Jacob Glen Cuyler (1773-April 14, 1854) was an American of Dutch origin who was an important character in the settlement of the British 1820 Settlers to the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
Jacob Glen Cuyler was born in 1773 to Abraham Cuyler, the son of Cornelius Cuyler and Catalynyje Schuyler, and Jannetje Glen (the sister of Henry Glen) in Albany, New York, USA.[1]
Jacob's father was the last British-appointed mayor of Albany. Abraham Cuyler remained loyal to the crown, but was banished from New York by the revolutionaries, and lost all of his substantial land holdings in Albany.[1]
At the start of the American War of Independence, Jacob Glen Cuyler's father was incarcerated and the family went from exile in New York City to Canada where Abraham Cuyler died in 1810. In 1789, Jacob was among several family members compensated for their American losses by the British with land in Canada. Abraham Cuyler was able to purchase commissions as officiers for his sons in the British army in 1799.[1]
Arrival in South Africa
In 1806, Jacob Glen Cuyler was a captain in the 59th Regiment of Foot when it sailed from England to South Africa.[1]
In October 1808 he married a South African, Maria Elizabeth Hartman, they had two daughters and three sons; none of the sons had issue.[citation needed] His granddaughter was the botanist and botanical illustrator Maria Elizabeth Holland.
He settled on a large farm and was one of the founders of Uitenhage, a town in the East Cape district of Albany. The farm is now Cuyler Manor historic museum.[2]
According to a newspaper obituary, "General Jacob Glen Cuyler died at his residence, Cuyler Manor, near Uitenhage, on Friday, the 14th April [1854]."[3]
1820 Settlers
Cuyler together with Lord Charles Somerset persuaded the British Parliament to vote funds to finance the settlement of parties of British settlers in order to strengthen the frontier. In 1820 numbers of English and Scots arrived. The Scots were settled in the Baviaans River Mountains, on land confiscated from the Slagtersnek rebels while the English were settled in the Albany district to the south.[citation needed]
In 1815, a farmer from the eastern border of the Cape Colony, Frederik Bezuidenhout, was summoned to appear before a magistrate's court after repeated allegations of his mistreating one of his Khoi labourers. Bezuidenhout resisted arrest and fled to a cave near his home where he defended himself against the soldiers sent to capture him. When he refused to surrender he was shot dead by one of the soldiers.
Bezuidenhout's brother, Hans, swore revenge. Together with a neighbour Hendrik Prinsloo, Hans Bezuidenhout organised an uprising against the British colonial power, believed by them to be hostile towards the Afrikaner farmers. On 18 November 1815, a commando of rebels met an armed force led by Jacob Glen Cuyler at Slachter's Nek.[lower-alpha 1] Negotiations failed but 20 rebels surrendered, followed by several more over the following days. However, some of the leaders, among whom was Hans Bezuidenhout, refused to turn themselves over to Cuyler. On 29 November 1815, they were attacked by colonial troops. Everybody but Bezuidenhout surrendered and, like his brother, Hans died while resisting arrest.
The rebels were finally charged at Uitenhage. Some were cleared, others imprisoned or banished, six were sentenced to death but one of these was pardoned by the Governor, Lord Charles Somerset. On 9 March 1816 the remaining five were hanged in public at Van Aardtspos. Four of the nooses broke during the execution due to old ropes being used. The four whose ropes broke, as well as the public, pleaded for their lives but Cuyler ordered that they be hanged a second time and they were hanged one by one. The names of the five who were hanged were Hendrik Prinsloo, Stephanus Bothma, Abraham Bothma, Cornelius Faber and Theunis de Klerk.[4][5]
The hanging of these five caused deep resentment towards the British by the Boers.[citation needed]
Commemoration
Toposcope, BathurstBathurst toposcope plaque
The village of Cuylerville was established by British settlers in 1820. They named it in honour of Cuyler, then military commander at Fort Frederick, in recognition of the assistance he rendered them.[6]
A toposcope and commemorative cairn in Bathurst mark the spot where Cuyler made his camp while supervising the placing of the 1820 Settlers on their locations.[lower-alpha 3] While camped here at the same time Sir Rufane Donkin chose the site for the administrative centre to be named Bathurst. The beacon was erected by Captain W. Bailey as an observing station during his survey of the eastern districts, 1855-1859.[7][8]
↑ "The Toposcope". Bathurst Country Affair. 2014. Archived from the original on 13 August 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
Related Research Articles
Cuyler is a surname that has several origins, such as Dutch for "victory of the people" or Gaelic for "chapel". Kyler is an alternate spelling.
