Doman | |
---|---|
Nommoa | |
Died | |
Occupation(s) | Interpreter and leader of the Khoikhoi in the First Khoikhoi-Dutch War |
Doman (died 12 December 1663) was a Khoikhoi tribesman and interpreter with the Dutch settlers at the Cape of Good Hope. He was one of the first interpreters employed by the Dutch East India Company at their settlement on the Cape. After being taken to Java in 1657, he witnessed the company's subjugation of the native people there and turned against the Dutch. Shortly after his return to Africa, he led his people in the First Khoikhoi-Dutch War of 1659–1660. They were unable to storm the company's fort, and Doman was wounded, after which the war ended and Doman returned to Dutch employment.
Doman's Khoikhoi name was Nommoa but he is more commonly known by the name the Dutch gave him. [1] Doman's Dutch name may be derived from the Afrikaans "dominee" meaning 'parson', but it might also be derived from the Khoikhoi (!Kora) word "domma" meaning 'voice' in the Khoekhoegowab language. [2] He was one of two interpreters employed by the Dutch at the suggestion of their first interpreter, a Khoikhoi chief Autshumato, to act for the Dutch whilst Autshumato was absent from the settlement (the other was Khaik Ana Ma Koukoa, known as Krotoa or Claes Das to the Dutch). Jan van Riebeeck's diarist noted that Doman "seems to be well-disposed towards us" and "is serving the Hon. Company better than anybody else - up to the present at any rate". Rijckloff van Goens, advising van Riebeeck on defence matters, took Doman to Java in the Dutch East Indies in April 1657 where he witnessed how the local people had been forced to submit to Dutch rule. [1] [3] The trip was intended to teach Doman the commercial business of the company but is thought to have caused Doman to understand the threat the Dutch posed to the Khoikhoi way of life and caused him to turn against them. [1] [4] During the trip he witnessed the resistance attempted by the Bantamese against the Dutch in north Java. [1]
In order to hasten his return to Africa Doman told the Dutch he intended to convert to Christianity and no longer wanted to live among his people. [5] When he returned, Doman clashed frequently with Krotoa, who he claimed had tried to curry favour with the Dutch and betray her people. [3] Doman was the only voice to speak out when van Riebeeck took several Khoikhoi leaders hostage in 1658. [5]
When Autshumato was banished, Krotoa assumed responsibility for the Dutch trade with the local people. When he tried to intervene with a cattle negotiation with the Cochoqua people in May 1659, Doman was publicly beaten. [6] Later that year Doman was blamed by van Riebeeck for the theft of company cattle and the murder of a Dutchman and theft of his firearm. [5]
Doman sided with his people in the First Khoikhoi-Dutch War of 1659–1660, urging them to eject the Dutch from the Cape. He offered advice on how to exploit Dutch military weaknesses and led attacks on rainy days when the Dutch gunpowder would be affected. [6] Doman and his guerillas stole many sheep and cattle and burnt crops and homesteads. [7] Though they overran most of the outlying settlements and farms they lacked the means to storm the Dutch fort at the Cape. [4]
Doman was wounded by a musketball on 19 July 1659, being paralysed in one arm. This was one of the reasons for the ending of the war. [6] He was allowed to return to the Dutch following peace negotiations in April and May 1660 and resumed his work for them as an interpreter. [6] [7] He died on 12 December 1663, the Dutch governor Zacharias Wagenaer recorded that "none of us will have cause to grieve, as he has been, in many respects, a mischievous and malicious man towards the company". [8] [6]
In 2019 the South African National Defence Force's reserve unit 30 Field Workshop was renamed the Doman Field Workshop in his honour. [9]
BoersBOORZ; Afrikaans: Boere are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled Dutch Cape Colony, but the United Kingdom incorporated it into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from Trekboer then later "boer", which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
The Cape Colony, also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, then became the Cape Province, which existed even after 1961, when South Africa had become a republic, albeit, temporarily outside the Commonwealth of Nations (1961–94).
