Nicolaas Waterboer - Griqua leader and politician of the Cape Colony

Nic(h)olaas Waterboer (1819 - 17 September 1896) was a leader ("Kaptijn") of the

Griqua people The Griquas (; af, Griekwa, often confused with ''!Orana'', which is written as ''Korana'' or ''Koranna'') are a subgroup of heterogeneous former Khoe-speaking nations in Southern Africa with a unique origin in the early history of the C ...

. He was the last fully independent Griqua Kaptijn of

Griqualand West Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, wh ...

, and after it became a British colony, his rule and that of his successors was largely nominal.

Early life

He was the eldest son of

Andries Waterboer Andries Waterboer (c.1789 - 1852) was a leader ("kaptijn") of the Griqua people. He founded the Waterboer dynasty of Griqualand West, and led to a split of the Griqua people, as the factions of the Kok and Barends dynasties migrated to the south ...

who had founded the Waterboer dynasty, and his wife Gertruida Pienaar. After his father's death in 1852, Nicolaas was proclaimed the ''Kaptijn'' (Captain) of

at the Kaptijn's Residence in

Griekwastad Griekwastad is a country town in South Africa. It is sometimes still called Griquatown (the meaning of the town's name in Afrikaans), a name which is now considered historical. The town is in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa by road we ...

("Griquatown").

Rule (1852-1896)

He ruled during the tumultuous era that followed the discovery of diamonds on his land in the 1860s. As enormous numbers of "diggers" arrived and the population of the diamond fields exploded, tensions grew between the different groups - including the

Griquas The Griquas (; af, Griekwa, often confused with ''!Orana'', which is written as ''Korana'' or ''Koranna'') are a subgroup of heterogeneous former Khoe-speaking nations in Southern Africa with a unique origin in the early history of the C ...

, the indigenous

Tswana people The Tswana ( tn, Batswana, singular ''Motswana'') are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group native to Southern Africa. The Tswana language is a principal member of the Sotho-Tswana language group. Ethnic Tswana made up approximately 85% of the pop ...

, the

Boers Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled this a ...

and the white English diggers. Disagreements ensued on exactly what the borders of the semi-nomadic Griquas' land was, and a range of regional states, including the

Transvaal Republic The South African Republic ( nl, Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, abbreviated ZAR; af, Suid-Afrikaanse Republiek), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer Republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when i ...

and the

Orange Free State The Orange Free State ( nl, Oranje Vrijstaat; af, Oranje-Vrystaat;) was an independent Boer sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeat ...

vied for ownership of the land. The

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a 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 it united with ...

meanwhile, the largest and most powerful state in the region, was uniquely uninterested in any form of union with the territory, in spite of strong pressure from the British to enact a form of union. Against the backdrop of the land tensions, the diggers, led by the eccentric Stafford Parker, proclaimed the independent "Diggers/Klipdrift Republic" in 1870, but it was swiftly annexed to the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

as the separate colony of

. After briefly moving to

Griqualand East Griqualand East (Afrikaans: ''Griekwaland-Oos''), officially known as New Griqualand ( Dutch: ''Nieuw Griqualand''), was one of four short-lived Griqua states in Southern Africa from the early 1860s until the late 1870s and was located between ...

, Waterboer moved back to his official residence in Griekwastad in 1874 to reassume his traditional rulership. With his agent, David Arnot, Waterboer launched a lawsuit over his land rights, which led to him losing significant portions of his territory, but which in the end he won. Waterboer was a famously eloquent orator, and enormously persuasive in his speech. He was fluent in English and Dutch, as well as the native languages of his people - Afrikaans and Griqua. He briefly led a revolt against the British Empire in 1878, which led to his arrest and brief exile to Hopetown. He returned in 1880 though. He died in

on 17 September 1896.

References

South African politicians Griqua 1819 births 1896 deaths {{NorthernCape-politician-stub