White Population at Cape bkfoke Auhival of HiuiUENOT.s. 397 



The only fear was that all freemen \v(»ul(l heeome wine-fa rtners^ 

 and drtip the culti\atii»n <>f corn, the produee that was most neefled, 

 as the Company had to import rice and corn for the use of the 

 freemen Only the refusal to im])ort any more in futuic compelled 

 the farmers to pay more attention to their cornlands. 



Ky doing all this, the Company secured two ends : it served its 

 own interests and at the same time i^ave i^uidance to a class of men 

 who were not accust(.»med to have a share in government or adminis- 

 tration. The training thus provided resulted after many generations 

 in makit)g the South Africans fit for self-government, and at the end 

 of the eighteenth century they felt themselves conscious of their 

 fitness. 



The Cc>mpany cared much for the future white poj>ulation. In 

 the first period, during Van liiebeek's administration, intercourse and 

 marriage between whites and female natives and slaves occurred. The 

 position of the illegitimate children of white fathers brought about a 

 great difiiculty : no children of Dutch fathers could be kept as slaves f 

 In 1685 thirty-two males and twenty-six females of this description 

 were to be found in the slave lodge of the Company. To prevent the 

 servants, otficials and burghers in future from creating an illegitimate 

 coloured population the following penalty was fixed : the freemen who 

 offended in this respect had to work for half a year at the public 

 works, living on slave-food — rice, fish and water: officials oi- servants 

 lost one year's salary. In addition the fathers harl to pay an annual 

 suuA and were not allow^ed to leave the country without giving baiL 

 Coloured boys were set free at the age of twenty-five, on condition 

 they spoke Dutch and were members of the Reformed Church ; girls 

 were set free at the age of twenty-two, and might be taken in marriage 

 by a white man, provided he paid a fixed sum of money to the Com- 

 pany ; if the girl were under twent3'-two he had in addition to provide 

 a female slave to fill her place. Marriage with freed female sla\es of 

 full colour was prohibited. 80 the Companj' shares in the prai.se, 

 generally' given to the Church alone, for the fact that in South Africa 

 the whites led a more moral life, in regard to the native or slave popu- 

 lation, than colonists in other tropical or subti'opical countries. 



Debauches and bacchanalia airanged in inns, private houses and 

 especially in the Company's slave lodge, calling to mind the amuse- 

 ments of the ancients, were prohibited under severe penalties by the 

 Governors Johan Bax and Simon van der Stel. 



In making a livelihood the freemen had competitors in some of 

 the Company's officials. Johan van Riebeek, foi- instance, the author 

 of the Cappse hoveniers ahnanack (Cape gardening-calendar) was corn 

 and wine-farmer himself: one sergeant is recorded to have followed the 

 occupation of an innkeepei-. Van der Stel's farm, Constantia, and the 

 trouble that arose about W. A. van der Stel, are well known. This 

 pf'lic}' proved a big mistake, and was abandoned afterwards. 



The directors hafl more sympathy with the farmers than with the 

 town-burghers, who could always earn something in one way oi' other. 

 The farmers depended entirely on their crops, and their work was 



