by Andre Brink
The 6th, 7th and 8th Prisoners, Klaas, Achilles and Ontong, as being slaves, shared in the same interest with the two first prisoners Galant and Abel. It appears that with deeply troubled hearts the last two acquiesced in the plan to fight themselves free, although they foresaw all the danger of the enterprise and were slow in joining the others, without polluting their hands with the blood of their Master or of the other two murdered persons, and without following the others to the place of D’Alree on the road to Barend van der Merwe where it was intended to shed more blood. On the contrary, the instant the gang left the place Houd-den-Bek they joined their wounded Mistress and remained with her till the Commando arrived. In addition, the two prisoners Achilles and Ontong have not been proved to have made slugs for the gang as charged in the Act of Accusation and they are consequently found not guilty on this count. It has been established, however, that they shared in the deliberations which preceded the execution of the plan and took some part in the execution itself at their Master’s place. That certain items of clothing belonging to the late Nicolaas van der Merwe were later discovered in the huts of the two prisoners, is a further and decisive indication of their complicity.
The charges against the 9th Prisoner Adonis not having been proved sufficiently, there is no need for the Court to dwell on the evidence in this respect and, like the 11th Prisoner Joseph Campher referred to earlier, he is herewith discharged unconditionally.
We must now say a few words about the 10th Prisoner Pamela, who is accused of having by her passiveness and silence cooperated towards the disasters which befell the family of the late Nicolaas van der Merwe. It is indeed true that she seems to have had the will to provide Galant with one or more guns belonging to her master, which she as housemaid and sleeping in the house had more than one opportunity of procuring, but there is no conclusive evidence on this point. It would appear that by a careful silence when the storm was approaching, although she was in the house and had slept there the whole of the night, she exposed her master and his family to the danger that threatened them and consequently contributed as well to his death and that of the other two persons as to the wounding of her mistress. But let us ask ourselves who is this prisoner Pamela, and in what relation does she stand with the Prisoner Galant? As his wife, could she truly be expected to smother the feelings of nature (if indeed she had been previously informed of the plot by her husband)? She felt too sensibly the relation in which she stood with the Prisoner Galant, to accuse him (had she in fact known his intention) of a crime through which she should in all probability be severed from him for ever. Furthermore, if ever one may venture to acquit a person of guilt for passiveness during the commission of a crime, then certainly it is Pamela, for she already knew the passionate nature of Galant, and that it would perhaps cost her her own life if she endeavored in the least to interfere. How real such a fear may have been was proved only too cruelly by the way in which, after the carnage in the homestead at Houd-den-Bek, Galant assaulted the baby she was holding in her arms and of whom we must imagine himself to have been the father. The Court consequently absolves the 10th prisoner Pamela from this instance.
Proceeding now, in conclusion, to the grounds of the criminality and punishableness of the several points of accusation in respect of those Prisoners found guilty, we remark that the most heinous species of High Treason consists in taking up arms against the State, and that all those are justly considered guilty of this crime who combine to oppose the existing order of public affairs with violence and arms.
In a Country where slavery exists, a rising of the slaves to fight themselves free is nothing else than a state of war, and therefore to such a rising the name of war has been given more than once in the Roman history, and justly, for hence States can be, and we know have been, totally overthrown; and the remark Nullum esse genus hominum unde periculum non sit etiam validissimis imperiis can be here very properly applied. (See also Mattheus de Criminibus Lib. 48, Tit. 2, Chap. 2 par 5.)
Even those Prisoners who acted primarily as instruments of the ringleaders cannot be absolved from complicity in this respect. When Galant consulted with the other conspirators about the execution of their plan, not one of them had any arms. Not only the two guns, but the two pistols also, were in the possession of his Master; who of them could at that period have prevented any one of the gang from throwing himself on his Master for protection, informing him of what was going forward, and in this manner preventing all that has happened? When five of them, among whom were three Hottentots, were on the road to Barend van der Merwe’s place, all on horseback and unarmed, who could have prevented any one of them taking the first opportune moment to separate from the others and, favored by the darkness of the night, concealing himself in the Fields or in the Mountains?
Why did they not follow the example of the slave Goliath who withdrew himself from the gang after Galant and Abel had got possession of his master’s guns, powder, and ball, and even fired at them?
The 7th and 8th prisoners Achilles and Ontong have with much emphasis maintained that they used their endeavors to dissuade Galant (whom Ontong moreover refers to as his “child”) from his purpose and to represent to him the danger to which he was about to expose himself; but when Galant persisted in his intention, what did they do? They sat down to supper with the gang, every one of them went to rest for a time, without availing themselves of yet another of many opportunities which they had of informing their Master of the threatened danger or, if they could not or would not do so, of making their escape while the others were gone to Barend van der Merwe.
