Adam Tas (1668 – June 1722) was a community leader in the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...

at the turn of the 17th century, and is best known for his role in the conflict between Cape Governor

Willem Adriaan van der Stel Willem () is a Dutch and West FrisianRienk de Haan, ''Fryske Foarnammen'', Leeuwarden, 2002 (Friese Pers Boekerij), , p. 158. masculine given name. The name is Germanic, and can be seen as the Dutch equivalent of the name William in English, Gui ...

(son of the former Governor

Simon van der Stel Simon van der Stel (14 October 1639 – 24 June 1712) was the last commander and first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony, the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. Background Simon was the son of Adriaan van der Steland Maria Lievens ...

) and the

Free Burghers Free Burghers (Dutch: ''Vrijburgher'', Afrikaans: ''Vryburger'') were early European settlers at the Cape of Good Hope in the 18th century. The introduction of Free Burghers to the Cape is regarded as the beginning of a permanent settlement of ...

at the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...

Overview

Adam Tas (pronounced "Ah-dum Tuss") was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. One of his aunts and her German husband, Henning Hüsing, came to the Cape in search of fortune. When he was 29 (1697), Tas joined them and stayed at Meerlust, their

Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronounc ...

home. Two years later he was appointed Standard Bearer to the Burgher Infantry. In June, 1703 he married Elizabeth Von Brakel, the wealthy widow of Joris (Hans Jürgen) Grimpen, who owned a collection of farms in the district. Tas became secretary of the "Brotherhood", which viewed the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

(VOC) administration at the Cape as corrupt and dictatorial. Like other senior VOC officials, the governor,

also owned a farm,

Vergelegen Vergelegen (Dutch: "remotely situated") is a historic wine estate in Somerset West, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Foundation The estate was settled in 1700 by an early Governor of the Cape, Willem Adriaan van der Stel. Van de ...

. These VOC officials soon started a corrupt trading monopoly with the VOC which seriously hampered the free burghers' ability to make a living. By 1705, a third of all the farms in the colony belonged to just 20 officials. Tas and Hüsing drafted a petition, accusing local VOC officials of abusing the company's trading monopoly, and complained about how the Tas and Hüsing managed to persuade 63 of the 550 Cape free burghers to sign it. Without informing the local officials, the signed petition was given on 4 April 1706 to the doctor and poet Abraham Bogaert with instructions to deliver the petition directly to the VOC headquarters in

. Abraham Bogaert was on a return voyage from Batavia to the Netherlands. Before the petition was rejected, Van der Stel became aware of its existence. Tas was arrested on 28 February 1706, escorted in chains to

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...

, and convicted. A counter-petition was prepared and signed by 240 of the 550 Cape free burghers, wherein they defended Van Der Stel's policies and denied Adam Tas' allegations. In retaliation, Adam Tas and 15 other free burghers (most of whom were of Huguenot descent and residing at Drakenstein) accused VOC officials of allowing the rights of Christian "Caffers, Moulattos, Mestiços, Castiços and all the black breed living among us" to be equal to the rights Christian Europeans and that the counter-petition was invalid because many of the freeburgers who had signed it were 'untrustworthy' because of their ' Cham blood'. Van der Stel had parts of Tas's diary copied (13 June 1705 through 27 February 1706) as evidence. (Large fragments of this copy was rediscovered in 1911 by A.C.C. Lloyd, a librarian at the

National Library of South Africa The National Library of South Africa is the agency of the government of South Africa which maintains a national library of all published materials relating to the country. History In 1818, Lord Charles Somerset, the Cape Colony's first civil G ...

) After he was convicted, Tas was thrown in the "Black Hole" – a damp dungeon completely devoid of any light located in the

Castle of Good Hope The Castle of Good Hope ( nl, Kasteel de Goede Hoop; af, Kasteel die Goeie Hoop) known locally as the Castle or Cape Town Castle is a bastion fort built in the 17th century in Cape Town, South Africa. Originally located on the coastline of ...

. However, since 31 of the signatories of the original petition against Van Der Stel were

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss politica ...

, and because the Netherlands was at war with France, the rejected petition generated belated concern in Amsterdam. The fear was that the discontent might convince some to become spies for the French. The VOC dismissed van der Stel, and ordered his return to the Netherlands (23 April 1707). VOC officials were subsequently forbidden to own any land at the Cape of Good Hope. Thirteen months into his incarceration Tas was released. Upon gaining his freedom, Tas named his home "

Libertas Libertas (Latin for 'liberty' or 'freedom', ) is the Roman goddess and personification of liberty. She became a politicised figure in the Late Republic, featured on coins supporting the populares faction, and later those of the assassins of Jul ...

" (Latin: freedom) in honor of the occasion, and allocated a new meaning ("Tas is Free!") to the name. The property, located on the outskirts of

Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronounc ...

is currently part of a strawberry farming operation. It includes a homestead extended by a later owner with the date of 1771 on the

Cape Dutch Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, apolitical se ...

gable.

References

External links

Diary of Adam Tas

Castle of Good Hope

* ttp://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=colvin&book=south&story=derstel2 The House of van der Stel(A contrarian perspective of W.A. van der Stel's legacy) {{DEFAULTSORT:Tas, Adam 1668 births 1722 deaths Cape Colony people Dutch East India Company people from Amsterdam Dutch emigrants to South Africa

Overview

See also

References

External links