Charles Etienne Boniface (2 February 1787 – 10 December 1853) was an early nineteenth century
music teacher
Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as primary education, elementary or secondary education, secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a res ...
, playwright, journalist and
polyglot
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingualism, monolingual speakers in the World population, world's pop ...
who was born in France, but who spent his adult life in Southern Africa. His writings and compositions are amongst the earliest publications of what was then 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 ...
.
Early years
Boniface was born in Paris in 1787, two years before the outbreak of the
French Revolution
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...
. At the age of twelve he had a grounding in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, had written short dramas in the style of Molière, played the guitar and had learned to dance.
[
In 1798 his father, who was a prison governor was banished from France on suspicion of helping ]Sir Sidney Smith
Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith (21 June 176426 May 1840) was a British naval and intelligence officer. Serving in the American and French revolutionary wars and Napoleonic Wars, he rose to the rank of Admiral.
Smith was known for his of ...
to escape back to England. Smith assisted the Boniface family to settle in the Seychelles
Seychelles (, ; ), officially the Republic of Seychelles (french: link=no, République des Seychelles; Creole: ''La Repiblik Sesel''), is an archipelagic state consisting of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean. Its capital and largest city, V ...
, a former French colony
The French colonial empire () comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French Colonial Empire", that existe ...
which, since the beginning of the French Revolution, was effectively under the control of its own assembly
Assembly may refer to:
Organisations and meetings
* Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions
* General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
. Boniface enrolled in as a cadet
A cadet is an officer trainee or candidate. The term is frequently used to refer to those training to become an officer in the military, often a person who is a junior trainee. Its meaning may vary between countries which can include youths in ...
in the Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
. In 1806 Cape Colony passed back into British hands and the following year Boniface made his way there via Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
on board a Portuguese slave ship.[
]
Cape Town
In Cape Town, Boniface learnt German, Dutch and English and set himself up as a language and music teacher, particularly playing the French and Spanish guitars.[ He was the first person in the Cape Colony known to have noted the local music.
In the early nineteenth century the theatre was one of the principal leisure activities in the Cape and Boniface, writing in English, Dutch (with the first words of Afrikaans to appear on the South African stage) and his native French was one of the most popular dramatists in the colony.][ He wrote a series of plays including ''L'Enragé'' (1807) which, in 1823 was translated into Dutch by Joseph Suasso de Lima with the title ''De Dolzinnige of De Gewaande Dolleman'', in 1813 a ballet-pantomime ''Het beleg en het Nemen van Troyen'' (The siege and taking of ]Troy
Troy ( el, Τροία and Latin: Troia, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒋫𒊒𒄿𒊭 ''Truwiša'') or Ilion ( el, Ίλιον and Latin: Ilium, Hittite language, Hittite: 𒃾𒇻𒊭 ''Wiluša'') was an ancient city located at Hisarlik in prese ...
) and in 1826 he translated Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and world ...
's ''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme
''Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'' (, translated as ''The Bourgeois Gentleman'', ''The Middle-Class Aristocrat'', or ''The Would-Be Noble'') is a five-act ''comédie-ballet'' – a Play (theatre), play intermingled with music, dance and singing – wri ...
'' (The Bourgeois Gentleman) into Dutch under the title ''De Burger Edelman''.
Pages 247–249pages 250–260
/ref>
In 1828 he became a sworn translator in the Cape Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
.[
His French-language writings included ''Relation du naufrage de l'Eole'', published in 1829—a record of the journey made by the survivors of the Eole, a French ship that was wrecked off the coast of what was then known as "]British Kaffraria
British Kaffraria was a British colony/subordinate administrative entity in present-day South Africa, consisting of the districts now known as Qonce and East London. It was also called Queen Adelaide's Province.
The British Kaffraria was establish ...
" en route to Réunion
Réunion (; french: La Réunion, ; previously ''Île Bourbon''; rcf, label= Reunionese Creole, La Rényon) is an island in the Indian Ocean that is an overseas department and region of France. It is located approximately east of the island ...
from France earlier that year. He intended to translate it into English under the title ''Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Eole'' but never completed his translation though a translation and commentary was published in 2012.
