Runaway lover paid the price

ONE NIGHT in August 1788 David Malan, 37, a well-to-do farmer, fishing-boat owner and militia officer, secretly left his fine estate Vergelegen (near modern Somerset West), armed with a gun, powder and lead.

He rode to the house of the toll-keeper at Hottentots Holland Kloof, where his slave lover, Zara, was expecting him. Malan, an educated man who had been warned to change his behaviour, deserted his wife and left his family to deal with the unpleasant consequences of his infatuation.

Zara, the slave of Jurgen Radijn, had been his mistress for some time and had borne him a child. She had been loaned to the toll-keeper Jan de Vos to keep her away from Malan, who was known to visit her in her owner’s dwelling at night.

His passion emboldened Zara to abandon her child and abscond with him into the interior, riding his second horse.

His humiliated wife, Elizabeth, raised the alarm but the Stellenbosch authorities could do little to stop them.

The pair were observed at Riviersonderend on the 14 August, crossed the Breede River by boat next day and were later seen in the Hex River Valley, but they aroused no particular suspicion. They were apparently heading for a farm Malan leased in the fluid eastern-frontier area.

Elizabeth, her parents and in-laws were thrown into turmoil. The couple’s possessions had been advertised for voluntary auction on August 18 in preparation for a marital separation, but the sale had to be postponed because Malan vanished without leaving any instructions. Eventually, on November 5, 1788, the runaways reached the Fish River and Malan signed a document giving Elizabeth permission to sell their joint assets to settle pressing debts.

Writs of summons were issued four times, but Malan remained a fugitive and was deemed to have confessed his guilt.

In March 1789, the Council of Justice sentenced him in absentia for four crimes: quitting the militia, desertion, abduction of a slave and adultery.

He lost his officer’s rank in the Stellenbosch burgher cavalry and was banished from the colony.

Malan had made his bed, but he didn’t lie in it for long. He appears to have soon regretted his hasty departure and in late 1790, he quietly made his way to the Swartland, where Elizabeth was living.

She took him back and bore him three more children as they began to move eastwards.

They were in Swellendam when the British took the Cape in 1795 and moved on to Buffelshoek (near modern Cradock), where rumours of his former indiscretions were not held against him.

Malan continued to court trouble until his death in 1824, but his turbulent life is on record.

Sadly, we know nothing about the fate of Zara, the slave who inspired his obsession.