Dirk Coetzee/Coetsee (1655 – 1725) was a Dutch colonist and the Hoofdheemraad (Chancellor) of the District of Stellenbosch and Drakenstein in South Africa for most of the 1690s and early 1700s. He also served as captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry and deacon of the Stellenbosch Moederkerk (Dutch Reformed Mother Church) at different points in time. As captain of the Stellenbosch Infantry, which comprised mostly Huguenots, he provided military backing for a rebellion which began in 1706 against the Governor of the Cape Colony, Willem Adriaan van der Stel, whom the vrijburghers (free burghers, i.e. citizens of the colony not in the employ of the Dutch East India Company) had accused of tyranny, corruption and racketeering. Coetsee was imprisoned in the dungeon of the Castle of Good Hope along with the other leaders of the Huguenots but he was released after a year. The rebellion ultimately succeeded in 1707 when the Dutch East India Company recalled the Governor and other colonial officials. An account of the rebellion is vividly described in the "Diary of Adam Tas".
Dirk Coetzee/Coetsee established Coetzenburg/Coetsenburg, one of the oldest wine estates in South Africa, in 1682, on land granted to him by the Dutch Governor of the Cape Colony, Simon van der Stel, on the banks of the Eerste River at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain. He was the progenitor (Afrikaans: stamvader) of the influential Coetzee / Coetsee family in South Africa, a branch of which became Anglicized through intermarriage with the British Establishment after the British conquest in 1795. ()
Origins of the surname Coetzee / Coetsee The surname Coetzee/Coetsee is of French Huguenot origin, originally spelt de Couches The De Couches family were French Protestants (known as Huguenots) of Breton origin and nobles of the Ancien Régime, specifically seigneurs or feudal lords, which owned the medieval Château (Castle) of Couches as well as the medieval Château (Castle) of Dracy-lès-Couches. The Château de Couches is located in the commune of Couches in Saône-et-Loire, below the town, on a flat area overlooking the Creuse valley. It is one of the old fortresses of the Duchy of Burgundy and was used in particular to protect the road leading from Paris to Chalon via Autun.The Château de Couches, article published in the magazine "Images de Saône-et-Loire" n° 15 (October 1972), pp. 3-5.The Château de Couches, Saône-et-Loire, by Jean Berthollet (1951).Abbé Grunwald (former pastor of Couches), Couches: a bit of history, magazine "Images de Saône-et-Loire" n° 20 (December 1973), pp. 3-7.Brigitte Colas, To put an end to Marguerite de Bourgogne at Couches; Edited by the Center of Castellology of Burgundy, 2014. The Castle of Dracy-lès-Couches is located in the town of Dracy-lès-Couches in Saône-et-Loire, on the side of a slope.Françoise Vignier (dir.), The Guide to the Castles of France, 71 Saône-et-Loire, Éditions Hermé, Paris, 1985. Surnames were only recorded for taxation purposes and many officials of the Dutch East India Company were semi-literate, but this was also before the time of canonised spelling conventions, and thus there are a number of variations of the surname in South Africa, e.g. Coetzee, Coetse, Coussé. Coetsenburg, the family's wine estate in Stellenbosch, is often spelt Coetzenburg. The De Couches family also had homes in Le Marais in Paris which they fled with other Émigrés after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572. They resettled initially in Amsterdam in the Dutch Republic and later moved to Kampen in the Overijssel where they Dutchified and established themselves.() A branch of the family intermarried with the British and Anglicized after the British conquest in 1795 and the Coetsenburg Estate is now under their custodianship.
The Anglicization of the Coetzee/Coetsee family and the Cape Dutch regenten
Following the British conquest of the Cape in 1795, the Dutch elite of Cape Town – known locally in Dutch as the regenten or bestuurs-elite - quickly developed a sense of class solidarity with British officials. Intermarriage was not uncommon, due mainly to the dearth of marriageable expatriate British women at the Cape in the early years. The children of leading Dutch citizens were often educated in English. These relationships extended beyond Cape Town into the farming districts of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. Indeed, under British rule there was no great divide between the urban Dutch bourgeoisie and the leading wine farmers.
