Quote from Steve on May 18, 2020, 9:59 am

This is excellent, Yannisl. Congratulations. You have provided a window onto early life at the Cape, all from a bunch of unattractive covers, and given meaning a purpose to this website. I thoroughly enjoyed reading your historical research. Keep it up!

I enjoyed your revelation about Yonkers, NY, and 'Jonk Heer'. Having visited New York several times, and driven through the Bronx as a dare, (as in Bronkhorstspruit), and visited Wall Street, (Wal Straat), I am aware of its European origins as the Dutch New Amsterdam. There is a suggestion that the term 'Yankee' comes from this time and that it is a corruption of  'Jan Kaas' (John Cheese).  Personally, I have always thought it a native-American expression based on an attempt to say  'Eng gleeesh'. 'Yankee'. Okay? Hokay? 

Of interest is his mother's name , Rosetta 'van Ceylon', another Dutch possession and one from which she as a slave may have come if my name-based assumption is correct. It is not generally known but the VOC made a nice business for themselves in the Asian slave trade.

In answer to your questions. In my opinion, 'd oud', means, 'the old', 'elder' or 'senior', (as in 'ou toppie!). With regards to 'thans' this is Dutch words which has been reduced to 'tans' in Afrikaans. In my 'Tweetalige Sak-Woordeboek' (Afr. bilingual pocket dictionary) the closest to 'thans', (there are no Afrikaans words starting 'th'), is 'tans' which means 'nowadays' or 'now'. As you suggest, this probably means 'now in the precinct of Paarl' or 'area of''. It is possibly that 'nowadays' or 'now' is a reference to him recently moving to this area from somewhere else.  Finally, I have looked at my pre-adhesive COGH mail and can find no Jonkeer correspondence. However, further to your post, as I was looking at my unattractive covers - I have plenty of these also, it goes with the collecting territory - I realised that I was wondering what fascinating story they have to tell. Indeed that all these old covers have a story to tell. And what a story!

As your cover has shown, the history I was taught at school as part of my Apartheid era Christian Nationalist curriculum was so full of holes, omissions and blind prejudice it did not have the legs to stand the test of time or see the reality within our midst. Having said that, I did for many years believe the one-sided half-truths we were taught at school. Over time, I began to see and understand my country and its people in a different light, one that wasn't the light of the European Age Of Enlightenment bought to the Cape by the Dutch, that light which streamed down on van Riebeeck and his men in their silks and shining armour as native Peninulars sat bare-arsed in the dust in skins, awestruck in the shadows. My opinions changed when I started working with the 'Non-European' people of Cape Town, then the majority 'Coloured' population, and heard their stories of their mixed ancestry and the indignities heaped upon them.

To end on a more positive note, at some point I was told that many of the Cape's Malay community were descended from the Batavian ruling class who had resisted the arrival of the Dutch. Rather than kill them and make martyrs of them, the Dutch exiled many of these leaders to the Cape where they survived as artisans, builders, tailors, fishermen, etc.  They clung tenaciously to their Muslim faith and community. Today, there are many Cape Malays who would not be out of place in any Jakarta street scene.

I find it curious that the Islamic Abdullah could so easily transition to the Christian koster Adolf. My modern day liberal prejudices make it hard for me to believe that a prejudiced Cape Dutch Boer community would allow itself to be preached to by a mixed race minister. Perhaps the harsh lives of our ancestors made them more tolerant? Perhaps for Abdullah / Adolf it was a necessary step to surviving in a slave-owning society?  Finally, the Cape in the early days had a shortage of women. While many Boer men, perhaps a majority, did form relationships with and have children by Khoi (Hottentot) women, nubiles of Batavian Asian origin were generally preferred. There are many reasons for that, not least their beauty, relative cultural sophistication, an absence of local political baggage and a desperate need to survive.  A colleague of mine, Cassie Carstens, proudly displayed dark rings under his eyes, genetic proof he matter-of-factly says of his Asian slave descent.

Quote from yannisl on May 19, 2020, 4:58 am

Steve, thanks for providing all the additional information.  I will be posting more hopefully tonight. The challenge is to decipher the writing and then a language which was evolving/mutating from high Dutch to Afrikaans. 

Next post will be about a widow named Exter.

Quote from Steve on May 19, 2020, 11:48 am

I look forward to your information.

Both your covers are addressed using a French 'Mons' or 'Madame'. I wonder why this is? I have several Cape covers from roundabout this time that are addressed to 'Mons'. I can only imagine this is the legacy of French Huguenots at the Cape? I would have thought that given the subject matter, Jonker', (from the Dutch who were the dominant European language group at the Cape), it would have been more appropriate to refer to him as 'Den Heer' (gentleman or lord). Of course, it may well be that the sender was a French-speaker. Apparently French was still being spoken in Franschhoek, (a nice Dutch name), in about 1900.  If, as you say the cover dates from 1764, this predates the 'French Period' at the Cape, 1781-1783, a time of increased prosperity for the Cabo de Bon Esperance. The price of property, slaves and horses all rose. When the VOC collapsed financially and the people of Kaapstad (Cape Town) were looking for a saviour in the early 1790s, their first preference was the French, not the British, for a variety of reasons. 

Quote from yannisl on May 19, 2020, 3:46 pm

Steve, as you say the use of 'Mons' or 'Madame'  on wrappers of the period does crop up.  On the Jonkers wrapper I would guess that it was perhaps written by a Francophone clerk? The writing is too good to be by a normal burger. Perhaps someone connected to the earlier residents of Hugunot decent or a slave or free-black with connections from Mauritius or French India? On the Exter wrapper what is unusual is that the undecorated handwriting points that it was written by a non-professional person.  Is it possible that if a person was not Dutch or English he/she would be addressed in French? Some questions maybe can never  be answered as the details are lost in the mist of time or the kilometres of archived materials . For me studying Cape material, from pre-adhesives to stamps, postmarks and the like is a journey and an endless trek over fascinating fractal terrain that sustains me more than the promise of arrival and your comments are valuable additions to take on this trek. 

 

 

Quote from Steve on May 19, 2020, 6:56 pm

In the light of what you say, I feel like I haven't looked carefully enough at your 'Jonker' cover which seems to be written in  a mix of both Dutch and French. It appears to be addressed to 'Den Mons' which seems both Dutch and French. Much of the rest appears to be Dutch but 'precinct', if that is what it says (seems right), is quintessentially French. So perhaps the writer is a Frenchman having a stab at Dutch? With regards to the Exter cover, I agree but would add that the writing is perfectly functional, like that made by an artisan or someone with writing skills but not writing for a living, like someone in the army giving written instructions ie. her Major husband.  I am not sure that "if a person was not Dutch or English he/she would be addressed in French". I think the influence of the English in 1813 was not yet strong. But perhaps you are right, she wanted to be addressed  in French because she was neither Dutch nor German (nor perhaps even French) but Swiss - the wife of a Major. (The VOC employed Swiss mercenary's at the Cape at that time and she may well have been the Francophile daughter or widow of one.) As you say, some questions can never be answered. Nevertheless,. we live in hope that we can find a little something somewhere that adds to our knowledge.