Artisan conflicts in a colonial context: the cape town blacksmith strike of 1752

Abstract

This article is a microanalysis of a labour dispute that took place in the blacksmith forge of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) settlement in Cape Town in 1752. The episode reveals much about the nature of artisan identity and, in particular, concepts of status and honour in an eighteenth-century colonial context. Many of the workmen involved were of German origin, and their experience and perceptions of their rights in early modern Northern Europe were transferred to the very different circumstances of the Dutch Cape Colony. However, their marginal social status and the concern of the Company to assert its authority meant that they encountered only limited success in achieving their goals.

Notes

‘murmureeringe, niet zeer veel van muiterij differeereende ontvonkt en eijndelijk in de volle vlam soodanig uitgeborsten is, dat ook selfs gemelde smitswinkel voor een paar dagen moeten geslooten blijven.’ The evidence for this case is drawn primarily from the Cape Town Government Archives (CA), CJ 360, Case no. 17, f.371–510. Copies of some of this documentation were sent to The Netherlands and are filed in the Nationaal Archief (NA), The Hague, in VOC 4190, f.1411–1511. This quotation is from the Eijsch ende Conclusie, 9 November 1752, f.373v. This paper was published in a somewhat modified form as ‘Forging a Reputation: Artisan Honour and the Cape Town Blacksmith Strike of 1752’ in Kronos: Journal of Cape History 28 (2002): 36–54. I am grateful to the editors for permission to republish it here.

Artisans receive short shrift in most general accounts of the VOC. A notable exception is Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ although this unpublished thesis has received little attention, and some material in the better-known Lequin, Het personeel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie. Both works are based on statistical material drawn from the muster rolls and scheepssoldijboeken in the Nationaal Archief and neither discusses artisan consciousness.

In a large literature on the VOC Cape, the best overview is Elphick and Gilomee, Shaping of South African Society.

Lequin, Het personeel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 382. For a social history of VOC Cape Town, see Worden et al., Cape Town.

Gebel is identified as the ‘Paap’ in the records. I was initially intrigued by the presence of a closet Catholic priest in the Company forge (paap being translated as ‘een katholieke priester’ in VOC-Glossarium, 84), until rather disappointingly I discovered in Mentzel, A geographical and topographical description, Vol. 2, 64, that the nickname ‘pape’ was used for a trusted employee because ‘he formerly used to read the morning prayers in barracks; this practice has been discontinued because of unseemly ribaldry.’ Gebel was actually ‘van de gereformeerde religie,’ CA, CJ 360, f.441r.

As one of the smiths admitted, Krieger was legally entitled to do this as the baas. The artisans had little rights of privacy, CA, CJ 360, f.431v.

It seems that Scheffer had recently established himself as a burgher and in the previous year he had obtained a plot for a house in newly established blocks in Cape Town, CA, C 1118, Requesten, No.68, ff.175–76, no date [1751]. That the forge was back in operation by early September is apparent from the work undertaken to replace the unserviceable gun carriages and wheels on the Castle walls, CA, VC 382, ff.132–35, Resolution of 5 September 1752.

As will become apparent, the fate of the spades was not the issue in the case. Their disappearance was merely the catalyst for other events.

‘wij willen niets anders dan om onse eerlijke naam weederom te hebben,’ CA, CJ 360, f.475v.

Farr, Artisans in Europe, esp. 20 and ch. 5. For Dutch examples, see Deurloo, ‘Biltjes en klouwers’ and Unger, Dutch Shipbuilding, esp. 95–100.

Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ 107.

Though Gebel did not hold a higher rank in terms of his salary, which was the same as the other smiths at 14 fl. a month. In 1753 he was sent to Batavia in the rank of an ordinary soldier, NA, VOC 14 206, f.224. On the salary ranking of the forge, see the discussion below.

‘in cas van gepleegde seer groove assurantien en hooggaande brutaliteijten aan hun over hun gestelde fabriek d’Heer Hendrik de Ruijter, mitsgaders wijders volstreckte wijgering van onder ‘t commando van hun baas Jan Hendrik Krieger voortaan te willen werken,’ CA, CJ 34, ff.85–86 and CJ 360, f.371v.

‘wat wilt gij dan: sal dan de baas voor jou op de knie vallen?’ CA, CJ 360, f.417r.

The tactic of verbal attack by labourers and ordinary artisans against their superiors, especially master craftsmen, is noted by Brennan, Public Drinking and Popular Culture, 65–66.

‘[hem] needer smijten en capot slaan,’ CA CJ 360, f.376v. and 408v. It is perhaps significant that this violent threat and the subsequent exchange with de Rujter was made by Fee, who was one of the youngest and newest recruits to the forge. In the trial the statements were attributed to him by de Ruijter and not confessed by Fee himself. Presumably the newcomer had learnt by then the danger of such ‘sedition.’ On the uncertain balance between verbal and physical violence by young men in seventeenth-century Amsterdam, see Spierenburg, ‘Knife Fighting.’

de Ruijter appears to have been a man of some substance. He owned his own small boat (Caille, Travels at the Cape, 24), and the goods he auctioned when he left the Cape in 1754 included leather chairs and cushions, Dutch paintings, an English writing desk and a grandfather clock—signs of a lifestyle markedly different from that of the forge employees, CA, CJ 3037, ff.117–19, inventory of Hendrick de Ruijter made at time of his repatriation, 22 April 1754.

