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The Life and Times of Cupido Kakkerlak

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

V. C. Malherbe
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Extract

Cupido Kakkerlak's story provides a concrete example of Khoi experience under the impact of colonization at the beginning of the nineteenth century. During his first forty years or so he lived on Boer farms, learned a sawyer's skills, accumulated a little property and reared a family. In 1800, probably as a result of frontier disturbances at the time, he went to the village of Graaff-Reinet. There, in 1801, he met missionaries of the London Missionary Society and was converted. Casting his lot with the mission, he moved with his family to Algoa Bay and was based at Bethelsdorp until 1815. During this period he practised his trade as a sawyer at the same time as he gained prominence in mission work. In 1813 he served as John Campbell's ‘travelling director’ during a trip to the interior that lasted almost nine months. Campbell's proposals – that a number of new stations be established – made heavy demands on mission personnel and other resources. Six ‘native assistants’ were appointed, one of whom was Cupido. In 1817, after a short sojourn among the Griqua, he undertook a mission to the still nomadic Kora near the Harts River. Six years later, when difficulties both in and outside the mission society had multiplied, his services were abruptly terminated. He was then over sixty years of age. For frontier Khoi, hopeful of a new dispensation in the wake of the 1799–1802 war, the L.M.S. missionaries had provided an undreamt-of opportunity. In the interaction between missionary and Khoi, in the first stages of the mission project, Cupido played a leading part.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 1979 , pp. 365 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 Barrow, John, Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa (London, 1806), i, 94.Google Scholar

2 Elphick, Richard, Kraal and Castle (New Haven and London, 1977).Google Scholar

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4 See Cape Archives [CA hereafter], C.J. 3387, Case KK, pp. 453–5, for statements regarding his early life.

5 Campbell, John, Travels in South Africa…A Second Journey (London, 1822), II, 24.Google Scholar

6 ‘Cupido’ seems preferable to ‘Kakkerlak’ as a designation since in later years he was called ‘Brother Cupido’ by the missionaries.

7 CA, G.R. 15/43, Contracts, 1799–1800.

8 Ibid. At the turn of the century Rds. I was equivalent to about 4S.

9 CA, J. 395. Cupido Kakkerlak heads the list of Bethelsdorp residents, compiled in 1809 at the request of Col. Collins, which shows, among other things, some of the trades practised.

10 ‘Papers relative to the condition and treatment of the native inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope’, Imperial Blue Books, C.O. L (1835), 161–2.

11 CA, J. 27, no. 530. (Trans.: ‘for seed corn and barley and the right to sow’.)

12 For a discussion of this question see Malherbe, V. C., ‘Diversification and mobility of Khoikhoi labour in the eastern districts of the Cape Colony prior to the Labour Law of 1 November 1809’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Cape Town, 1978), 85–97.Google Scholar

13 CA, ZL 1/3/2, box 2, folder 4, jacket E. Annual Report for 1804, Bethelsdorp.

14 Transactions of the (London) Missionary Society, 1 (1795–1802), 480. Dr van der Kemp had been among the first group of L.M.S. missionaries who arrived at the Cape in 1799.

15 CA, ZL 1/3/2, box 2, folder 4, jacket E, Annual Report for 1804, Bethelsdorp.

16 Vigilant appears along with Cupido on a return of Khoi having taxable property, CA, J. 116 (c. 1798) and on the hire contract registers cited above, G.R. 15/43 and J.27.

17 Two more children were subsequently baptised: Anna in 1803 and Tryntje in 1804, CA, Private Accessions 559, Baptismal Register, Bethelsdorp.

18 Anna Vigilant was San, according to CA, J. 395, Bethelsdorp List of 1809. This is not surprising since Cupido lived for the most part in areas bordering ‘Bushmanland’, from where farm and domestic workers were regularly recruited.

