Dutch Colonial Archaeology: the Cape of Good Hope

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Dutch Colonial Archaeology the Cape of Good Hope
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The Dutch Golden Age (1584-1702)
Girl with a Pearl Earring 1665-6 Vermeer
Milkmaid 1658-1660 Vermeer
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The Dutch Golden Age (1584-1702)
Portrait of the Syndics of the Cloth-makers
Guild - Rembrandt
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The 17th century Dutch World
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Cornelis de Houtman 1565-1599
Discovered a new sea route to Indonesia
challenging the Portuguese monopoly on Far
Eastern trade and starting the Dutch Spice trade
By 1600 dozens of Dutch merchant ships were
travelling east. The intense competition among
Dutch merchants had a destabilizing effect on
prices driving the government to insist on
consolidation in order to avoid commercial ruin
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The Dutch East India Company - VOC

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

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The Dutch East India Company - VOC
The VOC consisted of six Chambers (Kamers) in
port cities Amsterdam, Delft, Rotterdam,
Enkhuizen, Middelburg and Hoorn. Delegates of
these chambers convened as the Heeren XVII (the
Lords Seventeen) Of the Heeren XVII, eight
delegates were from the Chamber of Amsterdam
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Statue of Jan Pieterszoon-Coen in Hoorn
In 1619 the Governor-General of the Dutch East
India Company, Jan Pieterszoon-Coen took 19 ships
and siezed Jayakarta The city was re-named
Batavia and became the headquarters of the VOC
in Asia
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VOC headquarters - Amsterdam

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

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

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Khoikhoi Colonial Encounters
The Khoikhoi ("people people") or Khoi are a
division of the Khoisan ethnic group of
south-western Africa, related to the Bushmen
(San) They are pastoralists and migrated south
into the Cape peninsula c. 2,000 years ago.
Animal husbandry (sheep and cattle) gave them a
stable, balanced diet and they lived in larger
groups than the hunter-gatherer San. Khoi
migratory bands came into contact with European
explorers and merchants from c. AD 1500 these
encounters often led to violence
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Death of Francisco de Almeida, Viceroy of the
Portuguese Indies, Table Bay, 1510
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Dutch Settlement of Cape 1652

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

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Dutch forts
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Second Dutch fort built 1666-1679
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Second Dutch Fort 1666-1679
The forts was originally built on the beach, but
the land has been reclaimed and the sea is now 2
Km away
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Dutch called khoikhoi Hottentots (it means
"stutterer" in Dutch, although the word
"stotteraar" described the clicking sounds used
in Khoisan languages When the Dutch East India
Company enclosed Khoi grazing land for farms, war
broke out The Khoi were steadily driven off
their land and exposed to smallpox
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Bitter disputes when the Cochoqua realized that
the Dutch were not simply seasonal visitors
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Early 18th century Cape Town fort, garden, grid
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Greenmarket Square 1762 by Johannes Rach
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Slaves

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

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

• The Archaeology of Impact
• Carmel Schrire excavated VOC Oudepost I II,
  and explored
• contemporary herder sites of the Cape west coast.
  

I became an archaeologist because I wanted to
drive around in a big Land rover, smoking,
cursing, and finding treasure Carmel Schrire
Digging Through Darkness, 1995
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Oudepost I

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

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

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

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Themes in the archaeology of colonial settlement
in Southern Africa

• The Archaeology of the Mind
• J. Gribble has applied Glassies structuralist
  approach buildings
• to vernacular architecture of the Verlorenvlei
  area on the Cape
• west coast

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Themes in the archaeology of colonial settlement
in Southern Africa

• The Archaeology of the Text
• Yvonne Brink studied the emergence of new
  architectural
• forms in the Cape countryside.
• In the early 18th century farmers were
  marginalized by the
• official VOC hierarchy, so responded in a
  language of
• material culture