‘wij weeten wel wie ghij sijt, ghij sijt onzen lieven Heer niet,’ CA, CJ 360, f.408v. There may be a sense of irony in these words of Fee; onze lieve Heer was a common expression of piety in Reformed tradition to refer to God, but was also used as a swear word expressing irritation or frustration; Sterkenburg, Vloeken, 372–73.

‘God doem mij ik durf wel spreeken voor de Gouverneur soo wel as ghij, al was ‘t voor een koning; and ghij moogt geen smit slaan,’ CA, CJ 360, f.409r–v. Steen was also a newcomer to the Cape, although a married man and older than Fee. He was recruited in the rank of a corporal (NA, VOC 13 052, f.33) rather than ordinary soldier, and seems to have been particularly offended at being treated as a social inferior by de Ruijter.

‘onbeschaamde vloek woorden dat ook geen baas wilde weesen of hem de voet ligten dewijl ‘t hem [van den Steen] eevenveel was, waar hij in de wereld mogte zijn,’ CA, CJ 360, f.377v.

‘onwilligheid en obstinatie van ’t volk and klaar geziene en gehoorde excorbitante brutaliteijten en vilipendien van sommige onder hem,’ CA, CJ 360, f.377v.

CA, CJ 360, f.480v [Q 57]. On the significance of covering the head as a marker of status see Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honor,’ 505. Doffing one's hat in the presence of others was a marker of social respect; Garrioch, Neighbourhood and Community in Paris, 43. According to the traveller Nicolaas de Graaff, VOC sailors had to stand ‘like a lot of subservient slaves with hat in hand by the gangway whenever the skipper or another officer leaves or returns to the ship;’ cited in Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 70.

Ross, Status and Respectability, 38–39. Ross is referring here to slaves but the point is equally valid for those employees in the lower ranks of the Company's hierarchy.

On the appeal to higher authorities in case of dissatisfaction with community resolution of honour issues, see especially Leuker, ‘Schelmen, hoeren, eerdieven en lastertongen,’ 305–6 and Garrioch, Neighbourhood and Community in Paris, 45–47.

‘hun voor dieven had gescholden, over twee graaven die absent geraakt waaren; en dat se hun eerlijken naam weederom hebben wilden, egter ‘S Comp werk niet weijgerden,’ CA, CJ 360, f.416r.

CA, CJ 360, f.436r.

Most notably Ross, Status and Respectability, ch. 2; Dooling, Law and Community in a Slave Society and Mason, ‘Hendrik Albertus and His Ex-slave Mey.’ See also McKenzie, Scandal in the Colonies for the colonial middle class of early British Cape Town.

For an incisive account of the key issues see Stewart, Honor. Studies of honour in other early modern North European societies include Sharpe, Defamation and Sexual Slander; Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag in der frühen Neuzeit, Vol. 2, 194–95 and Dinges, ‘Die Ehre als Thema der Stadtgeschichte.’

Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 67–84. Herman Roodenburg also describes early modern Amsterdam as possessing a schaamtecultuur rather than a schuldcultuur: reputation was more significant to social standing than innocence or guilt of specific crimes; Onder censuur, 244.

Keunen, ‘“Ongaarne beticht en bevlekt.”’ In early modern Germany, ‘artisans saw the loss of male honour as analogous to the loss of a woman's virginity;’ Stuart, Defiled Trades and Social Outcasts, 194.

‘“Dief” was een van de oneervolste scheldwoorden; een beschuldiging van diefstal werd zeer hoog opgenomen,’ Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 72.

‘’t is de grootste dievery iemand in zijn eer te raecken.’ From Matheus Tengnagel, Frik in ’t Veur-huys (1642), cited in Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 80. On the seriousness of theft accusations as threats to honour in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Northern Europe, see also Roodenburg, Onder censuur, 247; Farr, Hands of Honor, 163–64 and 179; Brennan, Public Drinking, 29 and 70–71; Garrioch, Neighbourhood and Community in Paris, 38–39. On the gravity with which theft was viewed in VOC Batavia, see Ward, ‘“The Bounds of Bondage,”’ 217–18.

Farr, Hands of Honor, 150. See also Farr, Artisans in Europe; Stuart, Defiled Trades, ch. 7; Thamer, ‘On the Use and Abuse of Handicraft;’ Wiesner, ‘Wandervogels and Women.’

Grießinger, Das Symbolische Kapital der Ehre.

Walker, German Home Towns, 93–95.

It has been estimated that 96 out of 541 identified strikes in eighteenth-century Germany were caused by affronts to artisan concepts of honour; Reith et al., Streikbewegungen deutscher Handwerkgesellen, 52–53. Grießinger, Symbolische Kapital der Ehre, discusses the organised nature of these conflicts, drawing on the traditions of artisan codes. See also Zunkel, ‘Ehre,’ 44–55 and Evans, Rituals of Retribution, 195. Stuart, Defiled Trades, 16–17 and ch. 8, argues that artisan honour was more rigidly asserted in the eighteenth century than earlier and that it was more innovative in form than Grießinger suggests.

Prak, ‘Civil Disturbances.’

Cape muster roll for 1752, NA, ARA 5200, f.112–13. Two were recruited in Zeeland and Rotterdam, two came from the Cape and two were recruited in Amsterdam before 1748.

The names as listed in the Eijsch are: Anthonij van den Steen van Brugge, Jacob Fee van Koblentz, Godfried Malucko van Breslau, Jan Jost Steenberg van Hessen, Jan Christoffel Thiele van Nieuwstad, Jan Rudolf Thim van Hamburg, Jan Martin Gebel van Hessen Kassel, Anthonij van Rooijen van Kaap de Goede Hoop, Jurgen Swart van Holstein, Jacobus van der Helling van Amsterdam, Melchior Rus van Hessen, Bernard van de Heem van Utrecht, Jan Christoffel Brotruk van Zwartsenburg, Gerrit Adriaansz. van Cabo de Goede Hoop, Wiebe Gerrit Kreessenburg van Oost Vriesland, Otto Rickers van Holstein, Jan Christian Visser van Grooten Gaarts, Georg Scholts van Kerslien, Jan Frederick Poolman van Alterna and Martin Lieve Zernicko van Altbrandenburg; CA, CJ 360, f.371r–v.

‘Germany’ and ‘German’ are of course anachronisms in the mid eighteenth century, although the terms are frequently used in historical work to refer to the regions and people that were later to become part of Germany and I will follow such practice here. ‘German-speaking’ is also inaccurate, since it implies the use of a common standardised language, which was far from the case. Speakers of northern Germanic languages and dialects (which of course included Dutch) could understand each other relatively well, and at the Cape, Dutch forms were used as a lingua franca.

Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ 52 and 267. I estimate that of the 175 smiths listed in the 1752 muster roll for all the VOC stations at least 79, or just under half, were of German origin. The proportion may have been higher, since I was unable to identify the precise geographical location of a number of the places of origin. In the Asian stations, such as those in Ceylon and Bengal, many locally recruited men were used. This contrasts with only two local recruits in the Cape Town forge. The proportion of Germans at the Cape was thus higher than in the other VOC settlements; NA VOC 5200. Lucassen, Migrant Labour in Europe, 156–57, explains increasing foreign rather than Dutch employment in the VOC in terms of greater economic prosperity in The Netherlands which obviated the need to work for the Company. Van Gelder, Oost-Indisch avontuur, 113–19, highlights poverty and the desire to avoid military service, but also stresses the lure of adventure and the traditions of wandering among young artisans, as a context for German recruitment. There was a long tradition of seasonal and artisan labour migration from Germany to Amsterdam. For example 40 percent of the blacksmith immigrants in Amsterdam in the seventeenth century were German; Knotter and van Zanden, ‘Immigratie en arbeidsmarkt,’ 414. Knotter, ‘Vreemdelingen in Amsterdam,’ identifies the regions of origin while Lucassen, ‘Tijdelijke of permanente vestiging van Duitsers in Holland,’ and Vogel, ‘Ambachtslieden, trekarbeiders en handelaars,’ place German labour migration into the broader context of The Netherlands as a whole and point to the growing local opposition to foreign workers when the Dutch economy slowed down in the eighteenth century. The relative shortage of jobs in eighteenth-century Holland accounts for the recruitment of German workers into the VOC.

Blok, ‘Eer en de fysieke persoon,’ 212; McKenzie, ‘Gender and Honour,’ 185.

At least this was the case in Amsterdam, where VOC soldiers and sailors had particularly dishonourable reputations among their social superiors, although of course they were not without concepts of honour themselves; Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 83. On the boundary between skilled artisans—including blacksmiths—and unskilled labourers in Europe, see especially Sewell, Work and Revolution in France, 21–24. In contrast to the soldiers and sailors, the smiths would have seen themselves as ‘artists,’ the origin of the word ‘artisan.’

This included 22 in the smitswinkel (including Krieger and one smith—Jan Adriaan de Nikker van de Caab—who had left the forge before the strike broke out), 36 ‘house carpenters,’ 14 ‘ship carpenters,’ 26 bricklayers and 11 in the cooper's workshop. There were also a handful of glass makers and tailors listed under ‘diverse services’ and 10 wagon makers. One hundred and seventy-five men were listed as smiths in the VOC as a whole in the 1752 muster roll. Only Batavia and Colombo had larger artisan workshops than the Cape; NA VOC 5200. Opper estimates that there were some 2,000 designated artisans in the VOC at this time; ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ 8–11.

On the low level of soldier wages in the VOC, see Iongh, Het krijgswezen onder de Oostindische Compagnie, 84. Wages had only increased by 1 fl. to 9 fl. per month since 1607 for ordinary soldiers. Corporals received 12 fl.

See Iongh, ibid., 84 on increased wages for second contracts.

Krieger had arrived in 1747 in the rank of bosschieter (arquebusier). He worked as a smith for two years before being promoted to baas in November 1749; NA, VOC 14 752, f.80 and CA, C 1119, Requesten, 83, f.182–3. See also Hoge, ‘Personalia of the Germans at the Cape,’ 224. On processions, see Ross, Status and Respectability, 23; CA, A 2276, file 321.

He was recruited as a geelgieter (brass-founder); NA, VOC 6279, f.115.