In 1830, three years after he had been declared bankrupt following a libel suite,[ he became the first editor of the Dutch-language newspaper '']De Zuid-Afrikaan
''De Zuid-Afrikaan'' was a nineteenth-century Dutch language newspaper based in Cape Town that circulated throughout the Cape Colony, published between 1830 and 1930.
The paper was founded by the advocate Christoffel Johan Brand on 9 April 1830 ...
'', a post that he held for six months. The ''Zuid-Afrikaan'' itself continued for 100 years. While editor he took a pride in stressing the unity between the Dutch and the English cultures.
Amongst his notable works with a local flavour was ''De Nieuwe Ridderorde of De Temperantisten'', (The New Knighthood or the Temperance Societies) published in 1832. The play satirised the wave of British puritanism and temperance of the day and in particular John Philip of the London Missionary Society
The London Missionary Society was an interdenominational evangelical missionary society formed in England in 1795 at the instigation of Welsh Congregationalist minister Edward Williams. It was largely Reformed in outlook, with Congregational miss ...
who had secured equality of all free people within the Colony. Although written in Dutch, the local patois
''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or ...
(which was later to evolve into Afrikaans
Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
) was used by the appropriate characters. This is one of the first pieces of literature in which an Afrikaans-like language appeared.[
Between 1837 and 1838 Boniface was editor of the bilingual weekly magazine ''De Meditator'' published by Cornelius Moll. The magazine, which ceased publication in 1838 when Boniface fell out with Moll, took a sympathetic view towards the Voortrekkers.][
In 1817 Boniface married Maria Geertruida Heyneman and in the following year their first child Alexis was born. Alexis died in 1828 aged ten and Maria died in 1835 at the age of thirty-nine. Between 1838 and 1843 Boniface had three daughters from a relationship with a freed ]Mozambique
Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...
slave Constantia Dorothea le Mordant.[
]
Later years in Natal
In November 1843 Boniface obtained permission from the Volksraad The Volksraad was a people's assembly or legislature in Dutch or Afrikaans speaking government.
Assembly South Africa
*Volksraad (South African Republic) (1840–1902)
*Volksraad (Natalia Republic), a similar assembly that existed in the Natalia Re ...
of the Natalia Republic
The Natalia Republic was a short-lived Boer republic founded in 1839 after a Voortrekker victory against the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. The area was previously named ''Natália'' by Portuguese sailors, due to its discovery on Christma ...
to establish a newspaper. He left the Cape Colony to avoid a libel suite and moved to Pietermaritzburg
Pietermaritzburg (; Zulu: umGungundlovu) is the capital and second-largest city in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1838 and is currently governed by the Msunduzi Local Municipality. Its Zulu name umGungundlovu ...
. By the time the paper, named ''De Natalier'', was launched on 5 April 1844 the republic had passed into British control and had been renamed the "Colony of Natal
The Colony of Natal was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on 4 May 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to ...
". ''De Natalier'' had a circulation of about forty copies per week and soon succumbed to financial pressure resulting from a libel suite. The gap that it left in the market was taken by The Natal Witness, which was launched by Boniface's former colleague Moll in 1846.
His continued association with le Mordant who had followed him to Natal with their three daughters brought contempt from the colonial population.[
]
Death
On 10 December 1853 while in Durban
Durban ( ) ( zu, eThekwini, from meaning 'the port' also called zu, eZibubulungwini for the mountain range that terminates in the area), nicknamed ''Durbs'',Ishani ChettyCity nicknames in SA and across the worldArticle on ''news24.com'' from ...
Boniface committed suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including major depressive disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic f ...
by taking laudanum
Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (''Papaver somniferum Linnaeus'') in alcohol (ethanol).
Red ...
. He was 66 years old.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boniface, Charles Etienne
Cape Colony people
1787 births
1853 deaths
19th-century South African people
South African dramatists and playwrights
19th-century dramatists and playwrights
South African satirists
South African journalists
1850s suicides