Uitenhage, officially renamed Kariega, is a South African town in the Eastern Cape Province. It is well known for the Volkswagen factory located there, which is the biggest car factory on the African continent. Along with the city of Port Elizabeth and the small town of Despatch, it forms the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.
William Guybon Atherstone (1814–1898) was a medical practitioner, naturalist and geologist, one of the pioneers of South African geology and a member of the Cape Parliament.
Albany, South Africa was a district in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Grahamstown was traditionally the administrative capital, cultural centre and largest town of the Albany district.
The 1820 Settlers were several groups of British colonists from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, settled by the government of the United Kingdom and the Cape Colony authorities in the Eastern Cape of South Africa in 1820.
Bathurst is about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) inland from Port Alfred, on the R67 road, in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, and is named after Henry Bathurst, 3rd Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for the Colonies by Sir Rufane Donkin. Its chief claim to fame is that it was the early administrative centre established by the British Government for the 1820 British Settlers who were sent to the district as a buffer between the Cape Colony and the Xhosa pastoralists who were migrating southwards and westwards along the coast. Bathurst is now part of the Ndlambe Local Municipality in the Sarah Baartman District Municipality of the Eastern Cape.
Henry Glen was a merchant, military officer and politician who served as a Federalist in the United States House of Representatives during the years immediately following the adoption of the United States Constitution.
The following lists events that happened during 1816 in South Africa.
The South African College was an educational institution in Cape Town, South Africa, which developed into the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the South African College Schools (SACS).
Colonel John Graham was a British soldier and administrator best known for founding the settlement of Grahamstown in the Cape Colony in 1812. Grahamstown went on to become a military, administrative, judicial and educational centre for its surrounding region.
Cookhouse is a small village located in Eastern Cape province, South Africa, some 170 kilometres (110 mi) north of Port Elizabeth and 24 kilometres (15 mi) east of Somerset East, on the west bank of the Great Fish River.
Cornelis Frederik Bezuidenhout was a frontier farmer in the eastern Cape Colony whose death in a skirmish with Hottentot soldiers, who had been sent to arrest him, was the origin of the Slagtersnek Rebellion which reached its dramatic finale on 9 March 1816 under the gallows at Van Aardspos, twelve miles south of Slagtersnek.
The Slachter's Nek Rebellion was an uprising by Boers in 1815 on the eastern border of the Cape Colony.
The Cuyler Baronetcy, of St John's Lodge in Welwyn in the County of Hertford, was a title in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 29 October 1814 for General Cornelius Cuyler. The title became extinct on the death of the fifth Baronet in 1947.
Robert Godlonton (1794–1884) was an influential politician of the Cape Colony. He was an 1820 Settler, who developed the press of the Eastern Cape and led the Eastern Cape separatist movement as a representative in the Cape's Legislative Council.
John Burnet Biddulph was a Cape Colony explorer and trader who arrived with the 1820 Settlers.
George Henry Ford aka G. H. Ford, was a South African natural history illustrator who joined the British Museum in 1837. He portrayed animals and produced the plates in Sir Andrew Smith's Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa.
Cuylerville is a village in South Africa, located halfway between Bathurst and the Great Fish River. It was the first village established by the 1820 settlers, and was named after Colonel Jacob Glen Cuyler, the military commander at Fort Frederick.
Abraham Cornelius Cuyler was a businessman and the last mayor of colonial Albany, New York, the third generation in a row to serve in that office.
Cornelis Cuyler or Cornelius Cuyler was a prominent American of Dutch ancestry who served as the Mayor of Albany, New York, from 1742 to 1746.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