Anthonij van der Steen and Godfried Malucko were recruited into the slightly higher rank of corporal, while Jacobus van der Helling was an adelborst (midshipman): NA, VOC 13 052, f.33; VOC 6265, f.24; VOC 6081, f.140 and 144. The rest were listed as ordinary soldiers, except Jan Poolman, who was engaged as a sailor; NA VOC 5200, f.113. NA VOC 5200, f.113.

Anthonij van den Steen arrived in January 1752 aboard Snoek, NA, VOC 13 052, f.33 and Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, Vol. 2, 536; Jacob Fee in July 1751 on Eendracht, NA, VOC 6272, f.283 and Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, Vol. 2, 532; and Godfried Malucko in April 1751 on Ruyskestein, NA, VOC 6265, f.24 and Bruijn et al., Dutch-Asiatic shipping, Vol. 2, 530. Malucko was listed in the 1751 muster roll as a full smith with a wage of 14 fl. (NA, VOC 5199, f.10–11) while van den Steen and Fee's first listings in the rolls were both as full smiths in 1752; NA, VOC 5200, f.112–13. For the recruitment of travelling journeymen into the VOC, see Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch avontuur, 62–63.

NA, VOC 5201, f.8–9. We unfortunately lack any details of the kind of training the Cape Town blacksmiths received. In Europe artisan ‘skill’ was seen as a social as much as an economic construct (Farr, Artisans in Europe, 282–87), although clearly the forge workers would have had to learn special skills. For the use of temporary and unskilled workers alongside specialists in forges in Europe, see Lamy, ‘Hommes de fer,’ 279–80.

Both were still apprentices in 1753; NA, VOC 5201, f.8–9. Gerrit Andersz became a fully paid smith in 1755 (NA, VOC 5203, f.160–61), while Anthonij van Rooijen disappeared from the Company's muster roll after 1754, possibly having failed to satisfy requirements.

Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ 35–42; Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch avontuur, 151; NA, VOC 4952, Instructie Boek, No. 36, 18 October 1765; Lequin, Het personeel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 42–43.

Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ 85, 107.

Jurgen Swart van Holstein became baassmit at the Cape in 1760–62 (Hoge, ‘Personalia of the Germans at the Cape,’ 385) and Otto Rickers van Holstein followed in 1763–74, after he had served one term as a smith, returned to Europe and re-enlisted; NA, VOC 6275, f.306 and VOC 14 779, f.265.

NA, VOC 6262, f.175.

Georg Scholts returned permanently to Europe in 1758 and was the only member of the 1752 forge to do so; NA, VOC 6288, f.289. Martin Zernicko embarked for Europe in 1757 but died on the way; NA, VOC 6279, f.115. Jan Gebel went to Batavia in 1753 and died in the Company hospital several months later (NA, VOC 14 206, f.224), while Bernard van der Heem transferred to Batavia in 1753 and then went missing in 1755; NA, VOC 6271, f.311. Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ 90, claims that most VOC artisans returned to Europe after their initial contract period, but the possibilities either of obtaining burgher status or of transfer to the East made the Cape an exception to this general pattern.

A common request, according to the smiths; CA, CJ 360, f.416v. Those who stayed in Company employ had been married in Europe and so would not have been eligible for burgher status at the Cape. There were three burgher blacksmiths in Cape Town in 1731, all of them married; NA, Collectie Radermacher 507. Some Company smiths became free burghers as early as 1657 in order to make wagons and farm equipment for the settler farmers; Erasmus, ‘Die geskiedenis van die bedryfslewe,’ 179.

Jan Steenberg van Hessen who had married Christina de Vries, daughter of Flora van de Kaap in 1751, became a burgher in 1753 and after his wife's death married Johanna Christina van der Swyn, daughter of Rosalina van Bengal (Hoge, ‘Personalia of the Germans at the Cape,’ 409; Leibbrandt, Precis…: Requesten, 1074i). Jan Frederick Poolman of Alterna married Cornelia de Vries, also daughter of Flora van de Kaap (and presumably Christina de Vries's sister) in 1755 and became a burgher in 1756 (Hoge, ‘Personalia of the Germans at the Cape,’ 317; Leibbrandt, Precis…: Requesten, 899b). Jan Thim also became a burgher in 1753 and worked as a ratelwagt in Cape Town (Hoge, ‘Personalia of the Germans at the Cape,’ 427; Leibbrandt, Precis…: Requesten, 116k). Jan Christoffel Brodryk of Zwartsenburg became a burgher in 1756 and married in the following year, although he divorced his wife in 1775 after they had produced nine children (NA, VOC 6270, f.248; Hoge, ‘Personalia of the Germans at the Cape,’ 50). Lalou Meltzer and Antonia Malan (personal communications) have both suggested that many German residents at the Cape married free black women.

Roper, Oedipus and the Devil, 56; Farr, Artisans in Europe, 244; Hörsell, ‘Borgare, smeder och änkor,’ is a specific study of the importance to skilled blacksmiths of marriage in mid-eighteenth-century Sweden. In Amsterdam, marriage to burgher daughters was also an important means by which artisans acquired burgher status; Kuijpers and Prak, ‘Burger, ingezetene, vreemdeling,’ 120. In early modern Germany, marriage was a sign of a move from the itinerant status of the journeyman to the established position of the craft master; Wiesner, ‘Wandervogels and Women,’ 771.

