The Meermin slave mutiny
Encyclopedia
The Mutiny on the slave ship Meermin took place in February 1766. The Meermin, a 480-ton three-masted and square-rigged ship, built in 1759 in Amsterdam
was one of many slave ships owned by the Dutch East India Company
(VOC).
The final voyage of the Meermin ended with a dramatic slave mutiny that resulted in deaths of half the crew and nearly 30 of the slaves. The decision was made to release slaves from their shackles, to avoid loss through death and disease in the overcrowded conditions and to work with and entertain the crew. In mid-February supercargo
Johan Krause gave the slaves weapons to clean, and the slaves seized both the opportunity and the ship.
A truce was arranged with the slaves demanding their return to Madagascar in return for preserving the lives of the rest of the crew. The crew, however, deceived the slaves and sailed instead for the South African coast. Landfall was finally made at the Dutch settlement of Struisbaai where the final confrontation between slaves and a militia of farmers formed by a local magistrate took place.
The last remaining members of the crew on board ship, under the leadership of Olaf Leij, managed to communicate with the onshore militia by means of messages in bottles in the final deception which was to end the three-week-long mutiny. Captain Muller and the slave leader Massavana were tried in the VOC Court after the event. Muller was stripped of his position, rank and wages; Massavana was sentenced to remain on Robben Island
, and died there three years later.
(VOC) transported approximately 63,000 slaves into the Cape colony, and millions to the Americas. The Meermin was working the coastline of South Africa
and Madagascar
from December to February 1765, under Captain Gerrit Muller and a crew
of 56, collecting slaves men, women and children for the Cape of Good Hope
. She set sail from Madagascar on carrying 140 slaves.
Johan Krause, an experienced shipmaster, believed himself to be intellectually superior to the slaves of whom he was in charge. To avoid the loss of profit of slaves dying while at sea Krause convinced Muller (not only in his first command, but now also unwell) to unshackle them and let them work on deck.
The slaves were released from their chains once the ship was under sail; the men assisted the crew, and the women provided entertainment with dancing and singing. Between and Krause took the unwise decision to order the slaves to "clean some assegai
s" and guns. Muller agreed, but once the slaves had the weapons they turned on the ship's crew, under the de facto leadership of a man named Massavana. Muller was injured, and Krause was killed together with twenty-three of the crew; the bodies were thrown into the sea. Krause's assistant Olaf Leij was left in charge of the remaining crew, some of whom hid in a locker room close to the rudder
. Those on the decks retreated by climbing the foremast
, where they threatened to use hand grenade
s stored there in order to keep the slaves back.
The third element of the crew were those who had hidden in the locker room close to the rudder. On the third day they managed to cause a small explosion with gunpowder
to which they had access. A further truce was made when a female slave was brought into negotiations, and asked to tell the other slaves that if they did not surrender the crew would blow up the ship. Again, the slaves imposed the condition that the Meermin be sailed back to Madagascar. However, the crew steered the ship slowly in the direction of Madagascar during daylight, but each night set full sail southwards towards Cape Agulhas
. The slaves were unaware of the deception. After three or four days' sailing, land was sighted; the crew had managed to steer the Meermin towards the Dutch settlement of Struisbaai. Olaf Leij, who spoke a little of the Malagasy language
, assured the slaves that this was the Madagascan coast
. The anchor
was dropped while the ship was some kilometres from the shore, and over fifty perhaps seventy of the slaves, men and women, set off for the shore in the longboat
and pinnace
. They had promised their fellow slaves that they would light signal fires on the beach, and send the boats back, if it was safe for the remaining slaves to follow.
On landing, the slaves caught sight of Matthys Rodstock's farm and discovered the deception practised on them by the ship's crew. Local magistrate
Johannes La Sueur rallied local farmers into an impromptu militia
to capture the slaves. There was no surrender; fourteen slaves were shot dead and the rest imprisoned.
was setting onshore, and knowing the arrangements for signal fires, wrote messages asking for the Dutchmen on land to light three fires on the shore. These messages were sealed into bottles and set adrift in the onshore current. Two of those bottles were successfully retrieved, delivered to Johannes La Sueur on 6 March, and the fires were lit. One of these messages is preserved in the Cape Archives Repository.
