Muster Roll 1657 - Officers, sailors, and soldiers stationed at the Fort de Goede Hoop, Cape of Good Hope last day of May 1657
Research Portal for Descendants of the Slaves of the Cape Colony 1652 - 1900
Muster Roll 1657 - Officers, sailors, and soldiers stationed at the Fort de Goede Hoop, Cape of Good Hope last day of May 1657
The total number of people at the Cape of Good Hope in May 1657 was 168, including Verburgh who passed away. The breakdown is as follows:-
100 Engaged Company personnel
16 Slaves, enslaved women, and convicts without wages, of whom 4 are in the service of married persons as indicated below.
3 Millers - to remain until the arrival of the maize ships and in the meantime to finsih the horse mill
11 Sick from the ships in the hospital
32 Crew and children with their own slaves and enslaved women
14 Free people
Breakdown of Engaged Company servants, slaves and enslaved women employed :-
2 Commanders with their servants
Sick Comforter
Bookkeeper
Scribes
Butler and cooper
Trumpeter
1 Surveyor
1 Quatermaster and constable
1 Provost Marshal
Guards at the gate
Lookout for the ships
Turner
Nurse (Sick father)
1 Wainwright
1 Ploughmaker
2 Cooks (inside and outside the fort) for the commander and the common people
2 Chief and under barbers
Blacksmiths
1 Sword sweeper who keeps the weapons clean and also helps the blacksmith
5 Masons
10 Garden workers - This cannot be reduced, otherwise, instead of improving, everything would deteriorate again, as the Company's gardens are currently almost 14 "morgen" (a measure of land roughly 0.85 hectares) in size.
2 At the Company's orchard
3 Ploughmen
9 Who roots out shrubs or wilderness from the land, and make it clear, suitable for ploughing and sowing grain
1 Sergeant
3 Corporals as supervisors, also for general work and agriculture
1 Drummer
2 At the redoubt "Duijnhoop)
2 Wildlife shooters
7 Cattle herders to attract the Saldanhers, and so we acquire more livestock, as there may be at least 15 to 20 present
1 Pig and cattle herder
1 Sheep herder
8 With the 3 wood wagons bringing timber and firewood home from the forest
4 Woodcutters in the forest
4 At the seal hunt (robbe jagt)
6 At Robben Island who guard the sheep and at the same time go stone quarrying
1 Chinese convict
1 Palicatte banished and enslaved woman for grinding and household work
Enslaved girls - the Under merchant Verbugh's widow, the sick comforter, and the sergeant, added by the lord van Goens
Young enslaved boy - also added to the sergeant to learn to work in the general works
Dutch National Archive
Translated and transcribed by Lara Seaward
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