Van de Pol's study of Amsterdam makes a link between the possessing eer and access to burgher status; ‘Prostitutie en de Amsterdamse burgherij,’ 179. The operation of the burgher system at the Cape, and the qualifications for access to it, is a neglected topic.

The distinction between ‘outer’ injuries caused by specific accusations and ‘inner’ feelings of loss of status is central to Stewart's understanding of the operation of honour; Honor, 12–24. In this case, both applied.

‘de onschuldige met de schuldige moste lijden,’ CA, CJ 360, f.374r.

CA, CJ 360, f.416v.

Dülmen, Theatre of Horror, 49. To call someone ‘branded’ was a common verbal insult in eighteenth-century Paris; Garrioch, ‘Verbal Insults in 18th Century Paris,’ 108.

‘Ghij sult het wel laaten Mijn Heer, dat gaat soo gemakkelijk niet, want dat doen men aan schelmen en dieven en de baas soekt ons tot dieven te maaken, daar wij d’Ë Comps. voor eerlijke Lieden dienen,’ CA, CJ 360, f.474r.

‘Neen, dat doen wij niet of willen eerst onzen goeden naam weeder hebben,’ CA, CJ 360, f.375r.

‘in geheel onbeleefde termen,’ CA, CJ 360, f.375r. De Ruijter singled out van den Steen and Fee as the most ‘discourteous.’

‘om ons een ketting aen de voeten te geeven, en ons niet helpen wilde,’ CA, CJ 360, f.465v–66r [Q 30]; ‘om niets anders dan om onse eerlijke naam weederom te hebben,’ CA, CJ 360, 475v [Q 29].

Broers, ‘Van Tafel 8 tot Boek 6;’ Leuker, ‘Schelmen, hoeren, eerdieven en lastertongen,’ 305–6; Tilly, ‘History, Sociology and Dutch Collective Action,’ 147–48. An interesting contemporary colonial parallel is discussed in Johnson, ‘Dangerous Words, Provocation Gestures and Violent Acts,’139–40.

‘dat hij hun voor eerlijke en brave menschen hield,’ CA, CJ 360, f.417v. See also 413r, 422r, 428v, 436v.

‘overluijd Victoria geroepen, en teffens gesegt dat zij haar saak gewonnen hadden, en den Edele Heer Gouverneur hun geeven wilde alle ’t geen zij wilden hebben,’ CA, CJ 360, f.406r.

Malucko was particularly concerned to deny it, saying that ‘wij zijn maar stilletjies aan ’t werk gegaan,’ while Gebel was less clear about the actions of others while excusing himself, ‘ik niet en kan ook seggen of sulx door iemand is gedaan.’ It seems likely that Malucko, as the person who felt most wronged, would have proclaimed his vindicated honour. CA, CJ 360, ff.466v–67r and 448v–49r.

Pol, ‘Prostitutie en de Amsterdamse burgherij,’ 184–85; Dekker, ‘Labour Conflicts and Working-Class Culture,’ 396; Kaplan, ‘Réflexions sur la police du monde du travail,’ 33–35. For the shift from public amends to financial compensation in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Cape, see McKenzie, ‘Gender and Honour,’ esp. 156–58.

‘nu ben gij bij de Edele heer geweest en gij hebt niets gewonnen want de saak is nog soo als se geweest is, en sult nu sien wat ik doen sal,’ CA, CJ 360, f.436v.

‘bliksemse gaauw dief, jouw racker knegt, hoe ben jij so assurant, jij bent immers schurft genoeg and Weet gij wel wat een Racker knegt is, en dat sult gij mij goed maken,’ CA, CJ 360, f.400r. For similar versions of the exchange, see CA, CJ 360, 406r–v, 425r. My translations do not capture the force of the original. Gaauwdief was a particularly insulting term in early modern Holland; Spierenburg, ‘Knife Fighting and Popular Codes of Honour,’ 103, while schurft was also a common term of insult used in anger (and still is in modern Dutch); Sterkenburg, Vloeken, 251.

CA, CJ 360, f.398v, 407v.

Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honor,’ 506, comments that within identified groups or communities ‘the dishonour cast on one member is felt by all.’ Such solidarity was a key feature of artisan and journeymen honour in Europe; Farr, Artisans in Europe, 251–56. See also note 101 below.

For examples, see Worden et al., Cape Town, 54–55.

Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, esp. ch. 5 and Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra, esp. ch. 5. For other comments on low sailor reputation and sailor–soldier rivalry in the Dutch–VOC world, see Deursen, Plain Lives in a Golden Age, 25; Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 69, 77–78, 81; Dekker, ‘Labour Conflicts and Working-Class Culture,’ 377–79, 405–7; Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, 246; Gelder, Het Oost-Indisch avontuur, 152.

Linebaugh and Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra, 331–32. Of course this was a view specific to the artisans themselves, and others would not have seen matters in this way. On the contrary, one Cape forge worker, Joost Pietersoon of Leiden, rebelled in 1660 because he had enlisted as a soldier and ‘was therefore not bound to make locks or work in the winkel.’ Leibbrandt, Precis:… Letters Dispatched, Vol. 3, 435–37. To their social superiors, artisans were often themselves viewed as rowdy and disruptive to public order, particularly in the eighteenth century as clashes between artisan guilds and civil authorities increased; Farr, Artisans in Europe, 163–64.