The slaves on the ship, seeing the signal fires, cut the anchor cable to allow the Meermin to drift shorewards. They then lowered a canoe
in which six of them set out for the shore, only to be immediately surrounded. Five of the six were imprisoned, the other shot. The slaves on the ship, enraged at the crew for their deception, attacked them but this time the crew were able to defend themselves for as long as it took for the Meermin to run aground. This battle lasted for three hours. Both sides became exhausted, and eventually Olaf Leij persuaded the remaining slaves to surrender by promising them that if they allowed themselves to be chained again, they would not be punished. The last of the slaves surrendered. Of the 140 slaves which had been shipped, 112 reached the Cape.
as much as possible from the Meermin. Nearly 300 firearms were recovered, together with gunpowder and musket
balls, compass
es, and five bayonets. Cables, ropes and other items from the ship were auction
ed on the shore. The Meermin broke up where she grounded.
Rulings in the VOC Court
of Justice were one of the biggest steps of recognition that oppressed people, including slaves, were capable of free thought. The Captain of the ship was found guilty of culpable negligence
, stripped of his rank, docked of his pay, and dismissed from the company. He was also banned from the Cape, and had to work his passage home to Amsterdam. The slave leader, Massavana, was also put on trial
, and for lack of sufficient evidence was not executed. He was instead sentenced to be “put on the island until further instructions.” Massavena survived on Robben Island
until .
1998, the South African Cultural History Museum, which was located in what had, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, been the accommodation for government-owned slaves, was renamed the Old Slave Lodge, and money was obtained for a maritime archaeology
project to find and salvage the wreck of the Meermin, with the commissioning of historical and archaeological research on the episode following the publication of The Mutiny on the Meermin.
The South African lottery board released funds for archeological research by Jaco Boshoff of the Iziko Museums, who retrieved the Meermin's blueprints in order to assist with identifying this particular wreck from among possibly more than 30 ships reputed to have run aground in the Struisbaai area since 1673.
Work on surveying in the De Mond Nature Reserve
on the Cape South Coast began in 2004. An airborne magnetometer
survey was used, as the earlier choice, a marine magnetomer survey, was not feasible due to the shallow waters. Magnetometer surveys can readily pick out wreck sites, as iron items from the ships can all be detected by their recognisable "signatures". Twenty-two possible sites were revealed, of which eleven could potentially be the Meermin. Six of the eleven were on land, and were ruled out as being pine-built ships (the Meermin was of oak construction), though all of them were sites of previously-unknown wrecks.
The Iziko South African Museum's
travelling exhibition "Finding Meermin" includes updates on the progress of Jaco Boshoff's work with the archaeological research team.
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
was one of many slave ships owned by the Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(VOC).
The final voyage of the Meermin ended with a dramatic slave mutiny that resulted in deaths of half the crew and nearly 30 of the slaves. The decision was made to release slaves from their shackles, to avoid loss through death and disease in the overcrowded conditions and to work with and entertain the crew. In mid-February supercargo
Supercargo
Supercargo is a term in maritime law that refers to a person employed on board a vessel by the owner of cargo carried on the ship...
Johan Krause gave the slaves weapons to clean, and the slaves seized both the opportunity and the ship.
A truce was arranged with the slaves demanding their return to Madagascar in return for preserving the lives of the rest of the crew. The crew, however, deceived the slaves and sailed instead for the South African coast. Landfall was finally made at the Dutch settlement of Struisbaai where the final confrontation between slaves and a militia of farmers formed by a local magistrate took place.
The last remaining members of the crew on board ship, under the leadership of Olaf Leij, managed to communicate with the onshore militia by means of messages in bottles in the final deception which was to end the three-week-long mutiny. Captain Muller and the slave leader Massavana were tried in the VOC Court after the event. Muller was stripped of his position, rank and wages; Massavana was sentenced to remain on Robben Island
Robben Island
Robben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
, and died there three years later.
Voyage
From the mid-seventeenth to mid-nineteenth centuries the Dutch East India CompanyDutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
(VOC) transported approximately 63,000 slaves into the Cape colony, and millions to the Americas. The Meermin was working the coastline of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
from December to February 1765, under Captain Gerrit Muller and a crew
Crew
A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard...
of 56, collecting slaves men, women and children for the Cape of Good Hope
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, South Africa.There is a misconception that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, because it was once believed to be the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In fact, the...
. She set sail from Madagascar on carrying 140 slaves.
Mutiny
SupercargoSupercargo
Supercargo is a term in maritime law that refers to a person employed on board a vessel by the owner of cargo carried on the ship...
