The gallows were high and eternity near: Slagtersnek, the "place of slaughter".

The world around me began to lose its years the way you peel the layers off an onion. I was travelling back in time with every kilometre - which now became miles to me as the dust of history settled upon my thinking. And yet, upon the grim mountains across the Great Fish River was a sight that seemed to come from a future sci-fi world. At least ten or more gigantic wind turbines were slowly churning in the eastern wind. When my forebears lived here this was so far from the known world that anything modern would have been unthinkable. But there they stand - majestic in their foreign beauty upon what strangely remains a wild and barren land.

My road to Cookhouse, through "Agter Bruintjieshoogte".

I wasn't sure where I wanted to go to most from here, but somehow the car just took its own direction. Southwards, on the road to Port Elizabeth. Not for long, though, for soon I drew in the reins at a sign the Thomas Pringle monument. After more than 100 years of world economic dominance, the Dutch East India and the might of Holland had slowly begun to sink away into a morass of corruption, perpetual deficit and gross ineptitude. One by one they lost their prize possessions, until one of the fairest of them all - the Cape that was the sea gate of the oceans - also fell from their grasp and into British hands.

In 1820 the British colonial government encouraged settlers from their island nations to resettle in the furthest wilderness of the eastern frontier. Thomas Pringle was a Scottish adventurer, poet, philosopher and passionate anti-slavery activist who numbered among them.

The Scottish party of 1820 settlers led by Thomas Pringle changed wagons, drivers and oxen at Roodewal military camp in this vicinity and after a rest of two days crossed the Great Fish River near here and proceeded on their journey to their settlement in the Baviaans River Valley.

At the point where his small waggon train encamped before crossing the Great Fish River into the wilderness beyond, a small monument stands, mostly unnoticed by passing traffic. This spot still seems surprisingly lonely, even though the road beside it is perpetually busy.

In his journal Thomas Pringle wrote about the same sense of desolation when he observed that they,“saw but few inhabitants of any class, and few wild animals, except antelopes and quaggas in the distance. The features of the country changed alternately from dark jungle to rich park-like scenery, embellished with graceful clumps of evergreens’ and from that again to the desolate sterility of savage mountains, or of parched and desert plains, scattered over with huge ant-hillocks and flocks of springboks.” 

He continues to describe that, “here and there a solitary farm-house appeared near some permanent fountain or willow-margined river; and then again the dreary wilderness would extend for twenty miles or more without a drop of water.” 

Pringle had already been impressed by the sparseness of human habitation along his journey when he scribbled that they “had scarcely seen above a dozen farm-houses during our whole journey; the route we had followed having necessarily led us through one of the wildest and least inhabited tracts of the frontier districts.” He had no idea that once he crossed the river he would be in even wilder country with less people. 

Next to Thomas Pringle's monument, there also lies the grave of Frans Johannes Van Aardt, the original owner of this spot, which later became known as Roodewal, and which is still owned by his descendants to this day. 

"Van Aardt, Frans Johannes 12.09.1777 - 06.06.1856. Patriarg van die "Kookhuis van Aardts" en die eienaar van Roodewal wat hom in 1797 alhier gevestig het. Susanna Wilhelmina 21.04.1780 - 1825. Suster van die Voortrekleier Louis Tregart wat haar oorspronlike "kook huisie" +- 350m Suid-Oos van hier by die drif in die Grootvisrivier opgerig [het]. Waar gij nu ben waar ik voordesen. Waar ik nu ben zult gij haas weesen. Door God's krag en Gods mag word alles weer tot stof gebrag."

My ancestors would have known the Van Aardts well. In fact, the road from Algoa Bay into the interior lead up along the banks of the Great Fish River, and everyone who passed there would have stopped at the Van Aardt homestead where his wife, Susanna, had her kitchen, after which the village of Kookhuis, or Cookhouse, was named. 

The Great Fish River is important in many ways. It carries water from for nearly 700 kilometres. At 83 km, the second-longest covered aqueduct in the world feeds additional water from the Orange River into it, so that rain that falls on the Drakensberg can be drunk aboard a ship in Port Elizabeth. In settler times, however, this used to be the definitive line where civilization ended. And here it was, that white settlers met black tribes for the first time. Until then, all they had ever known had been the brown races of the Bushmen and Hottentots or San and Khoi. Eastwards of the Fish River, the European wanderers began to encounter a dark-skinned nation that was entirely different. And soon they found that however hard they tried, the two groups simply could not get along at all.

