The Chronicle of Jeremiah Goldswain

1820 Settler

Ralph Goldswain

• Publisher: 30 Degrees South Publishers
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781928211334
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military Biographies
• Index: History

This is the story of the 1820 Settler, Jeremiah Goldswain, in his own words. After thirty-eight years on the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony, he sat down to write his memoirs. It is a close-up view of four decades during a period when the British Empire was expanding in southern Africa, with the borders being pushed ever farther into the hinterland by successive governors. As a result, there was constant conflict between the African tribes and the colonists. Jeremiah was directly involved in three of the nine Frontier Wars that occurred between 1779 and 1879. It is the story of hardship and the struggle for survival of Jeremiah and his family—his wife Eliza and their ten children—on one of the most volatile borders the world has ever seen. Even in peacetime the conflict and violent clash of cultures were constantly present and many settlers were murdered, including members of Jeremiah’s family. Through all this we see a man making his way in a world he could not have imagined while growing up in rural Buckinghamshire. He lived during an important historical time for South Africa, not only observing and fighting the wars, but meeting and serving with some of the most famous names in South African history. He saw, in detail, the effects of the Cattle Killing of 1856, the Boer uprising in the Orange River Sovereignty, as well as several other famous and notorious historical events. The text has been published once only— by the van Riebeeck Society in 1949—and since then has been used by scholars and historians as a primary source. It has not been widely read, because Jeremiah had no education, and although he had an extraordinary ability to describe experience and express his emotions, he was a stranger to the conventions of written language. Now Ralph Goldswain has transcribed the original text into an accessible account of forty years of frontier history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Glossary of Terms
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: 1819–1820
• A life-changing prospect
• Boarding the Zoroaster
• An eight-thousand-mile voyage
• Chapter 2: 1820
• Arriving at the Cape of Good Hope
• Journey’s end
• A new life; problems with party leader, Mr Wait
• Taking Mr Wait to court for non-payment of wages
• Freedom
• Chapter 3: 1820–1827
• A new life begins
• Engaged to Miss Eliza Debenham; losing everything in a fire
• Fortune ebbs and flows
• Marrying Miss Eliza Debenham
• Sworn in as a reservist soldier; Bathurst becomes a ghost town
• Encounters with God
• Chapter 4 : 1827–1835
• Called up to do guard duty for the military; gored by a cow; the lucrative practice of gathering honey; crops are destroyed by locusts
• Guarding the supply wagons while the military engage with trouble between Xhosa factions
• A break-in while visiting relatives; almost killed while chopping wood; the cartage business grows; fetching a party of missionaries from Port Elizabeth and being covered in mud
• Discovering the identity of the murderer
• War breaks out on the frontier and the Xhosas invade the colony; retrieving stolen cattle
• The war brings hardship; out on patrols; Alec Forbes, one of the settlers, is murdered; a poem to commemorate that; the farmers called to Grahamstown with their cattle, for protection
• Chapter 5: 1835–1836
• A contract to carry supplies for the military; assigned to the headquarter division; travelling with Cape Governor Sir Benjamin D’Urban; a lesson in minding one’s own business
• Witnessing some key moments in the history of South Africa; travelling with Sir Benjamin D’Urban and the military commander, Colonel Sir Harry Smith, deep into territory beyond the Cape Colony; D’Urban declares war on Hintsa and proclaims the territory beyond the Kei as British territory; he names it the Province of Queen Adelaide and its principal town King William’s Town; some observations concerning Sir Benjamin and Sir Harry; several close encounters with the enemy
• Taking charge of the wagon train; Jim Jubber is murdered; finding the murderer, who gets his just desserts
• After eleven weeks away, arriving in Grahamstown, and four days’ rest; a very ill daughter
• After more adventures it’s back to the farm; farming is difficult because of constant trouble from the Xhosa neighbours; the family has to be watchful and on guard at all times
• Chapter 6 : 1838–1843
• A hair-raising river crossing
• An adventure with corn thieves
• Policing the boundary of the Empire
• Compulsory burgher duty
• More about burgher duty and some adventures while on patrol
• An encounter with gun runners
• The criminal justice system of the Frontier in action
• Chapter 7: 1843–1846
• The birth and death of the tenth child
• Eliza’s health causes some concern; the family moves to Bathurst; the haystack on the farm is lost to an arsonist
• Hunting down a desperate robber, John Cameron, and bringing him, together with a trio of deserters, to justice
• The murders of Benjamin Palmer and William Brown
• Struck by lightning
• The tribal people become increasingly restless on the border and tensions point towards war
• Chapter 8: 1846
• William’s life is threatened and he has the most narrow of escapes
• The war comes to Bathurst
• Nerves are shredded and everyone is jumpy
• The tribesmen become bolder
• More adventures on patrol
• Going out with the professional troops and being unimpressed by their methods
• William is reported dead
• Chapter 9: 1846–1847
• Becoming a trader
• An old friend and comrade spreads malevolent stories but they prove to be baseless rumours
• Serious injuries from being thrown by a horse
• Suppliers fail in an important commitment; summonsed to court to answer a charge of theft, and another of defamation of character
• Suppliers apologise and pay compensation; a disappointing level of compensation for the loss of cattle during the war
• Charles Goldswain is part of a wagon train that is robbed; the Governor of the Cape of Good Hope pays a visit to Bathurst; making a new friend
• Chapter 10: 1847–1850
• Leaving Bathurst and buying two farms near Grahamstown
• Trouble with hyenas and jackals
• Summonsed to appear in court as a juryman but ending up as a witness
• Grahamstown is buzzing with excitement as the military prepares for action beyond the Orange River
• William sets off with the troops to quell the Boer Rebellion in the Orange River Sovereignty and observes the action at the Battle of Boomplaats at close quarters
• A murder at Burnt Kraal
• Stock theft on the farm is a problem; sunstroke
• All about locusts; more trouble with thieves; indentured servants abscond, but there is a good measure of success in the sheep farming
• More courtcases; more raids on the farm
• A very difficult journey to Cradock and back
• Friends perish when the ship, the British Settler, is wrecked
• Chapter 11: 1850–1851
• The farmers warn the governor that war is imminent and are ignored; war breaks out on Christmas day; the Goldswain family moves to Grahamstown
• Unmasking an errant clergyman who has facilitated the hottentot uprising
• Chapter 12: 1851
• The sheep cause trouble in Grahamstown
• The family moves back to Burnt Kraal; there is danger all around; Benjamin Booth and his friend, Castings, are attacked by hottentots; Booth is seriously wounded and Castings is killed
• The family moves to Grahamstown again but they return to Burnt Kraal very soon after; they are in constant danger and their sheep are constantly stolen; life becomes increasingly difficult and dangerous and the family and friends have several adventures during which they are lucky to escape death
• Chapter 13: 1851–1852
• The death of Charles
• An English servant is fatally wounded by hottentot rebels
• On patrol with the Fingo levies
• Purchasing the Bathurst Inn
• More trouble
• Giving advice to Governor Sir George Cathcart during his visit to Grahamstown
• Defending son-in-law, Samuel McArthur, charged with selling alcohol to a constable while on duty
• Investigating Charles’s murder
• Chapter 14: 1854–1858
• The governor grants the family some farms but the surveyor general is unable to find suitable farms for them and makes the accusation of attempted bribery
• James visits British Kaffraria and observes the effects of the cattle killing
• Daughter Jane records the experience of a woman involved in the cattle killing and the national suicide of the AmaXhosa
• The Memoirs end with an essay on how the standard of life of the natives has improved since the settlers arrived in 1820
• Consulted resources