet had underestimated the size of the van Brakel fleet and its massive cannon armamentarium; the tenacity and training of its fighters; and overestimated the advantage of surprise and the danger they posed to the commercial vessels by coming out of the enshrouding fog in their attack.

The port side deck watchers sighted in on a rush of ten—maybe more—corsair vessels charging at the van Brakel larger fleet. Rain had started to fall in sufficient amounts and force to obscure visibility, especially for the pirates. It appeared that their visual difficulty gave rise to a lapse in judgment resulting in a full commitment of their forces against a vastly superior combat/commercial fleet in terms of numbers of ships, numbers of well-trained combatants, and the numbers and quality of big guns aboard every van Brakel vessel.

The pirate vessels were sleek, quick, agile, schooners, and sloops, whose captains counted on the prey ships being lumbering east Indiamen laden with treasure and short on cannons or combat skills.

Whether they were aware or not, they could not be faulted as being cowardly. The great majority came broadside at the van Brakel fleet from Tunis to the south. Brief cannonades from the armada sunk and damaged enough Barbary coast vessels to cause them to begin to wheel to the east, away from the Straits and the armada. But they were neither nimble enough to escape without injury, nor combatants enough to inflict damage on the armada. They were apparently surprised—there in the fog and rain—by the size and strength of the forces they had misjudged. Piet and his captains counted at least fifteen pirate vessels turning their bows down towards Davy Jones’s Locker.

The first cannonade hit the pirate schooners at point-blank range, destroying at least ten of them. Now, smoke joined the already thick haze and made visibility beyond a foot or two nearly impossible. Piet ordered three more salvos as sound shots and was gratified to hear men screaming out in sudden agony.

No other boarders made it onto a van Brakel vessel. Several of the friendly ships opened fire and decimated another three or four pirate vessels ending the actual sea battle. However, the savage fight aboard the Hendrika still played out.

Piet tied the wheel fast to a belaying pin on the railings on both the port and starboard sides to hold the ship on its present course. He threw himself into the fray, slashing, kicking, and smashing the pirates with his fists. It felt relieving and invigorating to him. He was in his element.

One of the larger schooners ended up on the Z-Louisa Hendrika’s starboard side coming at the lead ship out of the mists and fog and driving rain. The rain was coming in at a nearly horizontal trajectory stinging the faces and eyes of the armada’s watchmen. The men of the Hendrika were taken by surprise when the sleek schooner came along side and tethered their ship to the larger van Brakel vessel. Grappling hooks were latching to the gunnels/gunwales, and men were scaling them to come over the side.

The Hendrika’s fighters were currently involved in repelling boarders on the port side aft and almost no one realized that they were being boarded by killers on the opposite side. They might well have not been detected until too late, but the drug crazed pirates began their blood-curdling scream to terrorize the few defenders who faced them.

Andries turned towards the new noise, saw the pirates hacking at the Hendrick’s limited starboard forces, and screamed over the cacophony occurring around him, BOARDERS ON THE STARBOARD!!, FOLLOW ME!!

He grabbed two men and bodily turned them around. They each grabbed another mate, and the first five defenders rushed the pirates on the opposite side of the vessel. Andries’s great size produced consternation in the small blackamoor killers, and they hesitated in the process of securing their advantage.

Piet saw what was happening and shouted at the men gathered around him to follow Andries to the starboard. Piet ran to where the grappling hooks had been secured and ladders thrown down to buccaneers waiting the deck of the pirate schooner. He swung his scimitar over his head and decapitated two men who were scrambling over the rail. Hendricka sailors had his back; so, he used the moment of time and space to slash at the grappling ropes and the flexible rope ladders. The ropes were severed with six or seven swipes of the broad sword, and the men attached fell backwards to their deaths in the now shark infested waters or onto the deck of the schooner landing fatally on their backs.

Falling from that height and landing in such a way resulted in transection of the ascending aorta and its curving arch, massive instantaneous internal hemorrhage, a few seconds of excruciating pain, then death. The death of their compatriots caused near paralyzing fear and immediate sobering from their drug induced haze among the remaining pirates. Many leaped over the side of the schooner to certain death, the least dreadful manner was by drowning or being crushed by the heaving hulls of the ships.