I tried to see the world through Thomas Pringle's eyes that morning. I tried to feel what Frans van Aardt must have felt when he chose to settle in this wild, abandoned place. I felt nothing, though. Their thoughts would not come to me. Perhaps it was the proximity of the tar road and the passing cars. Or perhaps it was just that I hadn't spent enough time so that my imagination could be sprinkled with the ancient dust which should be rising from this forgotten place. Yet, strangely, I felt reluctant to leave this spot. It felt as if I had come from far to drink at this small fountain, and having found no water, felt compelled to sit and wait until it rained. 

I drove further, though. Just a few miles down the road where the place of execution waited. This place, I knew, would never fail to ripple the waters of my imagination - and draw a current strong enough to move my heart. I approach it with all the respect that it deserves, this great monument on the road that my people had to travel long before they became a distinct nation. 

At Slagtersnek the breeze always feels cold as it blows in from the distant sea. It still sends shivers down the spine when you stand upon the empty plain and imagine the scene that had taken place there all those years ago. I was standing on my family's footsteps, before a place of execution. They must have been there that day, when the rebels were strung up. I went to stand upon an anthill beside the rusting fence and allowed the colors to fade to the sepia brown of ancient memory. In ones and twos, and then in dozens, old faces whom I had never seen before assembled right beside me. They were also staring at the place where the gallows used to stand - not seeing the granite monument that was erected later. 

It was an autumn morning on Saturday the 9th of March in 1816, five months after the death of my ancestor's neighbour, Freek Bezhuidenhout, had set the entire eastern border aflame. It had been six months of indescribably confusion and worry, but now the rebellion was over. The sun had risen above the drab landscape like a tear-strained eye and slowly thawed the chill of the night of what would be remembered as one of the saddest days in our nation's history. A large crowd of pioneer families were assembled there. Some were there by compulsion of the authorities to witness the execution. Some were there to show support. Others came just to become partakers in history. Each had their own reasons, and some perhaps had none. It made no difference. On the frontier even enemies sometimes needed one-another, and today was such a day. 

The soldiers were assembled, all 300 of them, with the ostrich feathers in their caps fluttering in the morning breeze. They all carried long-barreled flintlock guns with powder flasks. The blue jackets of the Hottentot pandoers and the red jackets of the British infantry, a screaming contrast against the dryness of the plains. Off to one side, landdrost colonel Cuyler and the brave and adventurous young landdrost Stockenström sat on their horses. It was a moment that they both had dreaded, even though they themselves had become part of the mechanics that had led to this assembly. With them was a troop of field cornets. And next to them stood the gallows, comprised of a long beam where five sets of ragged nooses hung above a shallow trench that would later serve as a communal grave.

Landdrost Jacob Cuyler.

In front of the gallows were familiar faces. The men who were forced to witness it all, and who were reminded how lucky they were that they themselves had narrowly escaped having to hang there too. They were Philip Rudolf Botha, Hendrik en Cornelius van der Nest, Frans Johannes van Dyk, Johannes Bronkhorst, Thomas Andries Dreyer, Jacobus Marthinus Klopper, Petrus Klopper, Andries Hendrik Klopper, Pieter Lourens Erasmus and the Prinsloos; Jan Prinsloo, Willem Jacobus Prinsloo, Nicholaas Prinsloo and Joachim Johannes Prinsloo.

One of the 16 men was a 33 year old settler whose eyes turned to his 29 year old wife of 13 years. She was Sara Labuschagne, the sister of my direct ancestor, Leendert. Leendert and his brother Adriaan could count themselves almost just as lucky, for they too had been part of the rebellion. But they were young and Adriaan had lied under oath during the trial. He said that he was 16, while in reality he was 19. They had all lied under oath. I read the court transcripts - all 1,000 pages of it until my eyes were bleeding. They were religious men who believed in truth, but in the shadow of the gallows they all lied to save their hides. And now, here they were. My family, among the lucky ones, had escaped with only a heavy fine. How easily they and their brother-in-law might have swung as well today...