The prisoner Klaas can just as little as the others screen himself behind the pretext that he was compelled by fear to join the gang. When his Master, who was awakened about 10 o’clock at night by the barking of the dogs, enquired from him what it was, Klaas by keeping silent enticed his master to come out of the house, and thereby afforded Galant and Abel the opportunity to rush in and seize the guns and ammunition. The situation of the place in the mountains, and in the darkness of the night, would have no less afforded him than his master an opportunity to escape; he could just as well as Goliath have remained with his Mistress. But the active part that he took with the other members of the gang sufficiently proves, were proof necessary in so clear a case, that he was a voluntary and wilful accomplice in the whole business.
Even the prisoner Rooy, in spite of his extreme youth (to which we referred earlier), took an uncommonly active part in everything that was done by the gang, prompted no doubt by his own bloodthirsty curiosity to be at the very least a near spectator of the murderous scene that afforded Galant the opportunity of putting a loaded pistol into his hand and obliging him to give the death shot to the already mangled body of the dying Verlee.
Not one of the Prisoners attempted to avail themselves of the ample opportunities that presented themselves of averting the dreadful action by warning his Master. No owner of a slave is any longer safe in his own house if a slave can conceal with impunity from his master any danger with which he may be threatened, were it even at the risk of such a slave’s own life.
The eagerness to shake off the yoke of slavery, which had never before led to such excesses in this Colony, cannot be considered in any other light than as a desire to withdraw themselves from the laws of the land and from obedience to Government; a desire for blood, war and confusion leading to the most disastrous anarchy. And the desire for freedom, thus directed, is a reason, not for the mitigation, hut for the aggravation of the punishment.
Or can it be said, when so many have to suffer, humanity requires that the example to deter should extend to all, but the punishment to only few? Of this we find instances in history where great crimes have been committed by many persons. But this belongs to the rights reserved to the Sovereign. As Judges we cannot go farther than the right with which judicial authority is vested with regard to crimes and punishments.
We therefore declare the eight first Pri
soners in this case Guilty, the 1st and 2nd Prisoners Abel and Galant of conspiring to commit and of actually committing the crimes of High Treason, Murder, and Armed Violence; the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th prisoners, Rooy, Thys, Hendrik, Klaas, Achilles and Ontong, of being accomplices in the execution of the plan previously framed by the first two Prisoners, aggravated with respect to the 3rd and 4th prisoners Rooy and Thys, on the part of Rooy by having assisted in the murder of the late Johannes Verlee, and on that of Thys by the particularly active part which he took in all the acts of violence that were committed; taking into consideration however the youth of the 3rd prisoner and the circumstances in which he fired at the late Verlee;
and therefore condemn all the said Prisoners to be brought to the usual place of execution and being there delivered over to the Executioner;
the 1st, 2nd and 4th prisoners, Galant, Abel and Thys, to be hanged by the necks till they are dead; the heads of Galant and Abel to be then struck off from their bodies and thereupon stuck upon iron spikes affixed to separate poles to be erected in the most conspicuous places in the Bokkeveld, there to remain till consumed by time and the birds of the air;
the 3rd, 5th and 6th prisoners, Rooy, Hendrik and Klaas, to be exposed to public view made fast to the gallows by ropes round their necks, and together with the 7th and 8th prisoners, Achilles and Ontong, tied to a stake and severely scourged with rods on their bare backs, to be then branded, and thereupon confined to labor in irons on the public works at the Drostdy of Worcester—Rooy, Hendrik and Klaas for life, and Achilles and Ontong for the term of fifteen years; while the Court reconfirms its verdict of finding the 9th and llth prisoners, Adonis and Joseph Campher Not Guilty, and of absolving the 10th prisoner Pamela from this instance, with rejection of the greater or other claim and conclusion made against the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th prisoners in this case, and condemnation of all in the costs and expenses of the prosecution.
Thus done and decreed in the Court of Justice at the Cape of Good Hope on this 21st day of March, 1825, and pronounced on the same day.
(Signed)
J.A. TRUTER
W. HIDDINGH
W. BENTINCK
J.H. NEETHLING
J.C. FLECK
P.J. TRUTER
P.B. BORCHERDS
R. RODGERSON
(Signed)
D.F. BERRANGÉ,
secretary.
1979–1981
About the Author
Born to a South African Dutch family in 1935, André Brink was one of a group of writers who, in the 1960s, helped to break down national taboos on the treatment of sex and religion in fiction. In a highly charged atmosphere he insisted on the need for confronting the social and political realities of his country. In 1967 he moved to Europe but later returned to South Africa to, in his words, “accept full responsibility for everything I write—not as a member of a small white enclave, but as a writer belonging more to Africa than to Europe.”
Although he has twice received the CNA Award, South Africa’s most prestigious literary prize, two of his novels, Looking on Darkness and A Dry White Season, were banned there. He currently occupies the Chair in Afrikaans and Dutch Literature at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. In addition to his many other honors, Mr. Brink has received Great Britain’s Martin Luther King Memorial Prize for the literary work best reflecting the ideas to which Dr. King dedicated his life, and in 1980 Mr. Brink was awarded France’s Prix Médicis Étranger. His speech “The Freedom to Publish” was the keynote address at the twenty-first Congress of the International Publishers Association in Stockholm. His work has been published in thirty-three countries.
