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Source SRC-533

Laura J. Mitchell, 'Belongings: Property, Family, and Identity in Colonial South Africa. An Exploration of Frontiers, 1725-c.1830', ch. 5: 'Kinship and Identity: A van der Merwe Story'

monograph · an authored work · consulted 2026-08-20

Type
monograph
Repository
Gutenberg-e, Columbia University Press, 2008
Reference
http://www.gutenberg-e.org/mitchell/chapter5.html (the site's HTTPS certificate does not match its hostname; fetched over HTTP 20 Aug 2026)
Consulted
2026-08-20

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The citation as it was given

Supplied by [FAMILY] Focus on the van der merwe and olifants rivier, but crosscheck everything. A scholarly monograph on the CEDARBERG frontier, and chapter 5 is entirely about the van der Merwes. LAYER IS AUTHORED, not original - it is an interpretation built on archives, and its archival citations are the part to follow. | *** WHAT IT GIVES THIS PROJECT: THE PARENTS OF TWO OF OUR DIRECT-ANCESTOR DEAD ENDS, AND AN INDEPENDENT CHECK ON THE TREE. *** Mitchell narrates Oud Willem van der Merwe, an arquebusier off the DORDRECHT who took burgher rights and married ELSIE CLOETE in 1668; her father JACOB CLOETE arrived 1652, was among the first free burghers, held a farm on the Liesbeeck from 1657, and was MURDERED, the governor's journal recording it on 23 MAY 1693. Their eldest son SCHALK married ANNA PREVOT, a Huguenot who came on the SCHELDE in 1688 aged seven and married at fifteen or sixteen; she bore seventeen children between sixteen and forty-four. | *** THE TREE MATCHES IT WITHOUT HAVING BEEN CONSULTED BY HER. *** The private tree has Willem Schalkz van der Merwe x ADELHEIDIS KLAUTEN married 9 SEPTEMBER 1668; her father JACOB KLAUTEN DIED 23 MAY 1693. CLOETE AND KLAUTEN ARE THE SAME SURNAME and 'Elsie' is Adelheidis - the murder date settles it beyond coincidence. Likewise Schalk Willem van der Merwe (1673-1740) x ANNE PREVOST (b. 18 Feb 1681), married 26 Feb 1696: born 1681 makes her seven in 1688 and fifteen at marriage, exactly as Mitchell says. Mitchell's 'Fytje' is the tree's Sophia Radergoertgens - Fytje being the diminutive. | *** AND THE MARRIAGE PATTERN SHE DOCUMENTS IS OUR OWN FAMILY'S. *** 'David, Pieter, and Izaak married van Rensburg first cousins (children of their Aunt Aletta)' - that Aletta is PER-001626, Aeltie van der Merwe (1684-1729), whose son is Willem Janse van Rensburg and who is a direct ancestor of Frans on his mother's side. 'Willem, Martha, and Gerrit married van Heerden first cousins' - that Martha is PER-001801 (1713-1784), also a direct ancestor, whose children are van Heerdens. SO THE VAN DER MERWE x VAN RENSBURG ALLIANCE THIS PROJECT MEETS AGAIN IN FRANS'S OWN MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS - Frans Jacobus Wilhelmus van der Merwe x Maria Magritha van Rensburg - IS FIRST STRUCK IN THE SECOND CAPE-BORN GENERATION, three centuries earlier. Mitchell documents where it starts. | HER ARCHIVAL CITATIONS ARE WORTH MORE TO US THAN HER ARGUMENT. She cites the CAPE LOAN-FARM REGISTERS by volume and page - 'CA: RLR 6:19, 6 Feb. 1725', 'RLR 6:123, 16 Apr. 1727 to 30 Apr. 1728', 'RLR 3:308', 'RLR 4:24', 'RLR 8:148', 'RLR 8:237' - which is exactly the series LEAD-0220 now needs for Modder Fonteyn, and she confirms it is usable and dateable. She also notes that LEONARD GUELKE compiled the RLR data and shared it with her: a compiled loan-farm dataset would be the fastest route to a named loan place. | ONE FURTHER LEAD SHE NAMES: Susan Newton-King, 'In Search of Notability: The Antecedents of David van der Merwe of the KOUE BOKKEVELD' - a paper on a van der Merwe in the country next to our Hantam ground. | WHAT SHE DOES NOT GIVE: this chapter is about marriage strategy and barely touches the Olifants River. The Cedarberg geography is in her chapters 1-4, which have not been read. NOTHING HERE BEARS ON THE MODDER FONTEYN QUESTION. | *** [20 Aug 2026] CHAPTERS 1-4 READ AT THE SECOND READING - the Olifants geography this row said was unread. THREE THINGS COME OUT AND NONE OF THEM IS A MODDERFONTEIN. *** | *** 1. THE DATE THAT MATTERS: SUSTAINED COLONIAL OCCUPATION OF THE BOLAND OLIFANTS BEGAN IN 1725. *** Mitchell dates the first documented European expedition through the Piekeniers Kloof to Danckaert in 1660, with irregular visits after it until settlement took hold in 1725. Her examples are loan farms of 1726 and 1727. | SET THAT AGAINST OUR OWN SWEEP OF THE SOUTHERN OLIFANTS (SRC-529): ONE surveyed farm in the whole Uniondale division by 1802, eight in 1819, the quitrent conversion in 1832. THE TWO OLIFANTS WERE SEVENTY YEARS APART. The Boland one was long-settled country by the 1790s; the southern one was still frontier when this family was on it. | WHAT THAT DOES TO FRANS'S TULBAGH-CITRUSDAL SEQUENCE: it does not decide it, but it sharpens what each reading claims. On his reading the family sat in seventy-year-old country in the 1790s and then moved to frontier - the ordinary trekboer direction, and unremarkable. On the other they were frontier people throughout. Both are coherent; the 1790s roll still decides. | *** 2. A SECOND ARCHIVAL SERIES THIS PROJECT DID NOT KNOW ABOUT: THE LOAN FARM LEDGERS. *** Her notes cite 'CA: 1/STB 11/19' and 'CA: 1/STB 11/18' as LFL - ledgers of the RECOGNITIE PAYMENTS on loan places, by holder, by farm, by date, e.g. payments for 'Kogelfontein, OVER DE OLIFANTS RIVIER' in 1787 and 1792, and for 'Holle Rivier, IN DE HANTAM' in 1795 and 1798. That is a DIFFERENT series from the RLR register and it names the man who paid. LEAD-0220 has been asking for the RLR alone. 1/STB is STELLENBOSCH, so the southern Olifants equivalents would sit under SWELLENDAM and then GEORGE - which is the request to make. | AND THE CLERKS' FORMULA IS OURS: 'over de Olifants rivier', 'in de Hantam' - the same construction as 'de Modder Fonteyn gelegen aan d'Olifants rivier'. The reading conventions this project has been applying are confirmed from outside. | *** 3. THE RECORD THAT FILLS THE GAP LESSONS-FROM-BELONGINGS.md NAMED, AND IT EXISTS: CA: 1/STB 16/139, THE HOTTENTOT REGISTER OF 1812. *** It lists, farm by farm, the men, women and children living on settler farms, with birthplaces, and Mitchell reads mobility out of it - Mietje born in the HANTAM who bore her daughter Anna near the OLIFANTS RIVER, then living in the Moddergat; Jacob Rens, also of the Olifants River, on a van der Merwe farm at Franschhoek with his wife Caatje Dikkop. Her note 44 lists those recorded as originally from the Olifants River area: Anna, Jacob Rens, Titus Valentijn, Lijs, and ELSJE ABRAHAMSE. | *** ABRAHAMSE IS A SURNAME THIS PROJECT ALREADY HOLDS. *** Sara Magdalena Abrahamse is PER-001388 and LEAD-0065, and 6 names her as the case that earns a person row because a story needs somebody to be about. NOT AN IDENTIFICATION - one is an Elsje in 1812 and ours is a Sara Magdalena, the surname is not rare, and nothing links them but the name. Recorded because it is the first time this project's own Khoi-descended line and the Olifants River have met in a document. | *** AND THE NEGATIVE, WHICH *** The only Modder- name in four chapters is the MODDERGAT, a farm where a labourer lived. Mitchell is not listing every farm in the Cedarberg, so this is weak - but it is one more place a Boland Modderfontein could have shown up and did not.

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.

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