‘op de werf soude komen en dat hij geen mattroos sijnde aldaar ook niet wesen moest,’ CA, CJ 360, f.451r [Q 44].

‘’t welk ook eerlijks menschen zijn, soo wilden wij met hem ook werken,’ CA, CJ 360, 495r [Q 46].

CA, CJ 360, f.455r–v. The demotion from ambagtsquartier to werf is also an indicator of the social perception of space in VOC Cape Town. The werf and the shoreline generally were low-status areas, the Castle the seat of authority and high status, and the ambagtquartier between the two, both physically and in status terms. When Malucko later deserted the workshop, he headed Caabwaards or into the town, which was less under the direct orbit of VOC control; CA, CJ 360, f.400v, 419r. For discussion of Company and burgher space in Cape Town, see Worden, ‘Space and Social Identity.’

CA, CJ 360, f.410r. Thim became a burgher the following year; see note 62 above. Swart had been in the forge since 1742, went into private employment ‘on loan’ from 1753 to 1759 and was subsequently appointed baas smit at the forge from 1760 to 1762. This career shows his loyalty to the Company; Hoge, ‘Personalia of the Germans at the Cape,’ 385.

CA, C 1589, ff.78–80 (Dagregister, 18–19 and 26 August 1752); Caille, Travels at the Cape, 18–19.

He was anyway nearing the end of his contract. He was temporarily replaced by Hendrick Scheffer (see note 7 above) until the arrival from Holland in December of the newly appointed baas, Johann Christostramus Elgas van Rood Alben (Baden); NA, VOC 5201, f.8–9, VOC 14 219.

‘de Procurateur en advocaat van onse baas … en sult net soo vaaren also hij en gij sult meede haast na de donder raaken,’ CA, CJ 360, f.484v and 507r. For the association of donder with the devil in a curse, see Strekenburg, Vloeken, 279. The timmerman responded to this outburst by saying that it was unlikely, since he had ‘never studied in the vaderland,’ but that van den Steen was rather the prosecutor of the matter, to which Steen replied that he was in no position to be, since he could neither read nor write.

‘dat sijn saaken buijten jouw en ‘t vuur dat jouw niet brand, dat hoef gij niet te blusschen … anders heb ik een naalde in mijn sak die is spitz en steekt,’ CA, CJ 360, 509v. In van den Steen's cross-examination he intriguingly stated that he also said, ‘mijn moeder heeft melk verkogt en ik heb het jok gedragen, met bijvoeging: past gij maar op, dat gij ook geen jok moet dragen’ (‘my mother sold milk and I carried the yoke, adding: Watch out that you don’t end up carrying a yoke’); CA, CJ 360, f.484r. Such verbal exchanges are rich in loaded metaphor of the kind that would delight historical sociolinguists.

The smiths may also have seen themselves as distinct from the others in the ambagtsquartier by the nature of their work. On forges as tight communities with ‘shared values, information and goals,’ see Keller and Keller, Cognition and Tool Use, 18. In Germany (and Northern Europe more generally), blacksmiths were viewed as people with special (possibly magical) powers; Motz, ‘The Wise One of the Mountain,’ 25–29 and ch. 9.

Quotations from Thamer ‘On the Use and Abuse of Handicraft,’ 293 and 295–96. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such strike actions had replaced the late medieval and sixteenth-century northern Netherlands practice of uitgang by which offended artisans simply left town; Dekker, ‘Handwerkslieden en arbeiders in Holland;’ Lucassen, ‘Labour and Early Modern Economic Development,’ 390–93.

Grießinger, Das Symbolische Kapital der Ehre, 414. Grießinger challenges the ‘pre-industrial’ unplanned riot vs. organised industrial strike dichotomy evident in the studies of Rude, Hobsbawm and Thompson by stressing the logic and organisation (Regelstruktur) of eighteenth-century German artisan protests, which drew on earlier formulated concepts of honour. His own arguments have been modified by Geary, ‘Protest and Strike,’ 376–80, on the grounds that notions of rationality in any strike action are problematic, and by Stuart, Defiled Trades (see note 36 above), on the continuities between eighteenth-century and earlier actions, but Grießinger's emphasis on the logic and rationality of eighteenth-century artisan protests against dishonour remains valid.

‘volgens oud gebruijk,’ CA, CJ 360, f.503r [Q 5].

This was according to Gebel, CA, CJ 360, f.449r–v [Q 36–39]. In later cross-examination, Malucko denied this, claiming that he had brought the hammer with him from Batavia, and that Krieger had ‘mij … mishandelt en geslagen’ (‘ill-treated and beaten … me’) as a result; CA, CJ 360, f.468v [Q 43]. There is no record in Malucko's scheepsoldijboek (NA, VOC 6265, f.24) that he had worked in Batavia, although, since he was 41 years old (CA, CJ 360, f.459r [Q 1]), he could well have served a previous contract with the VOC and returned home on another ship—as did Otto Rickers (see note 55 above).

‘tot verzoening dier diefte,’ CA, CJ 360, f.449v–450r, 493r–v [Q 37]; 469r [Q 44]. The words are Malucko's own; he did not deny the offence.

Thamer, ‘On the Use and Abuse of Handicraft,’ 288; Dekker, ‘Labour Conflicts and Working-Class Culture,’ 395; Dekker, ‘Handwerkslieden en arbeiders in Holland,’ 141.

