Some aspects of family and social history among the French Huguenot refugees at the Cape

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Periodical article

Title:	Some aspects of family and social history among the French Huguenot refugees at the Cape
Author:	Romero, Patricia W.
Year:	2003
Periodical:	Historia: amptelike orgaan
Volume:	48
Issue:	2
Pages:	31-47
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	South Africa The Cape
Subjects:	Huguenots nuptiality colonists French family social history
Abstract:	Between 1688 and 1700 approximately 170 destitute French Huguenot refugees were brought to the Cape by the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC, Dutch East India Company). They were supplied with the necessary equipment and allocated farms, primarily in Drakenstein. Together with former VOC employees who preferred to stay behind, these French families were the first colonists to settle at the Cape. Although the refugees were forced to develop new, diaspora identities, they simultaneously tried to maintain their Frenchness in their choice of marriage partners and patterns of name-giving. This paper examines first and second-generation marriages focusing particularly on those who were either married at the time of arrival, or married shortly thereafter, and, in the first section, specifically on nine men (who had arrived by 1700) who fathered nine or more children. In the second section, the Huguenot community is described with regard to, among others, wealth, literacy, the sexual activities of unmarried men, the high birth rate and the rare occurrence of divorce. Notes, ref., sum. in English and Afrikaans. [Journal abstract, edited]