Andries and Barents, the two giants among the Dutchman marched forward against the already embattled buccaneers striking and hacking at their backs. The remaining boarders began to panic. They joined in suicidal rushes against the Dutchmen coming at them from fore and aft. Others leaped over the gunnels and joined their brethren in the maws of roiling mass of great white and tiger sharks waiting below.

Piet’s peripheral vision caught a force of five swarthy buccaneers fighting their way to the ladder leading to the captain’s quarters during the commotion. He saw Andries and another large able seaman move to a place to stand just behind the thick oaken doors as the pirates fought to breech the chamber where the precious women and children were being protected.

An improvised battering ram was beginning to smash its way into the room bit by bit.

The lead pirate of the five shouted above the cacophonous ambient noise, Get the women and children. They’ll make valuable slaves or hostages.

Piet began to fight his way towards the new battle being waged at the doors into his cabin.

Andries had seen the five pirates headed towards the captain’s cabin. He elbowed Barent who saw what was happening and joined Andries in a mad dash for the quarters to get there before the pirates did.

The two large Dutchmen rushed through the door bowling over the four young defenders, Piet and Zander van Brakel, Jacopo da Montefeltro, and even little Paolo, who had been wielding fencing swords, fireplace pokers, and a broken off broom handle.

Andries gave orders: Into the bedroom, the lot of ye. Guard the women and children as the last line o’ defense. We two will mind the doors. Now off wi’ ye!

The boys were greatly relieved to have the two biggest men they had ever known taking charge; and they moved into the bedroom with the greatest of alacrity, slammed the heavy door shut, and put the strong wooden security beam in place. And waited in terror with the tense and frightened women and children.

Andries and Barents barely had time to bar the doors leading from the upper deck ladder into the captain’s quarters when a ferocious clanging and pounding came on the outside of the three-inch-thick wooden door. There was a period of quiet followed by a dreadful high impact, low velocity, booming against the door which made its hinges rattle and dust to fly out of the of its crevices.

The door’ll nay wi’stand many more o’ those bashes, Barents said, pointing out the obvious.

Ready yourself, Lad. Be brave, Andries said holding the grip of his huge scimitar with both hands.

The door began to give, bit by frightening bit.

A hand, followed by a tattooed arm, pushed through the opening between the opening doors. Barents took a mighty swing and hacked it off clean mid-shaft of the upper arm. Blood pumped in gouts into the antechamber of the room; the injured man screamed; finally, the hinges gave, the doors toppled inward; the two oak doors caved in; and the five killers stormed in almost all at the same time. Two pirates fell headfirst into the antechamber unprepared for the door to give that fast. They were dispatched more quickly than it would take to say it.

Several pirate reinforcements entered the melee.

The giant, Andries, used both arms to swing his huge curved saber from eight feet over his head at lightening speed down on the crown of the leader of the murderers. No one had ever seen the results of such a blow from such a formidable man. The lead pirate’s head was split neatly in half. As he fell, his corpse tripped one of the other pirates, unnerving him into blathering unthinking madness. The able seaman finished him off.

Andries took a crossbow arrow in his right upper chest, fortunately covered by his sturdy chainmail and ironwood protective vest. Still, it penetrated two inches into the giant chest wall, hurt like the fires of Hades, and infuriated Andries. Instead of slowing the man down, the arrow inspired him.

He and Able Seaman Barents ter Onder-donk moved like invincible automatons against the remaining and highly intimidated pirates who—by then—were well aware of the folly of their ways.

The great Dutch swords slashed back and forth like mighty corn chopping machines severing off limbs, opening chests, crushing faces, and shredding the bodies and wills of the hapless pirates.

Andries gave out a terrifying Icelandic battle cry, AAAOOOHH!!, a holdover from his Viking ancestors.

As terrorizing as it was to anyone outside, it was highly comforting to the Hendrika’s now safe occupants of the bed chamber.

Zander recognized its significance, The worries are over for now. That is a victory cry from the greatest fighter any of us have ever known. The attackers made the worst decision of their lives.

The women and children exhaled the air they had been unconsciously holding for the past several moments.

