HOUDENBEK 200, kroniek van die 1825 tragedie

421pp., maps, illus., paperback, Self Published, Hermanus, 2026

ISBN: 9781049259826

A history of the short-lived revolt by a small group of enslaved workers and indentured Khoe labourers in the Koue Bokkeveld, led by a young slave Galant van der Caab. The rebels, driven by the belief that some farmers were opposing imminent emancipation, planned to eliminate local slave-owning masters, occupy the farms and then march toward Cape Town to free all slaves, or retreat across the Orange River. On 2nd February 1825 they shot and killed Galant's master, farmer Willem Nicolaas van der Merwe, as well as J.H. Janse van Rensburg, a visitor, and J.M. Verlee, a new tutor, on the farm Houdenbek, before fleeing to the mountains. The trial of thirteen of the rebels began at Worcester in March, and Galant and two other leaders of the uprising were hanged.

JH van der Merwe (b. 1952) grew up in the Koue Bokkeveld. Now retired, he is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Stellenbosch University.