‘dien dief wel ten halven wist,’ CA, CJ 360, f.435v.

CA, CJ 360, f.376r.

‘of moet selfs in ’t vaderland soo een geweest zijn,’ CA, CJ 360, f.418v.

‘soo zij langer met den Relatant [Malucko] werkten als die een hamer soude ontvreemd hebben, hij hen insegelijk als dieven aanmerken moeste,’ CA, CJ 360, f.418v.

In The Netherlands if a worker who had been declared vuil remained at work, the whole workshop was considered dishonoured; Dekker, ‘Labour Conflicts and Working-Class Culture,’ 397; Pol, Het Amsterdams hoerdom, 74.

‘ik heb moeten van de winkel absent blijven dewijl het volk met mij niet werken wilde,’ CA, CJ 360, f.469r [Q 46].

CA, CJ 360, f.407v. Certainly Steenberg said he was reluctant to do so; CA, CJ 360, f.425v.

CA, CJ 360, f.419r–v.

CA, CJ 360, f.374v. Malucko had also accused Krieger from the start; CA, CJ 360, f.460v [Q 7]. The attempted dishonouring of Krieger by these accusations was in marked contrast to the implications the smiths made that slaves had either taken the spades themselves or had assisted Krieger in his removal of goods from the workshop. Slaves were not considered to possess honour by either the smiths or the authorities (although of course they had a sense of honour themselves), and they were not therefore liable to dishonour in this manner. The matter was not pursued, and it seems that the slaves were not even interrogated. The accusations do, however, give a momentary glimpse of the presence of slaves in the forge.

Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honor,’ 24; Stewart, Honor, 65, points out that revenge on a social superior has to be obtained by other means than direct challenge.

Honour lost by one is gained by another; Farr, Hands of Honor, 185.

‘geen baas betaamde,’ CA, CJ 360, f.429v–30r, f.399r, f.488v [Q 33].

CA, CJ 360, f.457r [Q 70].

CA, CJ 360, f.470v–71r.

CA, CJ 360, f.422v.

‘werk onder sijn rok wegdroegen waneer het 's Comp werk was, hij het immers wel openbaar konde wegdragen,’ CA, CJ 360, f.496v [Q 53].

‘de wijlen wij onse consciente vry woesten; … onse Baas die med Naght en Ontydt, en wel in eene Nagt somtijds 2 keer med zyn met een Sack varziene Jongen de Winkel besogt, en daaruijt gehaalt, wat hen gelust heeft dat sou onse eenfoudige gedagten na wel eer eenen Dief gelijken en op sulke Manier hij wel den heelen Winkel wegdragen, en ons daarvoor als hij met zijne Rekening niet uijtkomen ons om sik selv te verschoenen en onsen eerlyken Naam graveeren konde,’ CA, CJ 360, f.439r–v.

‘sonder de grootse Prejudice van de Wereld onder eenes Mans Commando staen konnen, die selvs schuldig is in sulken Saken waarmede hij andere beschuldigen en van haren Eerlijken Naam berooven wilt,’ CA, CJ 360, f.440r.

‘dat hij in ‘t defraudeeren der E Comp grootelijks gepecceert heeft?’ CA, CJ 360, f.505r [Q 15].

‘ik vermijne sulx tot voordeel maar niet tot nadeel gedaen te hebben,’ CA, CJ 360, f.505r [Q 15].

CA, CJ 360, f.374r.

CA, CJ 360, f.374b. In later cross-examination on 27 September, Gebel specifically asked that it be added to his original testimony of 11 September that he had said nothing about the free hour. Clearly he had become aware of the seriousness of the issue as the authorities began to probe further; CA, CJ 360, f.457v–58r.

‘waarom hebt gij nu bij de Edele Heer om jou uur niet gevraagt: met bijvoeging nu hebt gij de uur dog niet weederom,’ CA, CJ 360, f.493r [Q 35].

‘ik heb volgens oud gebruijk het volk somwijlen een uurtje voor hunselven gegeven on te werken,’ CA, CJ 360, f.503r [Q 5]. Also f.398r.

‘de volke seijde dat sulx geen Comp werk was,’ ibid. and f.417v. In interrogation the only person who admitted to the fact that the smiths worked on their own behalf was Jacob Fee, the youngest member of the forge (19 years old), a Roman Catholic (which made him something of an outsider) and perhaps more naïve than the rest, CA, CJ 360, f.486r [Q 1]; 493r [Q 35].

want gij neemt ons dog onse uur af, CA, CJ 360, f.467v [Q 37].

want van ‘S Comps. gagie kunnen wij niet bestaan, CA, CJ 360, f.405r.

van de Comp geen koolen of ijzer weggeeven konde, CA, CJ 360, 375r. Shortage of iron and coal was a problem for burgher smiths in Cape Town and the forge workers were at an advantage by their access to Company supplies, Erasmus, ‘Geskiedenis van die bedryfslewe,’ 179.

CA, CJ 360, 398r, 375r, 376v, 398r.

Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company artisans,’ 66 and 270–73, suggests that the high turnover of artisans in the VOC kept wages at a low level, and indeed only one worker in the Cape Town forge in 1752 (Jurgen Swart) earnt more than the minimum, presumably because he was the only one who had been there for over five years. The official wages of smiths in other VOC stations were much the same as in the Cape (NA VOC 5200), so Mentzel might either have been wrong (as he often was) or else have been referring to the potential for Cape artisans to earn extra money by working on the side. On this pasganger system among Cape soldiers, see Dooling, ‘The Castle in the History of Cape Town,’ 14. Wiebe Kreessenburg's indebtedness is one indication of the smiths’ financial precariousness; see note 56 above.

The only other example of an artisan strike in the VOC world hitherto noted by historians took place in the workshops located on Onrust in Batavia harbour in 1723 when the strikers smashed up the forge and justified their actions on the grounds that the Company had ‘stolen’ from them by paying them meagre wages; Opper, ‘Dutch East India Company Artisans,’ 274. A brief report on this case is given in NA, VOC 1985, 179r–82r but the detailed court records are missing. The accusation of Company ‘theft’ by the Onrust artisans indicates that they too believed they had been wronged—and dishonoured—by their employers.

For example in the London dockyards (Linebaugh, The London Hanged, 378–81) and in the Venice arsenal (Davis, Shipbuilders of the Venetian Arsenal, 119–22).

Grießinger, Das Symbolische Kapital der Ehre, 435–43; Farr, Artisans in Europe, 200–1.

‘door de mattroosen op de Equipagie werf dapper gelaarst,’ CA, CJ 34, ff.92–93.

NA, VOC 14 752; CA, C 1119, Requesten 1752, No. 83, ff.182–83, undated. Krieger's application may have been made in anticipation of the end of his contract in November and before the complaints made against him, although approval could presumably have been rescinded. At his death in 1774 he left a moderate estate, including a number of iron goods (doubtless from the forge) and three slaves; CA, MOOC 8/15, no. 24.

CA, CJ 360, f.393r.

‘groote assurantien en brutaliteiten,’ CA, CJ 34, ff.85–86.

Amerasinghe, Defamation and Other Aspects of the Actio Iniuriarum, 38; Pol, ‘Prostitutie en de Amsterdamse burgerij,’ 194, no. 79. On Roman–Dutch law of defamation and its application to the VOC Cape, see Ranchod, Foundations of the South African Law of Defamation, ch. 3. See Keunen and Roodenburg, ‘Schimpen en Schelden,’ on defamation actions in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Netherlands.

On the importance of maintaining hierarchy among the VOC personnel, see Lequin, Het personeel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Azie, 48.

One of the main features of strike action is that it involves collective action that avoids blame being pinned on individuals; Geary ‘Brazilian Slaves and European Workers,’ 8.

‘gepleegde obstinatie grootelijks straafbaar is,’ CA, CJ 360, f.469v [Q 48].

CA, CJ 360, ff.474v–75r [Q 21, 26 and 27].

CA, CJ 360, f.380v–81r. The Fiscal declared all the smiths guilty of ‘publique ongepermitteerde murmureeringen en uijtspanningen mitsgds gepleegde groove brutaliteiten en betoonde zeer enorme vilipendien soo aan hun baas also ook in zonderheijd aan hun Fabriek en principale gebieder de heer Hendrik de Ruijter and obstinate weijgering van hun plicht in ‘t waarneemen van hun ambagt in den dienst der E Comp,’ CA, CJ 360, f.379v.

Banishment was a common punishment for second offences by thieves in Holland: Spierenburg, Spectacle of Suffering, 136; Dekker, ‘Labour Conflicts and Working-Class Culture,’ 391–92 and 411–12. Malucko may have been viewed as a second offender but the Fiscal's proposals for Fee and van den Steen were severe. Banishment with hard labour to another VOC station was the means by which the VOC ensured that they obtained continued value from their (now unpaid) employees. Skilled artisans in Batavia were less likely to be banished if their labour was required there, although they could be made to work in chains in the artisan quarter; Ward, ‘“The Bounds of Bondage,”’ 215–16.

‘door de mattroosen op de Equipagie werf dapper gelaarst en voorts met goedgevinden van den Edele Heer Gouverneur voor mattroosen a f.9 per maand van hier versonden te werden,’ CA, CJ 34, ff.92–93.

CA, CJ 360, 409r. See also note 87 above.

Ward, ‘“The Bounds of Bondage,”’ 236 points out that it was unusual for Cape criminals to be banished outside the colony. The skills of the forge workers may have made their deployment to Batavia particularly desirable.

The shortage of skilled artisans from Europe led the VOC authorities in Batavia to issue an order in 1753 to search for local inhabitants (including slaves) who could be employed in that capacity: Lequin, Het personeel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Azie, 46; Chijs, Nederlandsch-Indisch plakaatboek, Vol. 6, 456ff, Vol. 7, 106.

Stewart, Honor, 125.

The banishment was carried out immediately: Thorenvliet was in Cape Town harbour on its way to Batavia between 14 November and 6 December 1752. The addition of three men obliged to work as sailors would have been especially welcome since 11 sailors had deserted from the ship in S. Tiago; Bruijn, Dutch-Asiatic Shipping, Vol. 2, 540–41.

NA, VOC 6272, f.283. He was 20 years old.

It is not known in what capacity. NA, VOC 13 052, f.33.

NA, VOC 6265, f.24.