Anzelm Dzwonkowski’s Short Description of the Dutch Cape Colony (1789, 1793)

ABSTRACT

This article presents excerpts from the short memoirs of Teodor Anzelm Dzwonkowski, a member of a Mazovian family belonging to the Polish petty nobility, who after his service in the Prussian army decided to enrol with the Prince of Orange, a vessel sailing to Southeast Asia on a voyage which took him nearly five years (1787–1793). During this voyage he twice spent a few months in Cape Town, first, in June to August 1789 and, secondly, from around September 1792 to March 1793 on his return voyage. He left two very short descriptions, less than 11 pages long in total, of his two stays there. Although the description of the first is longer and more elaborate than the much shorter second account, the latter contains some interesting insights. This article provides a short biography of Anzelm Dzwonkowski and the history of his memoirs, both quite important for the overall story behind these historical accounts. Finally, the article comments on certain aspects of these memoirs.

KEYWORDS:

• Africa
• South Africa
• Cape Colony
• Cape Town
• eighteenth century
• memoirs

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 B. Gorelik, ed., An Entirely Different World: Russian Visitors to the Cape, 1797–1870 (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 2015).

2 S. Newton-King, Masters and Servants on the Cape Eastern Frontier (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

3 T.A. Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu dla Józefy z Dzwonkowskich Komornickiej [Memoirs, or a father’s memento for Josephine Komornicka née Dzwonkowska], edited by S. Komornicky and T. Komornicky (Warszawa: PiW, 1985) [hereafter Memoirs], 31–44.

4 This is typical for that time when births were not always registered. What was registered was the baptism, which sometimes took place several weeks after the birth. Therefore, in family genealogies we have the date 1764 but his tombstone records the date 1763. Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 10, 12, 52.

5 Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 52.

6 Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 53; M. Karpińska, review of T.A. Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu dla Józefy z Dzwonkowskich Komornickiej (Warszawa: PiW, 1985), in Przegląd Historyczny, 77, 2 (1986), 436.

7 M. Kowalski, ‘Poles in the Dutch Cape Colony 1652–1814’, Werkwinkel, 10, 1 (2015), 83.

8 The Kościuszko Uprising is also known as the Polish Uprising of 1794. This was an uprising against the Russian and Prussian influence on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth after the second partition of Poland in 1793. The insurrection was led by Tadeusz Kościuszko, a veteran of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1776–1783). The uprising spread throughout the whole of Poland-Lithuania and large parts of the Prussian partition. Eventually, it failed at its attempt to liberate the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from external influence. See A. Storozynski, The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2010), 179–203.

9 This is a short recapitulation of his life based on his own diary and on statements of the editors of the published diary. Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 34–38, 111–116. For the history of the Duchy of Warsaw, see J. Czubaty, The Duchy of Warsaw, 1807–1815: A Napoleonic Outpost in Central Europe (London: Bloomsbury, 2016).

10 Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 38–39; Karpińska, ‘Pamiętniki czyli pamiątka’, 436.

11 Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 43.

12 A. Rehman, Szkice z podróży do południowej Afryki odbytej w latach 1875–1877 [Travel sketches from southern Africa] (Warszawa: Gebethner & Wolff, 1881); A. Rehman, Echa z południowej Afryki [Echoes from southern Africa] (Lwów: Gubrynowicz & Schmidt, 1884).

13 L. Tomanek, ‘Polak z XVIII stulecia w służbie holenderskiej’ [A Pole from the eighteenth century in Dutch service], Kurier Literacko-Naukowy, 6, 6 (1929), 4–5.

14 There are two accounts about this. J. Pertek, Polacy na szlakach morskich świata [Poles on the sea routes of the world] (Gdańsk: Gdańskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1957), 273–276; Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 9, 32. However, whichever is the case, the important fact is that this copy of diary was destroyed.

15 J. Zathey, Pamiętniki krakowskiej rodziny Louisów (1831–1869) [Diaries of the Louis family of Cracow (1831–1869)] (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1962).

16 Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 33–34.

17 Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 41–43.

18 Dzwonkowski, Pamiętniki, czyli pamiątka po ojcu, 39.

19 I. Kowalski, ‘African Studies in Poland’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 5, 2 (1967), 269–272; K. Czernichowski, D. Kopiński, and A. Polus, ‘Polish African Studies at a Crossroads Past, Present and Future’, Africa Spectrum, 47, 2/3 (2012), 169–175.