Johan Krause, an experienced shipmaster, believed himself to be intellectually superior to the slaves of whom he was in charge. To avoid the loss of profit of slaves dying while at sea Krause convinced Muller (not only in his first command, but now also unwell) to unshackle them and let them work on deck.
The slaves were released from their chains once the ship was under sail; the men assisted the crew, and the women provided entertainment with dancing and singing. Between and Krause took the unwise decision to order the slaves to "clean some assegai
Assegai
An assegai or assagai is a pole weapon used for throwing or hurling, usually a light spear or javelin made of wood and pointed with iron.-Iklwa:...
s" and guns. Muller agreed, but once the slaves had the weapons they turned on the ship's crew, under the de facto leadership of a man named Massavana. Muller was injured, and Krause was killed together with twenty-three of the crew; the bodies were thrown into the sea. Krause's assistant Olaf Leij was left in charge of the remaining crew, some of whom hid in a locker room close to the rudder
Rudder
A rudder is a device used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft or other conveyance that moves through a medium . On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane...
. Those on the decks retreated by climbing the foremast
Mast (sailing)
The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall, vertical, or near vertical, spar, or arrangement of spars, which supports the sails. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship...
, where they threatened to use hand grenade
Hand grenade
A hand grenade is any small bomb that can be thrown by hand. Hand grenades are classified into three categories, explosive grenades, chemical and gas grenades. Explosive grenades are the most commonly used in modern warfare, and are designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time...
s stored there in order to keep the slaves back.
Truces and betrayal
With the crew held captive, the slaves did not know how to control the ship, so she drifted for three days while this impasse lasted. The members of the crew on the foremast reached an agreement with the slaves: the crew's lives were to be spared on condition that they sailed the Meermin back to Madagascar. The truce broke down, and the crew members who had retreated to the foremast were also killed and thrown overboard.The third element of the crew were those who had hidden in the locker room close to the rudder. On the third day they managed to cause a small explosion with gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
to which they had access. A further truce was made when a female slave was brought into negotiations, and asked to tell the other slaves that if they did not surrender the crew would blow up the ship. Again, the slaves imposed the condition that the Meermin be sailed back to Madagascar. However, the crew steered the ship slowly in the direction of Madagascar during daylight, but each night set full sail southwards towards Cape Agulhas
Cape Agulhas
Cape Agulhas is a rocky headland in the Western Cape, South Africa. It is the geographic southern tip of Africa and the official dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. The slaves were unaware of the deception. After three or four days' sailing, land was sighted; the crew had managed to steer the Meermin towards the Dutch settlement of Struisbaai. Olaf Leij, who spoke a little of the Malagasy language
Malagasy language
Malagasy is the national language of Madagascar, a member of the Austronesian family of languages. Most people in Madagascar speak it as a first language as do some people of Malagasy descent elsewhere.-History:...
, assured the slaves that this was the Madagascan coast
Coast
A coastline or seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the dynamic nature of tides. The term "coastal zone" can be used instead, which is a spatial zone where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs...
. The anchor
Anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, that is used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the vessel from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which itself comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα .Anchors can either be temporary or permanent...
was dropped while the ship was some kilometres from the shore, and over fifty perhaps seventy of the slaves, men and women, set off for the shore in the longboat
Longboat
In the days of sailing ships, a vessel would carry several ship's boats for various uses. One would be a longboat, an open boat to be rowed by eight or ten oarsmen, two per thwart...
and pinnace
Pinnace (ship's boat)
As a ship's boat the pinnace is a light boat, propelled by sails or oars, formerly used as a "tender" for guiding merchant and war vessels. In modern parlance, pinnace has come to mean a boat associated with some kind of larger vessel, that doesn't fit under the launch or lifeboat definitions...
. They had promised their fellow slaves that they would light signal fires on the beach, and send the boats back, if it was safe for the remaining slaves to follow.
On landing, the slaves caught sight of Matthys Rodstock's farm and discovered the deception practised on them by the ship's crew. Local magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
Johannes La Sueur rallied local farmers into an impromptu militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
to capture the slaves. There was no surrender; fourteen slaves were shot dead and the rest imprisoned.