None of them were as lucky, however, as the 40 year old woman who stood as defiantly before the gallows as she had stood beside the body of her dying husband during the closing days of the rebellion. Martha Bezuidenhout. Remember her name, for I shall speak of her again in a future story. She was a rebel and a trouble maker, bu she was also a hero. And when all has been said and told, I still hold that she was the greatest hero of them all, this brave woman of the wilderness. She, who could not even read or write, was the one who stood truest to her beliefs in the darkest hour of danger. And still she remained unmoved. Even here, upon the very precipice of history.

The original beam of the gallows of Slagtersnek, which is now housed in the museum at Somerset East.

Balanced upon a plank beneath the swinging ropes, the five men stood - the flowers of the Eastern Frontier - misguided rebels in their prime. There was Stephanus Bothma, 43 years old but mercifully childless. Next to him was Cornelis Faber of the same age who would be leaving 5 children fatherless. Then Hendrik "Kasteel" Prinsloo, who at the age of 32 would be leaving three children without a daddy, and one of them was handicapped. And finally the youngest, Abraham Carel Bothma, who was at 29 the father of five little ones. The men must have been trembling on that day as they glanced up at the heavens and then shuddered at the hanging ropes. A line snuck into my mind from Johnny Cash's beautiful old country song, The Long Black Veil. I heard him sing, "the gallows was high and eternity near. She stood in the crowd and she shed not a tear." It made me think of Martha Bezuidenhout as she stood there, a widow with two small children and soon about to lose five of her husband's friends. Life was precious on the frontier, because there was so little of it. The frontier could ill afford to lose a single drop of blood, but it had chosen to make a sacrifice regardless of the cost. 

The names of the condemned upon the monument of Slagtersnek.

When the time was checked, the sign was given. It was time. Landdrost Cuyler with his sad, drooping eyes began to speak in his half-American accent: “By order of the Governor and by our sovereign, His Majesty the King, the condemned, H.F. Prinsloo, S.C. Bothma, C.J. Faber, A.C. Bothma and T.C. de Klerk are hereby present to be executed for high treason against His Majesty’s rule, by hanging on the scaffold and their bodies to be buried at the place of execution. God save the King…!”

A shiver went through the crowd. The parson, T.S. Herold, said a prayer. Then Stephanus Bothma indicated that he wanted to say something. 

"Take an example from me," he called out, as he lifted his tied wrists for all to see. 

"See hereby the consequences of foolishness!"

T.S. Herold, the parson who traveled the tremendous journey from George to minister to the condemned of Slagtersnek in their final hour.

No-one said a word. The crowd was led in a hymn. Slow and mournfully, according to the custom of the frontiersmen. A sad song for a sad day. And then the silence settled. The nooses were positioned around the men's necks, leaving each man with his own thoughts. Like silent statues the border pioneers stood frozen as they stared at the scene before while the condemned men kept their eyes upon their loved ones. Upon the plank, Theuns de Klerk must have stared at the little bundle who was his youngest son, and who would grow up without ever knowing a father.

The landdrost nodded and a Hottentot pandoer lifted his bugle to his lips. A tinny sound, and then - swiftly the plank was kicked out from under them. As on the ropes pulled taut, but in that very moment the unexpected happened. With a crunching sound four of the five ropes parted, sending the bundles beneath them hard onto the dusty ground. For the briefest of moments, all was still, and then hands went to mouths as all four figures moved and started to sit up. Only one rope had held, and from it, a single body swayed, its legs jerking pitifully as the swings subsided. It was a miracle!

Landdrost Stockenstrom.

But the joy was soon to turn to complete dismay - and then to anger. In his own hand, landdrost Cuyler later wrote, “They, all four, got up, one attempted to leave the spot and rush towards the place where the Collegie of Landdrost and Heemraaden were. They all four spoke, and at this moment some of the spectators ran to me soliciting pardon for them, fancying it was in my power to grant it.”

According to the unwritten law from time immemorial, the breaking of a hangman's rope signified innocence. The problem was that no such law appeared in print, and the landdrost's job was to act only as prescribed by what was written down. The border pioneers could not believe their eyes when both landdrost's shook their heads. “I cannot describe the distressed countenances of the inhabitants at this moment who were sentenced to witness the execution,” Cuyler wrote in his report to lord Charles Somerset. Cuyler gave the order that new ropes had to be fetched. It was going to be a long, long wait, while the four condemned massaged their necks and stared perplexed into the heavens in search of answers. 