19 CA, ZL 1/3/2, box 2, folder 4, jacket E, Annual Report for 1804, Bethelsdorp.

20 Ibid.

21 Reports of the (London) Missionary Society, from its Formation in the Year 1795, to 1814, inclusive, 205.Google Scholar

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27 Campbell, John, Travels in South Africa (Cape Town, 1974), 89Google Scholar. Campbell states that the owners of oxen had milk cows as well, which he did not count. Prior to the Third Frontier War, Cupido had possessed four horses, sixteen cattle and fifteen sheep: CA, J. 116 (c. 1798).

28 In 1804 the district of Uitenhage was carved from the district of Graaff-Reinet, with a small addition from Swellendam. In 1806, after the British resumed control at the Cape, J. G. Cuyler was appointed landdrost.

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31 CA, C.O. 4443, Case TTTT. This complaint was investigated: CA, C.O. 2592, Uitenhage (1814).

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42 William John Burchell, who was at the Cape from the end of 1810 until August 1815.

43 William Anderson of the L.M.S. had established a station among a group of Bastards, later known as Griquas, at this point two days’ journey north of the Orange River.

44 Successive localities to which this name was given are referred to by Schapera, I. (ed.), Apprenticeship at Kuruman, being the Journals of Robert and Mary Moffat, 1820–28 (London, 1951), 76Google Scholar, fn. 5.

45 The Batlhaping, southernmost division of the Batswana.

46 Situated east of Dithakong. The ‘Corannas’, or Kora, were descendants of a division of Cape Khoi, called Gorachouqua, who had migrated to the interior.

47 Called also Malala, Malalareen, Hart Beest, etc.

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51 Ibid.

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55 Lambert Janz, who first joined Anderson in 1805.

56 CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 6, folder 1, jacket B, Read, 9 Apr. 1815.

57 The intervening period was spent at the L.M.S. mission to the San at Tooverberg.

58 CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 6, folder 3, jacket C, Anderson, 19 Apr. 1816.

59 Ibid., Cupido, 29 May 1816.

60 CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 6, folder 4, jacket C, Hooper, 12 Nov. 1816. This is evidently Read's letter which Hooper copied out.

61 CA, Private Accessions 559, Baptismal Register, Bethelsdorp.

62 A party of missionaries sent for the purpose had twice failed to gain permission from the chief to settle at Dithakong.

63 CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 6, folder 4, jacket C, Hooper (i.e. Read), 12 Nov. 1816.

64 CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 7, folder 2, jacket A, Read, 20 May 1817.

65 Ibid., Read, 23 May 1817.

66 See CA, ZL 1/3/7, box 7, folder 3, jacket C, Read, 31 Dec. 1817, and box 8, folder 1, jacket A, New Lattakoo, accounts for 1818.

67 CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 7, folder 2, jacket D, Read, 5 Sept 1817.

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70 Dr. John Philip, who remained to become Superintendent of L.M.S. missions at the Cape, came with him. They arrived on 26 February 1819.

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77 CA, ZL 1/3/8, box 9, folder 1, jacket A, Moffat, 24 Jan. 1823.

78 John Melvill was successively government surveyor, government agent at Griquatown, and L.M.S. missionary. Stephen Kay and his wife were Wesleyan missionaries who arrived at the Cape in 1820. Melvill also gave an unfavourable report: see Cordeur, Basil le and Saunders, Christopher (eds.), The Kitchingman Papers (Johannesburg, 1976), 78.Google Scholar

79 Schapera, (ed.), Apprenticeship at Kuruman, 18Google Scholar, Moffat's Journal, 24 May 1821. For a somewhat different version of this visit see CA, ZL 1/7/2, Journal of Robert Moffat, 1821. The reference to ‘Campbell's directions’ probably means his advice to Cupido that ‘a good place for settling down upon’, i.e. better suited for agriculture, be found. It appears that this move, compliant with Campbell's advice, was never popular with the Kora – hence their desertion.