20 M. Kowalski, ‘Poles in the Dutch Cape Colony 1652–1814’, Werkwinkel, 10, 1 (2015), 82–85.

21 D. Kołodziejczyk, ‘The Dutch East Indies in the Eyes of a Pole: Teodor Anzelm Dzwonkowski and his Memoirs from the Service in the Dutch Navy in the Years 1788–1793’, paper presented at the ‘Escaping Kakania: Eastern European Travels in Colonial Southeast Asia’ workshop, organised by the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, 4–6 March 2021.

22 This notion is somewhat supported by Lady Anne Barnard, an English resident of Cape Town from 1797 to 1802, who describes how Lord Dundas personally distributed it amongst those whom he appreciated the most. D. Fairbridge, ed., Lady Anne Barnard at the Cape of Good Hope, 1797–1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), 242.

23 I am unable to ascertain which of the bays on the south shores of the Cape Colony the author had in mind when he writes about Sardinia Bay, a fifth Roten Busch, the sixth Bey Konstant. There are several possibilities, such as Buffels Bay, Plettenberg Bay, Saint Francis Bay, Victoria Bay, or Walker’s Bay, to mention just some possibilities.

24 The author here used the Polish word gbur, which today is a mild swear word meaning ‘churl’. In the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, gbur described a free, usually wealthy farmer from the area of Royal Prussia (eastern Pomerania). The word is derived from Old High German giburo and is related to the Dutch word boer (farmer).

25 This is in accordance with the information that the Company servants were usually bonded by a seven-year contract. N. Ulrich, ‘Popular Community in 18th-Century Southern Africa: Family, Fellowship, Alternative Networks, and Mutual Aid at the Cape of Good Hope, 1652–1795’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 40, 6 (2014), 1144.

26 Such a description may be taken as offensive by contemporary readers but is, in fact, a reflection of contemporary views and attitudes, reflected in many diaries and recollections from that period. This attitude was studied in depth and discussed in C.C. Crais, and P. Scully, Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).

27 Although this also is a very disturbing notion, once again we should remember that Dzwonkowski was just repeating stories which were in circulation in Cape Town. They represent the perspective on the Khoesan people at that time. Moreover, these kinds of stories were proliferated by some of the contemporary writers, such as P. Kolb, The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope or a Particular Account of the Several Nations of the Hottentots, their Religion, Government, Laws, Customs, Ceremonies, and Opinions: Their Art of War, Professions, Language, Genius etc.Together with a Short Account of the Dutch Settlement at the Cape (London: W. Inns, 1731), 2, 120–123. Similar stories are repeated even in our times. See AllAfrica, ‘Kenya: “Rapist” Baboons Targeting Women’, All Africa, n.d. [2015], https://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00035764.html (accessed on 20 July 2023).

28 In possession of France since 1721.

29 J.D. Buttner, Account of the Cape: Brief Description of Natal: Journal Extracts on East Indies, edited by G.S. Nienaber and R. Raven-Hart (Cape Town: A.A. Balkema, 1970), 64; F. Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa by the Way of the Cape of Good Hope in the Years 1780, 81, 82, 83, 84 and 85 (London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, 1790), 1, 89; N. Worden, E. van Heyningen, and V. Bickford-Smith, Cape Town: The Making of a City (Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 1998), 53, 77.

30 R. Percival, An Account of the Cape of Good Hope (London: Baldwin, 1804), 8–9, 19.

31 Ulrich, ‘Popular Community in 18th Century Southern Africa’, 1145.

32 M. Boucher, The Cape of Good Hope and Foreign Contacts, 1735–1755 (Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 1985), 4, where author states that the False (or Simons) Bay became a place of winter anchorage after 1741; Percival, An Account of the Cape of Good Hope, 41.

33 Percival, An Account of the Cape of Good Hope, 47–48, 50.

34 Percival, An Account of the Cape of Good Hope, 48.

35 Boucher, The Cape of Good Hope, 4–5; Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 54.

36 N. Worden, ‘Strangers Ashore: Sailor Identity and Social Conflict in Mid-18th Century Cape Town’, Kronos, 33 (2007), 72–83; Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 54.

