Estate inventory, deed MOOC8/64.12a, 2 May 1818

Inventory and valuation · taken at the Orphan Chamber, Cape Town, 2 May 1818

Inventaris mitsgaders tauxatie van alle zodanige goederen als er ab intestato met er dood zyn ontruimd ende nagelaten door den burger Ignatius Michael du Plessies ten voordeele zyner overgebleven weduwe Aletta Elisabeth Dorothea van Heerden ter eenre en hunne bij den anderen in huwelyk verwekte drie minderjarige kinderen, met namen

1) Elisabeth Jacomina oud 4 2) Catharina Maria oud 2 jaren en 3) Aletta Elisabeth Dorothea du Plessies oud 10 maanden

Inventory and valuation of all such goods as were left intestate at his death by the burgher Ignatius Michael du Plessis, in favour of his surviving widow on the one side and their three minor children on the other.

Unlike the other inventories in this folder, this one is valued — every line carries a rixdollar figure. It is therefore the best single view we have of what a Tarka loan farm was worth in 1818.

---

Goods, with valuation

The wagon is valued at 325 rixdollars — nearly two thirds of the entire farm's opstal. Two guns are worth twice a bed. This is the true economics of the frontier: transport and defence, and almost nothing else.

Beestiaal — Livestock, with valuation

Sheep are valued at exactly 1 rixdollar each, goats at three quarters, oxen at 20, riding horses at 30.

Crediten des boedels — Credits

Lasten des boedels — Debts

The half of Rondabel was bought from the widow's mother-in-law, Catharina Botha, widow of Jan du Plessis — and had not been paid for. The 500 rixdollars on the asset side and the 500 on the debt side are the same transaction. The other half of the farm was presumably still hers.

---

Closing formula

Aldus ginventariseerd en getauxeerd ter Weeskamer aan de Kaap de Goede Hoop op den 2 May 1818 ende zulks op het op en aangeven van de in den hoofde deezes gem: weduwe …

Als gecomm: Weesm: A:V: Bergh, A: v: Breda Voor den opgaaf: Aletta Elizabeth Doorthea van Heerden, weduwe du Pliesis Mij present: G:A: Watermeijer, E:C:

Note the widow's own spelling of her married name — du Pliesis.

---

What this record establishes

1. **Rondabel (PAR-000009) was a leningsplaats — a loan farm — in 1818**, twenty-three years before it was granted in quitrent on 15 April 1841. It was occupied, improved, bought and sold as property long before the Crown recognised any title in it.
2. **What was actually owned was the *opstal*** — the improvements, not the ground. That is why the farm can be split in half between a mother-in-law and a son's widow.
3. A benchmark of 1818 values against which the 1823 and 1826 Rondabel inventories in this folder can be read.
4. It is taken at the Orphan Chamber in Cape Town, not on the farm — the widow, or her declaration, travelled.

---

Filed 29 July 2026. Transcription © Cape Town Archives Repository; publication permitted only with repository and reference number named, as done above.