80 Twenty miles or so east of Dithakong, and apparently yet another site from that occupied after Campbell's visit.

81 Schapera, (ed.), Apprenticeship at Kuruman, 79Google Scholar, Moffat's, Journal, 17 May 1823.Google Scholar

82 The Matlhwaring (called ‘Maquareen’ by Thompson) is a tribuatary of the Kuruman River and the party was evidently outspanned some 20 miles N.E. of Kuruman.

83 A term used indiscriminately to refer to various Sotho put to flight as a result of the farflung activities of the Nguni.

84 See, for example, Tabler, Edward C., ‘Addenda and corrigenda to pioneers of Rhodesia’, Africana Notes and News, xvii, no.8 (December 1967), 358–60.Google Scholar

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86 Situation of Kakkerlak's Vlei described by Dawid Speelman, Bethelsdorp, 26 June 1978.

87 Campbell referred to ‘our Hottentot missionary Cupido’ (‘Diary’, iii, 58).

88 Reports of the (London) Missionary Society…(1821–1825), 119, 176 (Reports for 1822).

89 See fn. 27 above.

90 Dictionary of South African Biography, 111, 127.Google Scholar

91 The Moravian Latrobe was one who did object to certain practices (Latrobe, C. I., Journal of a Visit to South Africa in 1815 and 1816 (Cape Town, 1969), 143–4).Google Scholar

92 Moffat, Robert, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (London, 1842), 496.Google Scholar

93 CA, ZL 1/7/2, Journal of Robert Moffat, 24 May 1821. Contrast with Moffat's views the opinion of, say, the missionary Evans who described Cupido and another Khoi evangelist, Kruisman, as ‘both excellent characters and well versed in the rudimental principles of Christianity’, CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 6, folder 2, jacket D, Evans, 21 Dec. 1815.

94 Saunders, Christopher, ‘James Read: Towards a Reassessment’, Collected Seminar Papers on the Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London), vii (1975–1976), 23.Google Scholar

95 For a discussion of considerations on this subject in another mission field, see, for example, Ajayi, , Christian Missions in Nigeria, 147–52, 175–80.Google Scholar

96 Transactions, III, 150, van der Kemp to L.M.S. Directors, 31 Jan. 1807.

97 As early as 1802 or so, a decision was taken by the South African Missionary Society to establish a seminary to instruct converts as missionaries to the interior, Transactions, ii (1803–1806), General Account of South African Missions. However, apparently nothing came of this.

98 In 1814 it had been agreed that if European missionaries were not available the Kora and San should receive ‘native missionaries’ since those fields were then ‘ripe’, CA, ZL 1/3/5, box 5, folder 2, jacket F, Minutes of the Graaff-Reinet Conference.

99 Schapera, (ed.), Apprenticeship at Kuruman, 68Google Scholar, Moffat to his brother, Jan. 1823.

100 CA, ZL 1/3/4, box 4, folder 4, jacket A, Read, 7 Jan. 1811.

101 CA, ZL 1/3/6, box 7, folder 2, jacket A, Read, 20 May 1817, jacket B, 12 June 1817.

102 Cordeur, Le & Saunders, (eds.), The Kitchingman Papers, 79Google Scholar, fn. 84.

103 Campbell, , ‘Diary’ III, 63.Google Scholar

104 Ibid. 110. Also, Campbell, , Travels (1822), ii, 140–1.Google Scholar

105 CA, ZL 1/7/2, Journal of Robert Hamilton, 1820 (see 1 Oct., 27 Nov., 19 Dec.).

106 Moffat's reaction was plainly coloured by the fact that Kay, representative of a rival society, was present: ‘We cannot but blush to acknowledge him to a stranger to be a regular recipient of the Society's mony [?]’ CA, ZL 1/7/2, Moffat's Journal, 24 May 1821. This version of the journal has additional comments not found in the journal at the National Archives of Rhodesia used by Schapera.

107 See fn. 106.

108 Schapera, (ed.), Apprenticeship at Kuruman, 79Google Scholar (Moffat's, Journal, 17 May 1823).Google Scholar