Now, it was two against two; and the pirates did not stand a chance. The two Dutchmen immediately surrounded and outnumbered the two terrified attackers, hacking and slashing. Andries brought his scimitar down on the crown of one of the pirate’s heads with such force that it cleaved the bald skull from crown to neckline in one blow. The other pirate saw that dreadful sight out of the corner of his eye and paused to vomit.

Barents swung his entire body nearly in a complete circle with enough force to cut the vomiting man’s body in half transversely at his waist. The attack on the captain’s chambers and against the defenseless women and children came to an end as fast as it had begun.

Barents walked to the bedroom door.

Boys and Ladies, it is I, Barents. Big Andries and me are here alone now. No more danger. Ye kin open the door to us now. All is well.

The security bar slid out of its holder, and Zander peaked out. He whooped with joy when he saw the two blood-covered savage Dutchmen standing there victorious. The gore and dismembered body parts scattered in the anteroom behind the two warriors not only did not frighten the boy; but it made him give out a second shrill and primeval shout.

Ursa was holding tiny Angelien and Innocenta to her ample bosom with one arm and gripping a wicked looking Venetian tempered steel knife in the other. The rest of the women were protecting the other babies inside the bed chamber, armed with table beef knives. The young men, Piet, Zander, and Jacopo, stood bravely wielding their sabers as the line of first defense inside the room.

The women unashamedly hugged the big and bloody saviors. They wept with joy and relief. The children wrapped their arms around the legs of the big men and hugged with the strength of boys and girls saved from the fires of hell.

At the same time, Piet rushed into the cabin.

Andries, Barents, are any of the people hurt? he yelled.

As he did, he was standing in blood over his shoe soles and having to avoid three severed heads and an assortment of dismembered men’s limbs. The category of people to him did not include pirates.

None of us are the least bit injured, Ursa da Montefeltro stated, then asked, how goes the battle on deck?

Piet had almost forgotten the battle-in-chief.

Still raging, I fear. I’ll send down two stout lads to guard you. Stay in the bedroom with our sons to protect you until I come back. Barents and Andries will come with us to finish up.

Out on the deck, there was a slaughter in progress. Piet was hell-bent to lead the methodical charge against a steadily diminishing number of terror-stricken pirates, many of whom were jumping overboard to their deaths to escape the sabers. The going was nonetheless slower than Piet would have wanted. That was until the two behemoths, Andries and Barent, followed by Piet, emerged from the captain’s chamber, eyes blazing with blood lust. Andries and Barent, and even Piet, screamed the Dutch battle cry, "Wahr di buer, die garde kumt" [Beware, peasants, the guards are coming], and the killing began in a level of ferocity not seen before by Dutch marines or the bloodthirsty Barbary Pirates.

The three men screamed, AAAOOOHH!!, and ran at the remaining pirates who were attempting a last-ditch defensive stand.

There was no quarter asked and none given. Those who elected to stand and fight—confident in the force of their shipmates’ strength, courage, and experience—quickly lost that confidence. Their marijuana induced bravery was diminishing with the lowering of its blood levels.

Andries and Barent rushed like two great boulders heedlessly into the small mass of men, and within five minutes none of them remained standing. The carnage was nauseating, gratifying, horrible, and freeing. Everyone on deck took up the AAAOOOHH!! cry from some primeval core in men.

The decks were awash with pirate blood and littered with severed limbs, heads, and open thoraces.

When it was finished, nary a pirate remained alive.

The sky cleared; the wind calmed to a useful tail wind; and the van Brakel fleet floated relatively unscathed through the wreckage of what had once been a highly profitable kidnaping, slaving, and murdering enterprise. Not a single living man was seen among the broken masts, spars, portions of torn apart decks, and cabins.

Only four Dutchmen were seriously wounded, and Dr. Liebowitz saved them. The number of pirates lost to their villages could not be ascertained—but they were not counted as people anyway. Dr. Liebowitz was a student of the great historical figure of combat surgery, Ambroise Paré [1510-1590]. At the time Paré entered the army, surgeons treated gunshot wounds with boiling oil since such wounds were believed to be poisonous, and most surgeons still applied that highly injurious treatment. On one occasion, when Paré’s supply of oil ran out, he treated the wounds with a mixture of egg yolk, rose oil, and turpentine with good effect and minimal adverse consequences. The fleet’s surgeon was a true believer in Paré and the time-honored medical/surgical dicta he learned in the Leiden University Medical Faculty thirty years before.

