Resolution of the Council of Policy, 11 July 1775: the petition of the settlers living beyond Bruijnshoogte, and the extension of the Stellenbosch and Swellendam district boundaries to the Fish and Bosjesmans Rivers
Council of Policy resolution · consulted 2026-08-12
- Type
- Council of Policy resolution
- Repository
- Nationaal Archief, Den Haag / Western Cape Archives, Council of Policy (C series); transcribed under the TANAP programme and published as a public-domain (CC0) dataset by the National Archives of the Netherlands and Leiden University; read through eGGSA's VOC Archive web application
- Reference
- C153, pp. 272-321, entry C153.p0272-0321, dated 1775-07-11
- Consulted
- 2026-08-12
The citation as it was given
WHY THIS ONE IS HERE AND THE REST OF THE VOC ARCHIVE IS NOT. 9a closes the stamvader and VOC-arrival thread; this record is not that thread. It is the MIGRATION layer - question 1 of the three the site exists to answer - and it is dated two years before the Koup loan farms begin about 1777. THE LOCATIONS ARE THIS GROUND'S OWN FRONTIER: Bruijnshoogte, Sneeuberg, SWARTENBERG, Camdebo, Sondags rivier, Visch rivier, Bosjesmansrivier, Gamtous Rivier. TEN SURNAMES THIS PROJECT HOLDS ARE NAMED IN IT, and two matter: OOSTHUIJSEN, Jan (Oud) and OOSTHUIJSEN, Jan (Jonge) - an elder and a younger. Also BOTHA x6, NEL x2, PLESIE (du Plessis) x2, MEIJER x2, STEIJN, de JAGER x2, le GRANGE, HOLTSHAUSEN, BESUIJDENHOUT. IT DOES NOT IDENTIFY ANYBODY. 9 forbids matching a person on a name alone, and two men called Jan Oosthuijsen on the 1775 frontier are not yet this project's line. What the record establishes is that people of these names were petitioning from beyond Bruijnshoogte in 1775; whether they are ours is LEAD-0179. [TO VERIFY] WHAT THE ARCHIVE IS: Council of Policy resolutions 1651-1795, the Cape Journals 1651-1662, and annexures to the council minutes 1715-1806, searchable by person, place, ship and category, with the Dutch original beside an English translation. The 1651-1795 range overlaps the loan-farm era on this ground, which is why it is worth a second visit. NOTE WHAT IT CANNOT REACH: it holds no Court of Justice records, so it cannot close LEAD-0002, which turns on CJ 2601. And it holds no Koup or Traka as place names - the index has neither - so this district is present through its rivers and mountains rather than by its own name. VERIFIED IN THE DUTCH, 12 Aug 2026, and it is stronger than the summary. The two men are on a Heemraad's roll of who had settled where, verbatim: 'dat aan- en op- den SNEEUWBERG, Sorteerende onder deese onse Districten, zig ook van tijd tot tijd hebben ter needer gezet, de navolgende persoonen, als: Pieter Nel, Jan Coetser d' oude, Philip Botha Christoffelsz, Christoffel Botha, Hilligert Muller, Theunis Botha Christ:z:, Cornelis Besuijdenhout wijnandsz JAN OOSTHUIJSEN D' OUDE, EN JAN OOSTHUIJSEN DE JONGE mitsg:s aan de Sondags rivier Willem Botha Fredriksz, Frederik Botha d' oude en Jan d' Plesie. Alsmeede aan deese zijde onder de voorn: Bruijnshoogte, nog eenen Coert Grobbelaar; dewelke alle onder de Magistratuure van SWELLENDAM gehooren.' So the location is precise and it is NOT this district: they had settled ON THE SNEEUWBERG, under Swellendam's magistracy. The document is the Heemraad's report of an inspection of 'in 't Camdebo en omtrent de bruijns hoogte leggende VEEPLAATSEN'. The settlers' own petition is quoted in it and pleads poverty against being moved: 'veele deeser Ingeseetene agter de bruijnshoogte leggende Personen geen hondert Schapen en Vijftig beesten zijn bezittende'. They ask 'de thans door hun beseeten werdende Plaatsen, van d' E: Comp:n IN LEENING te moogen blijven behouden'. WHERE THE SNEEUWBERG ACTUALLY IS, established 12 Aug 2026 and it matters for scope. The Sneeuberge are the Great Escarpment range running roughly 200 km from Nxuba in the east to MURRAYSBURG in the west, north of Graaff-Reinet, with Compassberg 55 km due north of that town; most of the range is in what is now the Eastern Cape. Murraysburg, its western end, is 189 km from Klaarstroom by this project's own cadastre measurement. SO THE PEOPLE ON THIS ROLL ARE NOT ON THIS GROUND, and the record is migration-layer context rather than local history. That is not a weakness of the source; it is what the source says, and reading 'Oosthuijsen' as 'here' would be the error 9a exists to prevent. READ IN FULL 13 Aug 2026, AND THE JURISDICTION SENTENCE ABOVE IS TOO SIMPLE. The heemraad went out under a standing order 'van zig niet agter de Bruijns hoogte ter needer te zetten' and reported that it was being broken: nine households - Lowies Nel, Jacobus Potgieter, Frans Labuschagne, Willem Prinslo d'oude, Hendrik Krieger, Claas Prinslo de Jonge, Hannes and Hendrik Kloppers, Jan Nortie d'oude - had settled beyond it with family and stock, 'weegens gebrek ter bekooming van goede plaatsen' as to grazing and water. THE SNEEUWBERG GROUP IS DESCRIBED AS 'Sorteerende onder DEESE ONSE Districten' - falling under the writer's own, that is Stellenbosch - and yet the paragraph ends 'dewelke alle onder de Magistratuure van SWELLENDAM gehooren'. Both are true, and the next sentences explain how. Asked why they had not registered under Stellenbosch and Drakenstein when the latest boundary put them there, they answered that they had long wanted to and had asked Swellendam for the attestations to transfer, 'dog dat hun Sulx door de Swellendamse Magistratuure geweijgerd' - Swellendam refused. Coert Grobbelaar and Cornelis Besuijdenhout had been refused twice. So these households lived on one magistracy's ground and stood on another's books by that second magistracy's choice, which is a sharper fact than either half alone. SPARRMAN (SRC-434) records the other side of the same arrangement: the inhabitants of 'Camdebo, Schneeuwberg, Bockeveld, Roggeveld' mustered every year at STELLENBOSCH.
Kept verbatim. This project contradicts published genealogies and corrects a family's own oral tradition, so every claim has to be checkable by someone who was not in the room.
What rests on this source
People
- Jan Hendrik Oosthuijsen 1714 – before 1780