I am seated at the place where the rebels were hung and buried, at a milestone in our country's history, at a place where the ground was watered by tears of sadness and disbelief, and at a place where my ancestors' footsteps can no longer be seen, but can still be felt.

Later that day, new ropes arrived and the entire tragic scene was repeated. The border folk prayed for another miracle, but this time there was none. This time the ropes held, and the beam creaked slowly until all four figures ceased their writing and slowly swung to a rest. Herold led the crowd in another hymn which was sung in a slow and clear voice this time. It was over. By this time the light was fading, and the order was given to lay the bodies into the shallow trench below, for according to the law of time immemorial no body should be left to hang beneath the stars. “It will perhaps be satisfaction to His Excellency to hear the prisoners one and all died fully resigned to their fate,” Cuyler wrote to his noble superior. 

The border pioneers had known nothing but decades of war on the eastern border. They had spent their entire lives subjected to devastating drought, to marauding animals, to the plague of locusts and the never-ending waves of plunder and pillaging which had driven them to the brink of poverty. This, however, was one of the saddest and hardest nights in their entire lives. Not only for the border pioneers, but also for the two landdrosts, who, ironically-enough, had pleaded for clemency for the lives of the very men that they had condemned. The men who died that day had fought with them on commando. On the border where there were so few, every man was a friend, a brother, a compatriot. And even though they were hated by some, the officers of the law suffered genuine anxiety and regret at the loss of the rebels whom they knew personally. 

A patriotic assembly at the Slagtersnek monument in 1838, commemorating the sad event which still summarizes some of the reasons for the Great Trek of 1836-38 when the settlers of the Eastern Frontier largely left the colony to build a new country in the wild interior. 

The story of the tragedy at Slagtersnek did not end right away, however. One more disturbing scene was yet to follow when early the next morning some mourners visited the grave. To their horror they found the arm of Theuns de Klerk sticking out from beneath the soil, seeming to point at the heavens above. In all likelihood rigor mortis had merely caused his limb to extend through the shallow covering. Along the border, however, the word quickly spread that this had been a sign of indictment against the colossal injustice that had been committed. 

And so the years continued to flow along, like the grey waters of the Fish River always do. The rains fell and smoothed the graves of the rebels. The blood of Freek Bezuidenhout, whose rebellion and death had caused the entire conflagration, also washed from the rocks of the Baviaans river. The survivors paid their fines, and the banished built new lives elsewhere. They did not not know it at the time, but the world as everybody knew it was changing forever. And looking back after nearly 200 years, we can see that the great turning point of everything had been at Slagtersnek, in the fateful year of 1816.

Slagtersnek always leaves me quiet and thoughtful. There is a melancholy mournfulness about the place. I am touched by the memories that still haunt the place after all these many years. There are many emotions and many things to think about. I often consider how easily my own ancestor, Leendert Labuschagne, and his little brother Adriaan could have been hung as well that day. And how if that had happened, I would never have lived at all. 

Thomas Pringle

As for my family upon the eastern border, Thomas Pringle wrote about them in his journal of 1820. I read them now, and suddenly found that I have run out of words myself. The rest of my story will continue later. Let the last word belong to Pringle then. This is how the tragic tale concluded: 

“The Dutch-African inhabitants of the Tarka and of the lower part of Bavian’s River, by whom our location was on three sides environed, consisted, in a great measure, of the persons who had been engaged in this wicked and foolish rebellion, or their family connections, of the names of Erasmus, Prinslo, Vandernest, Bezuidenhout, Labuscagnè, Engelbrecht, Bothma, Klopper, Malan, De Klerk, Van Dyk, &c. They had, however, received a lesson not likely to be soon forgotten; and we found them very submissive subjects to the Government, and inoffensive neighbours so far as we were concerned…”
[Next installment: Journey up the Baviaans river to the farm of Groot Willem Prinsloo, to the forgotten churches of Glen Lynden, and the poet's tree of Thomas Pringle where he lived and wrote his lines of verse.]