Final stages
The approximately ninety slaves remaining on the ship throughout the following week lost patience waiting for the promised signal fires and boats. The surviving crew members noticed that the currentOcean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun...
was setting onshore, and knowing the arrangements for signal fires, wrote messages asking for the Dutchmen on land to light three fires on the shore. These messages were sealed into bottles and set adrift in the onshore current. Two of those bottles were successfully retrieved, delivered to Johannes La Sueur on 6 March, and the fires were lit. One of these messages is preserved in the Cape Archives Repository.
The slaves on the ship, seeing the signal fires, cut the anchor cable to allow the Meermin to drift shorewards. They then lowered a canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
in which six of them set out for the shore, only to be immediately surrounded. Five of the six were imprisoned, the other shot. The slaves on the ship, enraged at the crew for their deception, attacked them but this time the crew were able to defend themselves for as long as it took for the Meermin to run aground. This battle lasted for three hours. Both sides became exhausted, and eventually Olaf Leij persuaded the remaining slaves to surrender by promising them that if they allowed themselves to be chained again, they would not be punished. The last of the slaves surrendered. Of the 140 slaves which had been shipped, 112 reached the Cape.
Aftermath
For the next week, the Dutch authorities salvagedMarine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...
as much as possible from the Meermin. Nearly 300 firearms were recovered, together with gunpowder and musket
Musket
A musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, fired from the shoulder. Muskets were designed for use by infantry. A soldier armed with a musket had the designation musketman or musketeer....
balls, compass
Compass
A compass is a navigational instrument that shows directions in a frame of reference that is stationary relative to the surface of the earth. The frame of reference defines the four cardinal directions – north, south, east, and west. Intermediate directions are also defined...
es, and five bayonets. Cables, ropes and other items from the ship were auction
Auction
An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...
ed on the shore. The Meermin broke up where she grounded.
Rulings in the VOC Court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
of Justice were one of the biggest steps of recognition that oppressed people, including slaves, were capable of free thought. The Captain of the ship was found guilty of culpable negligence
Culpability
Culpability descends from the Latin concept of fault . The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom and free will...
, stripped of his rank, docked of his pay, and dismissed from the company. He was also banned from the Cape, and had to work his passage home to Amsterdam. The slave leader, Massavana, was also put on trial
Trial
A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...
, and for lack of sufficient evidence was not executed. He was instead sentenced to be “put on the island until further instructions.” Massavena survived on Robben Island
Robben Island
Robben Island is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 km west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. The name is Dutch for "seal island". Robben Island is roughly oval in shape, 3.3 km long north-south, and 1.9 km wide, with an area of 5.07 km². It is flat and only a...
until .
Archaeology
On Heritage DayHeritage Day (South Africa)
Heritage Day, 24 September, is a Public Holiday on which South Africans across the spectrum are encouraged to celebrate their cultural heritage and the diversity of their beliefs and traditions, in the wider context of a nation that belongs to all its people....
1998, the South African Cultural History Museum, which was located in what had, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, been the accommodation for government-owned slaves, was renamed the Old Slave Lodge, and money was obtained for a maritime archaeology
Maritime archaeology
Maritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged...
project to find and salvage the wreck of the Meermin, with the commissioning of historical and archaeological research on the episode following the publication of The Mutiny on the Meermin.
The South African lottery board released funds for archeological research by Jaco Boshoff of the Iziko Museums, who retrieved the Meermin's blueprints in order to assist with identifying this particular wreck from among possibly more than 30 ships reputed to have run aground in the Struisbaai area since 1673.
Work on surveying in the De Mond Nature Reserve
Nature reserve
A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...
on the Cape South Coast began in 2004. An airborne magnetometer
Magnetometer
A magnetometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the strength or direction of a magnetic field either produced in the laboratory or existing in nature...
survey was used, as the earlier choice, a marine magnetomer survey, was not feasible due to the shallow waters. Magnetometer surveys can readily pick out wreck sites, as iron items from the ships can all be detected by their recognisable "signatures". Twenty-two possible sites were revealed, of which eleven could potentially be the Meermin. Six of the eleven were on land, and were ruled out as being pine-built ships (the Meermin was of oak construction), though all of them were sites of previously-unknown wrecks.
The Iziko South African Museum's
Iziko South African Museum
The Iziko SA Museum is a South African national museum located in Cape Town. The museum was founded in 1825, the first in the country. It has been on its present site in the Company's Garden since 1897...
travelling exhibition "Finding Meermin" includes updates on the progress of Jaco Boshoff's work with the archaeological research team.