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EARLY
LIFE
Jan van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg on 21 April 1619, as the son of a surgeon. He grew
up in Schiedam, where he married a
19-year-old Maria de la Queillerie on
28 March 1649. She died in Malacca, now
part of Malaysia, on 2 November 1664, at the age of 35. The couple had
eight or nine children, most of whom did not survive infancy. Their son Abraham
van Riebeeck, born at the Cape, later became Governor-General
of the Dutch East Indies.
ENROLMENT TO VOC
Jan van Riebeeck
joined the Dutch East India
Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie - also referred to as VOC) in
1639 where he began as an assistant surgeon on a voyage to Batavia (today known
as Jakarta) in the East Indies in April 1639 and then further on to Dejima
(today forming part of Nagasaki) in Japan in 1643.
In 1645 van
Riebeeck was given charge of the Dutch East India Company trading station at
Tongkin in French Indochina (today known as Vietnam). He was dismissed from the
post, when he was found to be conducting trade in his personal capacity,
defying the ban on private trading.
Following his
dismissal, on his voyage to the Netherlands, van Riebeeck spent 18 days
in Table Bay, near the Cape of Good Hope, which, upon his return, he
advocated as an ideal location for a provisioning station, a view that was
commonly shared amongst traders and company officers.
In 1647 a
Dutch trade ship, the Nieuwe Haerlem, was wrecked in Table Bay and a number
of the crew remained to look after the cargo that could not be transferred to
other ships in the trade fleet. The crew established a camp, bartered with the
indigenous Khoisan, and awaited their rescue which would take an estimated
year to arrive. On their return in 1648, a report was submitted that further
demonstrated the value of the Cape. In 1651 a decision was made by the Dutch
East India Company to establish a presence in the Cape of Good Hope.
AS A COMMANDER
Jan van Riebeeck was given the command of the Dutch expedition to
establish and fortify a provisioning station in the Cape to supply trade ships
with fresh goods and water. van Riebeeck set off from Texel, Netherlands on 24
December 1651 and arrived in Table
Bay on 6 April 1652.
The VOC had no
desire for either the conquest or the administration of a territory in southern
Africa. Their interest was to ensure the provision of vital supplies to their
shipping fleets on their way to and from the Dutch East Indies. van Riebeeck's
specific instructions were not to colonize the Cape, but to build a fort, to
erect a flagpole for signaling to passing ships, and to build pilot boats to
escort passing ships safely into the bay.
van Riebeeck
constructed the Fort de Goede Hoop (Fort of Good Hope) to operate from. The
Fort was replaced in 1666 with the construction of the Castle of Good
Hope.
At the Cape of
Good Hope, van Riebeeck experienced crop failure, owing primarily to the
differing climate as compared to that of the Netherlands, and disorder amongst
the men accompanying him as the labour demands of provisioning passing ships
were beyond the capabilities of the men stationed there.
In 1655 van
Riebeeck reported that without the presence of dedicated individuals working
their own farms, the station would fail. Consequently, in 1657, the Dutch East
India Company sent settlers that were contracted to the company, who would be
released from said contracts on the condition that they worked the land and
sold their produce to the company. These settlers were referred to as free
burghers.
van Riebeeck
spent his time introducing crops such as grapes, apples, and potatoes that
would prove beneficial to both the passing ships and the settlement itself. In
1659, van Riebeeck established a vineyard producing red wine to combat scurvy,
having noted in his travels that wine consumed on travelling ships seemed to
prevent scurvy to an extent.
He served as
the commander and administrator of the burgeoning colony in the Cape of Good
Hope until 1662, after which he was promoted, in 1665, to Secretary to the
Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies where he served until his death on 18
January 1677 in Batavia.
LEGACY
Jan van
Riebeeck is of immense cultural and historical significance to South
Africa, as he was in particular during the Apartheid era.
Many Afrikaners view him as the founding father of their
nation. Consequently, his image appeared ubiquitously on postage stamps and
banknotes issued until 1994. An image used on currency notes after South
Africa became a republic in 1961 was thought to be that of van Riebeeck,
but was instead of Bartholomew Vermuyden.
Van
Riebeeck's Day, also known as Founders' Day, used to be celebrated on 6 April;
but the holiday was cancelled by the African National Congress after
the 1994 election. However, it is still celebrated in the community
of Orania in South Africa (a whites-only enclave). His image no
longer features on any official currency or stamps today, but statues of him
and his wife remain in Adderley Street, Cape Town. The coat of
arms of the city of Cape Town is based on the van Riebeeck family coat of
arms.
Many South
African towns and villages have streets named after
him. Riebeek-Kasteel is one of the oldest towns in South Africa,
situated 75 km from Cape Town in the Riebeeck Valley together with its
sister town Riebeeck West.
References
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Giliomee, H. and Mbenga, B.K.
(2007). New History of South Africa. Tafelberg, Cape
Town; ISBN 978-0-624-04359-1
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[Online]. Available
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Rajgopaul, Jeeva (17 October 2011). "Johan
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"Van
Riebeeck – Father of Conflict?".
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whose face was on old SA money?". IOL. 8 January 2015. Retrieved 29
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