The voyage of the van Brakels continued on through the Strait of Gibraltar towards the great Atlantic. The fleet finally rounded the Atlantic portal of the Straits of Gibraltar, turned north, and began sailing on calm waters towards Amsterdam and home.

THE HISTORY OF JAN VAN RIEBEECK, THE COLONIZER OF CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA, PART I

Johan Petros Anthoniszoon Jan van Riebeeck was a Dutch navigator and colonial administrator who arrived in Dutch Cape Colony of the Dutch East India Company [the future Cape Town] on April 6, 1652. He was one of the first foreigners to set foot in South Africa. His visit to South Africa significantly impacted the country’s and the continent’s history.

He was born April 21, 1619 in Culemborg, Gelderland, Duchy of Culemborg, in the Holy Roman Empire, to Elisabeth Govertsdr van Gaesbeeck and Anthony Jansz van Riebeeck, who was a surgeon. He grew up in Schiedam, where he married 19-year-old Maria de la Quellerie on March 28, 1649. The couple had eight or nine children, most of whom did not survive infancy, except for one known son, Abraham. Maria died on November 2, 1664 in Malacca at the age of thirty-five. Jans remarried to Maria Isaacks Scipioaria [Scipio] born circa 1625. She was forty-two. They had one child, a son, Jan van Riebeeck. Maria died in 1695 at the age seventy, otherwise little is known of her.

Van Riebeeck joined the VOC [Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie—Dutch East India Company] in April, 1639 and sailed to Batavia, East Indies, to serve as an assistant surgeon. From there, in 1643, Riebeeck traveled with Jan van Elseracq to the VOC outpost at Dejima, Japan. Seven years later in 1650, he proposed selling hides of South African wild animals to Japan. He was then promoted to head of the VOC trading post in Tongking, Indochina, in 1649 [now in Vietnam]. He was dismissed from that post, having defied the ban on private trading.

It was during one of his voyages from Indochina that he discovered Table Bay near the Cape of Good Hope. He saw the viability of the bay as a location for sailors to get fresh supplies. He was so convinced of that idea, that he arranged for another voyage in 1651, After being dismissed from that position in 1645, he began to advocate a refreshment [victualing] station in the Cape of Storms after staying 18 days there during his return voyage.

Two years later, support increased after a marooned VOC ship was able to survive in a temporary fortress. The Heeren XVII requested a report from Leendert Jansz and Mathys Proot, which recommended a Dutch presence.

For that purpose, Van Riebeeck was reinstated with the VOC. On December 24, 1651, he set off from Texel in The Netherlands for the Cape of Storms with the contractual purpose of overseeing the setting up of a refreshment station to supply Dutch ships on their way to the East and was expressly forbidden to establish a colony. He traveled with his wife and son on the Dromedaris. Eighty-two other men and eight women; came on two other ships; the De Goede Hoop and the Rejiger.

He and his ships arrived April 6,1652. Within a week of the arrival of the three ships, work began on the Fort of Good Hope. The problem was complicated because deaths en route were very high. The Walvisch and the Oliphant arrived on May 7,1652, having had 130 burials at sea.

Van Riebeeck was not only charged with building the fort; but he was also ordered to improve the natural anchorage at Table Bay, planting cereals, fruit, and vegetables, and obtaining livestock from the indigenous Khoi people to supply the crews of the VOC Company’s passing trading ships with fresh water, vegetables, fruit, meat, and medical assistance. The first winter experienced by Van Riebeeck and his crew was extremely harsh; they lived in wooden huts and their gardens were washed away by the heavy rains. As a result, their food dwindled; and at the end of the winter, nineteen of the original men had died.

