Swellendam opgaafrol 1770 - NA 1.04.02 VOC inv. 4262
opgaafrol · an original record · consulted 2026-08-19
- Type
- opgaafrol
- Repository
- Nationaal Archief, Den Haag, 1.04.02 Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). CC0.
- Reference
- inv. nr. 4262. District SWELLENDAM, year 1770. Scans 0090 to 0109; the colony summary is at 0110.
- Consulted
- 2026-08-19
The citation as it was given
SOMMA: 432 mannen, 278 vrouwen, 505 zoons, 477 dogters. Folio 1 closes at 21|15|22|25. Fetched at 5000 px with data/fetch_na_opgaafrol.py; the scans ARE committed and were moved to _inbox/_discard/2026-08-23-opgaafrollen-processed/ on 23 Aug 2026 once the roll had been read (this line said they were not committed until then). | *** THE COLONY SUMMARY AT SCAN 0110 VERIFIES EVERY READING EXACTLY. *** de Kaap 767|617|615|690, Stellenbosch 222|125|242|221, Drakenstein 715|497|894|791, Swellendam 432|278|505|477, Somma Sommarum 2136|1517|2256|2179. ALL FOUR COLUMNS SUM TO THE STATED TOTAL WITH NO RESIDUAL. That is a stronger check than any folio transport, because it tests four districts' readings against one arithmetic at once. | *** THE THREE ROLLS ARE NOW A SERIES AND THE SERIES SAYS SOMETHING. *** Swellendam burghers: 639 in 1751 (SRC-488), 1034 in 1760 (SRC-489), 1692 in 1770. THE DISTRICT DOUBLES ROUGHLY EVERY ELEVEN YEARS. | AND THE GROWTH IS ON THE FRONTIER, NOT AT THE CAPE. Between 1751 and 1770: de Kaap +20%, Stellenbosch +24%, Drakenstein +105%, SWELLENDAM +165%. Swellendam goes from an eighth of the colony's burghers to a fifth. | WHY THAT MATTERS TO THIS PROJECT: the Oosthuizens of S044's third stage are living in the fastest-growing district in the colony, and their own households grow with it - five Oosthuizen households in 1751, seven in 1760. The move over the Swartberg after 1809 happens out of a district that had been filling for two generations, which is context the migration layer did not have. | NO FARMS COLUMN, like 1751 and 1760: the form ends on Snaphanen, Deegens, Pistolen. The roll places a household in a district and not on named ground. | *** TRANSCRIBED IN FULL, 19 Aug 2026: all twenty folios, 485 entries, in opgaaf_rows.csv (485 rows) and in the private working file 1770 Opgaafrol/1770-swellendam-transcription-WORKING.md. *** | THE ROLL WAS TAKEN ON 15, 16 AND 17 MARCH 1770, on oath before the Heemraden - the closing attestation says so, and it is a date to cite. | Nineteen of the twenty folios reconcile against their own Transporteere on all four columns. The one open figure is folio 18's Dogters, 23 read against 24 carried. | 485 entries = 459 resident households + 26 absentees entered 'voor Swellendam' and COUNTED IN NO COLUMN AT ALL (two scattered, twenty-four in a block closing the roll, among them Marten Melk, Jacobus van Reenen, Willem Morkel and Hendr. Oostwald Eksteen - Cape burghers holding Swellendam ground). 27 of the resident households are headed by a woman; 459-27 = 432 = the Mannen column exactly. | BEYOND THE FOUR PEOPLE COLUMNS the Somma gives Knegts 8, Slaven 500, Slavinnen 159, Jongens 36, Meijsjes 25 - 720 enslaved people to 1,692 burghers - Paarden 1,098, Rundert 12,331, Schapen 76,129, Snaphanen 427, Deegens 431, Pistolen 431. THE WINE, WHEAT, RYE AND BARLEY COLUMNS ARE BLANK FOR THE WHOLE DISTRICT. Swellendam in 1770 sows nothing this roll records; it is stock country. | FOURTEEN OOSTHUIJSEN ENTRIES across six folios, in two clusters seven folios apart. Folio 2: Jan de jonge, Jacobus, Jan de oude, Fredrik, Willem Marten, Marthinus, and Catharina married to Jan Craffort. Folio 9: Gerrit d'oude with five sons, Jan Hendrik GERRITSZ, Gerrit de jonge, and Sara married to Salomon Pienaar. Only the folio 9 group carries a patronymic, and Gerritsz is the form assigns to Gerhardus b.1703. [TO VERIFY] | Also Petronella Oosthuijsen (wife of Fredrik Botha Willemsz, folio 6), Johanna Magdalena and Elsje (wives of Fredrik and Coenraad Scheepers, folio 8), Catharina (wife of Cornelis Besuijdenhout, folio 4) and Nelletje (wife of Cornelis Vermaak de jonge, folio 17). | VAN DER MERWE: folio 1 has the widow Jacoba van Eerden with four sons and four daughters and two grown sons, Schalk Willem and Hendrik GERRITSZ, entered alone beside her; folio 2 opens with a third, Pieter Schalk GERRITSZ. Four van der Merwe women are married out across the roll and no two can be assumed the same or different on the name alone. | TWO READING ERRORS OF OURS were caught by the arithmetic and are worth knowing: a 4 read as a 1 (folio 2 Dogters) and a 3 read as a 6 (folio 16 Zoons). Both times three columns closed and the fourth did not, and both times the clerk was right. The Transporteere is a check on the transcriber, not on the clerk.
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
- Catharina Oosthuizen 1751
- Anna Botha (b.1718) 1718 – before 1780-03-31