The written history of the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa began when Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias became the first modern European to round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed along the whole coast of South Africa on his way to India, landed at St Helena Bay for 8 days, and made a detailed description of the area. The Portuguese, attracted by the riches of Asia, made no permanent settlement at the Cape Colony. However, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) settled the area as a location where vessels could restock water and provisions.
Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck was a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company.
Maria van Riebeeck was a French Huguenot who was the first wife of Jan van Riebeeck, the Dutch colonial administrator and first commander of the settlement at the Cape.
Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape on 6 April 1652, setting up a supply station and fortifications for the Dutch East India Company. The decade saw the beginning of European settlement, marked by the introduction of crops from Europe and the New World and culminating in war with the Khoikhoi in 1659.
The following lists events that happened during the 1660s in South Africa.
The area known today as Cape Town has no written history before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. The German anthropologist Theophilus Hahn recorded that the original name of the area was '||Hui !Gais' – a toponym in the indigenous Khoi language meaning "where clouds gather."
Georg Friedrich Wreede or Georgius Fredericius Wreede was governor of Dutch Mauritius from 1665 to 1672, with a break between 1668-1669.
Autshumato was a chief of the Khoikhoi Gorinhaikonas who worked as an interpreter for the Europeans in present-day, Cape Town, South Africa prior and during the establishment of the Dutch settlement on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.
The "!Oroǀõas" ("Ward-girl"), spelled in Dutch as Krotoa or Kroket, otherwise known by her Christian name Eva, was a !Uriǁ'aeǀona translator who worked for the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) during the founding of the Cape Colony.
The Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars refers to a series of armed conflicts that took place in the latter half of the 17th century in what was then known as the Cape of Good Hope, in the area of present-day Cape Town, South Africa, fought primarily between Dutch colonisers, who came mostly from the Dutch Republic and the local African people, the indigenous Khoikhoi.
Although the Portuguese basked in the nautical achievement of successfully navigating the cape, they showed little interest in colonization. The area's fierce weather and rocky shoreline posed a threat to their ships, and many of their attempts to trade with the local Khoikhoi ended in conflict. The Portuguese found the Mozambican coast more attractive, with appealing bays to use as waystations, prawns, and links to gold ore in the interior.
Zacharias Wagenaer was a German-born Dutch clerk, illustrator, merchant, member of the Court of Justice, opperhoofd of Deshima and the only German governor of the Dutch Cape Colony. In 35 years he traveled over four continents.
Protestantism in South Africa accounted for 73.2% of the population in 2010. Approximately 81% of South Africans are Christian and 5 out of 6 Christians are Protestant. Later censuses do not ask for citizens’ religious affiliations. Estimates in 2017 suggested that 62.5% of the population are Protestant.
Max du Preez is a South African author, columnist and documentary filmmaker and was the founding editor of Vrye Weekblad. Vrye Weekblad Online or Vrye Weekblad II was launched on 5 April 2019 again with Max du Preez as editor.
The Strandlopers are a Khoikhoi-derived people who live by hunting and gathering food along the beaches of south-western Africa, originally from the Cape Colony to the Skeleton Coast.
The Dutch Cape Colony was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) colony in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original colony and the successive states that the colony was incorporated into occupied much of modern South Africa. Between 1652 and 1691, it was a Commandment, and between 1691 and 1795, a Governorate of the VOC. Jan van Riebeeck established the colony as a re-supply and layover port for vessels of the VOC trading with Asia. The Cape came under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and from 1803 to 1806 was ruled by the Batavian Republic. Much to the dismay of the shareholders of the VOC, who focused primarily on making profits from the Asian trade, the colony rapidly expanded into a settler colony in the years after its founding.
Piekenierskloof Pass is a mountain pass that is part of the N7 national road, running south of Citrusdal in the mountains west of the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa.