Brave slaves reveal owner’s domestic scandal The way we were

IN THE days when personal honour was a prized possession, Cape slaves were well aware of their owners’ shortcomings and gossiped about them when they could speak freely. In a few cases, they bravely reported domestic scandals which were later brought to court.

This happened when four slaves belonging to the farmer Coenraad Appel absconded and walked to the Stellenbosch drostdy to complain about his lax morals.

The story began in May 1755 – the month when smallpox began to ravage the Cape. Appel, a young bachelor apparently in his late teens (he was baptised in September 1737), married Johanna (or Anna) Elsie Mijburgh (21), mother of an illegitimate infant. Having come to church to be married, Anna took the opportunity of having her daughter Elsie Anna baptised, naming her new husband as the child’s father, although she was already pregnant by another man when she agreed to marry him.

Appel must have known that Elsie wasn’t his child as she was born some time before the marriage.

The couple procreated nine more children during the next 20 years, but marital happiness eluded them. Anna didn’t remonstrate when Appel beat young Elsie, but patiently endured it without any protest. Elsie, meanwhile, treated her mother harshly and disrespectfully, even in Appel’s presence, and he always let this pass in silence, much to his wife’s grief.

The house slaves noticed the tensions and watched the family closely.

Things came to a head towards the end of 1774 when Anna and Elsie had an argument in the kitchen and the slave Filida of the Cape reproached Elsie for treating her mother like a dog, adding:

(“For shame! That you dare to do such ungodly things with your father!)

To Anna’s astonishment, Elsie replied: “How could I help it?”

Filida continued: “If you had been a virtuous daughter, you would not have done such a thing, but would immediately have warned your mother of it.”

Although shocked by this frank exchange, Anna could not believe her husband had violated her daughter and waited until she could speak to Elsie alone behind the house.

Elsie denied Filida’s accusation, saying the slave had invented it and would have to make amends for it.

However, Anna raised the subject again a few days later when she and Elsie were out walking and Elsie confessed to the connection without claiming that she had been forced to comply.

Her husband, meanwhile, took his anger out on Filida, beating her over the head with a stick and calling her a schemer. Filida was made of stern stuff, however, and retorted: “There are still lords to whom I can go and complain, and I will incite the (male slaves) to it.”

More next week.