37 Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 52.

38 For example, M. Kowalski, ‘Poles in the Dutch Cape Colony 1652–1814’, Werkwinkel, 10, 1 (2015), 65–96.

39 Kowalski, ‘Poles in the Dutch Cape Colony’, Werkwinkel. We know of several people of Prussian origin, not only from Royal Prussia but also from Ducal Prussia (later East Prussia with its capital in Konigsberg) the best example and most successful one was Martin Melck who hailed from Memel, now Klaipėda, Lithuania. G.A. Cockrell, ‘Die lewe van Martin Melck (1723–1781)’, Kleio, 33 (2001), 86–106.

40 Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 28, 53.

41 Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa, 1, 32.

42 O.F. Mentzel, A Geographical-Topographical Description of the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1924), 2, 85–87; Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 57–58; Ulrich, ‘Popular Community in 18th-Century Southern Africa’, 1153.

43 Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 81.

44 Mentzel, A Geographical-Topographical Description, 2, 104–105; Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 77.

45 Mentzel, A Geographical-Topographical Description, 2, 85–87; M. Boucher, ‘The Cape and Foreign Shipping 1714–1723’, South African Historical Journal, 6 (1974), 23. Where Dzwonkowski’s work undoubtedly supports other sources is in the fact that drinking was an important leisure activity amongst Cape Town’s population, with no regard to gender. Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa, 1, 92–94.

46 Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa, 1, 31. In fact, a more recent translation stresses this fondness even more strongly, when it states that the women ‘are mad about dancing’. Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior of Africa, 17.

47 Mentzel, A Geographical-Topographical Description, 2, 111; Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 81.

48 Le Vaillant, Travels into the Interior Parts of Africa, 1, 89–90; D. Fairbridge, Historic Houses of South Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1922), 75–82.

49 Boucher, The Cape of Good Hope and Foreign Contacts, 33–35.

50 N. Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 6–18; J.C. Armstrong and N. Worden, ‘The Slaves, 1652–1834’, in R. Elphick and H. Giliomee, eds, The Shaping of the South African Society, 1652–1840 (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1989), 128–136.

51 Worden, Slavery in Dutch South Africa, 36–40; Newton-King, Masters and Servants, 162, 168, 299 n 48.

52 This view is supported to some extent by a period of French occupation of Cape Town (1781–1784), when the VOC was unable to control the activities of colonists and the French garrison. It led to an economic boom of the Colony when several private import companies and a private mercantile business community emerged for the first time. Worden, Van Heyningen, and Bickford-Smith, Cape Town, 83.

53 This is to some extent supported by a study of Robert Ross. And it is possible that such limitations were introduced only in 1780s because of a war with the United Kingdom. R. Ross, Beyond the Pale: Essays on the History of Colonial South Africa (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press of New England, 1993), 128–129.

54 Y. Abrahams, ‘Images of Sara Bartman: Sexuality, Race and Gender in Early-Nineteenth-Century Britain’, in R.R. Pierson, N. Chaudhuri with B. McAuley, eds, Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 220–236.

55 G.S. Nienaber, Khoekhoense stamname: ’n Voorlopige verkenning (Pretoria: HSRC, 1989), 514–548.

56 There are several works concerning the development of the commando system. The most recent is J. Laband, The Zulu Kingdom and the Boer Invasion of 1837–1840 (Warwick: Helion, 2022), 50–60.

57 S. Swart, ‘Riding High – Horses, Power and Settler Society, c.1654–1840’, Kronos, 28, 1 (2002), 55–59.

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Michał Leśniewski

Michał Leśniewski is Professor of History at the Faculty of History, University of Warsaw. He received his PhD in 1997 with a dissertation entitled ‘The Role of South Africa in Shaping Concepts of British Imperial Policy, 1899–1914’ and habilitated in 2010 with the dissertation ‘Africans, Boers and British: A Study in Relations, 1795–1854’. He specialises in nineteenth and twentieth-century history, especially on European colonialism, the British Empire, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. He is the author of The Zulu-Boer War 1837–1840 (Brill, 2021) and The Klip River Affair of 1847 (Adam Mickiewicz University, 2018).