The Maritime Landscape and Labor in False Bay Area: Fishers, Whalermen, Seedies and Kroomen

Lynn Harris

SERSAS 2014

Program in Maritime Studies

East Carolina University

Local Population of Simon’s Town

“…a fair mixture… principal are Africanders and Kaffirs. There are also a large number of Britishers, Malays and Indians…the Kroomenwe brought from Sierra Leone we discharged into the dockyard.”

Crew man Donoghue (Act. bomb. R.M.A), Cape Station Flagship HMS Crescent (1904)

“…an epitome of the world at large. Every race under the sun

is represented there Indians, Malaysians, Parsees,

Coolies….the Dutchmen, the original inhabitants are big bold

men hating the English with a steady “brother-in-law-hatred”

Crewman CSS Alabama, 1863

British: Victorian hotels, Edwardian beach houses and statues of Just Nuisance

Dutch and Malay

Dutch Reformed Church (1855)

Dutch East India Company as a

military observation post (1683)

Simons Town Mosque (1888)

1993-Present Imam Abdul Gakiem Raban

British and Dutch shipwrecks

Conflict: New Themes and Arguments

•Role of Africa and Arab Sailors within the royal navy in the Indian Ocean 1841-1941

•Naval operations in Simon’s Town

•Peripheral supporting communities for the dockyard and naval community

What are the archaeological and historical

signature or footprints of these communities?

Sources

•Early Dutch and British government records of Cape Colony

•Logs and journals of vessels visiting or stationed at Simons Town naval base

•Early photographic collections

•Family records and memoirs

•Archaeological reports

•Shipwrecks and vernacular watercraft

•Historic Structures

False Bay Towns

• “Dreary desert”

• “Horrid Crags”

“…the grand spectacles of nature: I had on

my right the Atlantic, on my left the Indian,

and before me the Southern Ocean: which

breaking fury at my feet, seemed desirous

of attacking the whole chain of mountains

and of swallowing up Africa”

Le Vaillant, Naturalist 1796

Cape Point

Early Fishing History

Kalk Bay fishing today

K-A-bel –jouu! Nice and fresh caught this morning!”

“You know a snoek is

just like Mike Tyson,

they both got dangerous

teeth”

Whaling

The ground on which this house stands

was granted to Johan Hendrik Muller on 4

April 1814. The house was presumably

built as early as 1795. It is very probable

that in the course of its long life the house

has had some alterations, for instance the

kitchen. Type of site: Residential, Whaling

Station

Early Dockyard

Christopher Webb Smith. Simon’s Town, c1838. View from the high ground above Admiralty House of the harbor and shipping in Simon’s Bay

• HMS Scepter shipwreck

recycling project

• Dock workers and “ply

for hire” regulations

Martello Tower

• The Martello Tower was erected in 1796 on Sir James Craig's orders, to make the defense system of Simon’s town more effective.

• Oldest British structure of its kind in the world

The Royal Navy: Krumen and Seedies (Sidis)

Historical Sources on Krumen and Seedies

•Naval ships logs

•Shipwreck accounts

•Census records

•The Cape Laws and Proclamations

•Explorer reports

•Gravestones

Kroomen Graves: Seaforth Garden of Remembrance

Reconciliation Initiatives

•Project Phoenix

•UNESCO: Black Liberators -The Slave Route

•Fishing culture and tourism in Kalk Bay

•Ethnographic Studies