The initial fort—named Fort de Goede Hoop [Fort of Good Hope]—was made of mud, clay, and timber, and had four corners or bastions. In addition, he was required to erect a flagpole for signaling to ships and boats to escort them into the bay. Things definitely did not go as planned. Complications included a war between the Netherlands and England that broke during the time. The war lasted for two years, and it caused the urgency of the completion of the fort, which led to a rushed effort. The original fort was built between 1652 and 1656. It was rather flimsy, but all that could be accomplished with the equipment—the tools they brought with them to build the fort were basic in the extreme and included shovels, spades, picks, mattocks, and wheelbarrows—the material available in the immediate vicinity was considerably wanting; so, the builders were compelled to use what they could lay their hands on: mostly clay and small branches as the main building elements, the extreme weather conditions—freezing winters and scorching summers—and the labor force was nowhere near adequate at the time. The finished structure—such as it was—was protected by a moat and cannons placed along all the ramparts.

That fort of Van Riebeeck’s was replaced by the Castle of Good Hope, built between 1666 and 1679 after van Riebeeck had left the Cape. Construction of the much more substantial Castle of Good Hope went for thirteen more years after Van Riebeeck had left the Cape.

Although the VOC did not originally intend to establish a colony at the Cape, permits were issued in February, 1657 to free nine company servants—who became the Free Burghers—to farm along the Liesbeeck River in order to deal with a wheat shortage. They were given as much land as they could cultivate in three years but were forbidden to trade with anyone other than the VOC. With the number of private farms increasing, by 1659 the station was producing enough to supply any passing ship.

Slowly, a mutual animosity developed over access to pastures. Van Riebeeck and his burghers were settling down and pushing the Khoisan away from all of the adequate grazing land. The beauty of the Cape and its wealth of resources had begun to entice more visitors to stay and to develop a settlement rather than just a transitory refreshment station even though the VOC had expressly forbidden them to do so.

The land on which the Dutch farmed was used by the Khoikhoi and the San [owned, in their minds], who lived a semi-nomadic culture which included hunting and gathering. Since they did not have a written culture, they had neither written title deeds for their land, nor did they have the bureaucratic framework within which to negotiate the sale or renting of land with strangers from a culture using written records supported by a bureaucratic system of governance. Van Riebeeck—coming as he did from a bureaucratic culture with a unilateral, albeit written, mandate to establish a refreshment station—refused to acknowledge that land ownership could be organized in ways different from the Dutch/European way. He denied the Khoisan rights and title to the land, claiming that there was no written evidence of the true ownership of the land. Consequently, in 1659, the Khoikhoi embarked on the first of a series of unsuccessful armed uprisings against the Dutch invasion and appropriation of their land; their resistance would continue for at least 150 years.

The station consequently began to experience a chronic labor shortage. Because the Khoisan were seen as uncooperative, slaves were imported from Batavia and Madagascar beginning in 1657.

In response to the growing skirmishes with the local population, in 1660, Van Riebeeck planted a thorny wild almond hedge to protect his settlement. By the end of the same year, under pressure from the Free Burghers, Van Riebeeck sent the first of many search parties to explore the hinterland.

Van Riebeeck established a vineyard in the Colony with grapes imported from France to produce red wine in order to combat scurvy. He was the only Commander of the Cape from 1652 to 1662. During his tenure at the Cape, Van Riebeeck oversaw a sustained, systematic, effort to establish an impressive range of useful plants in the difficult and novel conditions on the Cape Peninsula, in the process changing the natural environment, societies, and economies, of the region forever. Some of these introductions included: grapes, cereals, ground nuts, potatoes, apples, and citrus.

His daily diary entries kept throughout his time at the Cape provided the basis for future exploration of Africa and its natural environment and resources. His diaries [Daghregister—Journal] was edited and published in Dutch and English and indicates that some of his knowledge was learned from the indigenous peoples inhabiting the region. In addition to his labors to build a colony, Van Riebeeck reported the first comet discovered from South Africa which was spotted by him on December 17, 1652. By the time he left the settlement in May 1662, it had grown to 134 officials: 35 Free Burghers, 15 women, 22 children, and 180 slaves. In 1665, he became secretary to the Council of India.

After his death on January 18, 1677, Van Riebeeck was buried in Groote Kerk, Batavia.

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