Revealing an untold slice of history
Friday, 18 November 2011 00:00
As most of us know, just about all the coffee table books on wine focus on the beauty of the winelands, with pictures displaying emerald green vineyards, plump grapes glistening with dew and artistic shots of large balloon glasses filled with luscious red wines. The text may be informative, but little attention is dedicated to the backbone of the wine industry – the farmworkers.
But like so many other profitable industries, the vinous history of our land has been built on the blood, sweat and tears of generations of labourers – and all over the Western Cape, the knock-on effect of exploitation is still being felt (“Emotions run high over labour report” Bolander, August 31). Grape is a long overdue tome that reveals extensive facts on the social history of the farmworkers in the table grape and wine industry. It will, and has already, caused considerable discomfort to many making their money out of these industries.
Wilmot James apparently came across the idea when he found a book on the history of the potato, which tells the story of the Irish and their emigration to America. This was coupled with the idea, as pointed out in the introduction, of charting a history of “the people of the vine … about the people who came to be known as the coloured people”.
Any history about the “coloured” people has to start off with story of slaves in the Cape. At around the same time as the first wine was pressed in 1659 there were al-ready more imported slaves than soldiers, company officials and burghers, and until they gained their freedom in 1834, their numbers grew exponentially – in the early 19th century, the owners of wine farms each possessed on average 16 slaves. The word possessed is deliberate because the slaves literally belonged to the farmers, their masters.
The use of Khoisan labour came later, which inevitably led to miscegenation, resulting in the birth of the “coloureds” who are still the cornerstone of labour in the wine-lands.
There is no beating about the bush in this story of the people who created our vinous history: starting from the Khoikhoi and the San who lived at the Cape before the first settlers arrived, to Jan van Riebeeck’s first diary entries regarding the planting of vineyards, it stretches all the way to 2011. Painstakingly researched, it charts a history of deprivation and suffering; of people plucked from their homes, brought to a strange, hostile environment and made to labour long hours for very little benefit. Interestingly however, there are also stories about a remarkable number of slaves who were given (for the time) a unique sense of responsibility and respect– as revealed in the section Daily lives of slaves on a wine farm, is the account of a slave who was the sole cellar master at Constantia from 1759 to 1778, although nothing is known about his identity.
And in a section about Hendrik Cloete Senior, one of the most documented of Constantia farmers who owned a considerable number of slaves, it is recorded that he left one April van de Caab 100 rix-dollars “in return for faithful services” and the choice of freedom at the state’s expense.
Yet at the same time, slaves were tragically treated as commodities and it is stated “they were mobile and moved as needed.” And further on in the section about Hendrik Cloete Senior, “he paid an extra 30 000 rix dollars for ‘moveable goods’.” Slaves were considered goods and often were not even mentioned by name in sales.
There are some stories that many will be familiar with – that of Ansela van de Caab, a slave and Lourens Camphor, a German soldier – a remarkable story – not only of how the pair managed to conduct an affair amidst her incarceration at the Slave Lodge, but also of the vast disparity in their backgrounds, given the social history. Ansela met Lourens while she was working at the Company’s Gardens and Lourens would visit her at the Slave Lodge, taking the long and arduous journey of 64km from Stellenbosch to Cape Town. There was no privacy and all the slaves slept in one large room where “the roof leaked and the wind blew rain”. As pointed out, it may have been against the law for Europeans to have sex with slaves, but it happened nevertheless.
The VOC unsuccessfully prohibited soldiers and sailors from visiting the Slave Lodge, issuing one proclamation after the other to no avail, and remarkably in 1817 the political arm of the VOC, the Council of Policy, was actually forced to recognise that sexual relations between slaves and soldiers were commonplace.
Lourens and Ansela had several children together (regarded, as we are informed, an economic gain to the Company) and when she was freed she moved to join Lourens on Muratie (then on the title deed to De Driesprong in Stellenbosch).
As readers are informed, contrary to opinion, De Driesprong or Muratie was not prosperous and it was a difficult life for the “mixed couple” – although the book quotes researcher Helen Scheffler as saying that Ansela would at the time have been accepted in Stellenbosch society (“intermarriage did not raise eyebrows”). This well-known story is one of many that are fascinating and well-researched, as is the interesting section on Pniel where many descendents of slaves now live.
Moving on to more contemporary times, the ugly issue of alcohol abuse and FAS (Foetal Alcohol Syndrome) is vividly illustrated. Paternalism, yet another of colonialism’s many tragedies, is also well-documented. Stories of personalities there are aplenty, and Elize Beukes near Keimoes is just of the positive stories of a woman rising above hardship, a small-scale farmer, who won the top producer award for export in the 2008 Female Farmer of the Year competition.
Detracting from the book is the fact that it is often rather heavy-handed – some tight editing would not have been amiss. One often feels that the tales of exploitation and hardship are bogged down in fact, even given the seriousness of the subject matter. It is not an easy read so requires persistence, but I suspect that in years to come it will acquire the status of required reading for anyone wanting to know the real story behind our wine industry.
* Grape: From slavery to BEE 1652-2011, by Jeanne Viall, Wilmot James and
Jakes Gerwel, Published by Tafelberg.
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