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

Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), 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. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...

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 Adriaan van der Stel (24 August 1664 – 11 November 1733) was an Extraordinary Councillor of the Dutch East Indies, and Governor of the Cape Colony, a way station for the Dutch East India Company (VOC), from 23 January 1699 to 1707. He w ...

(son of the former Governor

Simon van der Stel Simon van der Stel (14 October 1639 – 24 June 1712) was the first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony (1691), the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. He was interested in botany, establishing vineyards Groot Constantia, Groot and Klein C ...

) and the

Free Burghers Free Burghers (Dutch language, Dutch: ''Vrijburger'', Afrikaans: ''Vryburger'') were early primarily Dutch people, Dutch Settler colonialism, colonists in the 18th century who had been released of their service contracts to the Dutch East India ...

at the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

Overview

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

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

, the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. 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 Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin ...

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 ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

(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 d ...

. 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 is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, 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 National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ...

) 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 A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This i ...

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

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...

, 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. She sometimes also appeared on coins from the imperial period, such as Galba's "Freedom ...

" (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 Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin ...

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, educated sect ...

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 18th-century Dutch Cape Colony people Dutch East India Company people from Amsterdam Emigrants from the Dutch Republic

Overview

See also

References

External links