British officials commonly owned land and slaves themselves, and there was a concentration of farming resources and official patronage in the leading families. This urban-rural elite was heavily intermarried, and linked by an extensive credit network. The same names recur wherever landed wealth, power and patronage were to be found – Van Der Bijl (Van Der Byl), Cloete, Meijburgh (Myburgh), Coetzee/Coetsee, De Villiers, Marais are some. 21 families, mostly well connected and interrelated with high officials, produced over half of the colony’s wine and also owned some two-thirds of the wine farm slave population by the 1820s. Moreover, there had been a strong degree of continuity in the identity of this elite over generations. The wine farmers were undoubtedly the landed gentry of the Cape. The British set about cementing their alliances with the older colonial population by promoting agricultural production, particularly in the wine industry. This "Old Money" still holds substantial land and power in South Africa. Gradually, many of the Cape Dutch-Huguenot families thus became Anglicized, including the Coetsee family.
Family and early life
Dirk de Couches (Couches evolved into Coetzee/Coetsee after his emigration to the Dutch Cape Colony) was born in Kampen in 1655. Dirk was a son of Gerard de Couches and Margaretha Claasdogter.
Coetzee/Coetsee married Sara van der Schulp (1654 – Feb 1728) who was born in Amsterdam in 1654. She was the daughter of Jacob van der Schulp (1634- Feb 1728) and Maria van der Schulp (née Elison). Maria van der Schulp was the daughter of Johannes Elison (b. 11 April 1581, d. 19 August 1639) and Maria Bockenolle who were both painted by Rembrandt during his early years in Amsterdam. Rembrandt’s innovative and fashionable portrait paintings were a key factor in his growing reputation. Reverend Johannes Elison was minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Norwich, England. In seventeenth century Dutch society, Protestant ministers were celebrated public figures. The portraits of Elison and his wife, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston were probably commissioned by their son, a wealthy Amsterdam merchant. Such full-length portraits were substantially more costly than the more common bust and half-length formats. Rembrandt painted only three full-length portrait pairs, all about 1634, when he was trying to establish himself as an independent master.
Like the sons of many established Émigré families in Kampen, Dirk de Couches pursued a career as an officer in the Dutch navy. Since the founding of the Dutch Cape Colony in 1652, the Dutch East India Company had offered land to its employees to cultivate crops and raise livestock to sell to the Company at a fixed price. Simon van der Stel, the last Commander and first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony, expanded this policy by encouraging Dutch and later French immigration and distribution of land to willing farmers. When the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) ended, there were few opportunities in the Dutch Republic for young people. There had also been a series of disastrous floods that had further depressed the Dutch economy. Thus in 1678, Dirk de Couches (Coetzee/Coetsee) decided to relocate to the Cape of Good Hope where the Dutch East India Company had established a permanent settlement in 1652.
Dirk Coetsee emigration to the Dutch Cape Colony in 1679 By this time, Dirk was an adelborst eerste klasse (English: a navy cadet equal to a second lieutenant. It is unclear whether his wife Sara Coetzee/Coetsee joined him on his initial trip out or whether she joined him at a later stage. In any event, Dirk Coetzee/Coetsee left the port of Texel in North Holland aboard the Dutch East India ship the Asia (Dutch: Azië) on 19 December 1678 bound for Table Bay. The Asia was a frigate, built in 1671 by the Amsterdam Chamber (Kamer) of the Dutch East India Company at the Oostenburg shipyard in Amsterdam. It was 160 foot long, 39 foot wide, with a deadweight tonnage of 1140.
On 8 May 1679, the Asia cast its anchor in Table Bay, Cape Town. (The Asia sunk after a storm off the coast of Cape Verde in 1683 on its return journey to the Netherlands from Batavia. It had sailed on only eight voyages in total, between Texel and Batavia via the Cape of Good Hope).
Huis Herengracht (Herengracht House), Cape Town
Dirk and Sara Coetzee/Coetsee initially settled in a house on the western side of the Herengracht (now Adderley Street), which they called Huis Herengracht (Herengracht House), in Cape Town. Adderley Street was originally named the Herengracht, after the canal ("gracht") which ran down its centre, and which had its origins in the rivers flowing down to the sea from Table Mountain, and the lords or patricians ("heren") which established their townhouses in the street. At the time the street was more of a wide walkway beside the canal, which was crossed by various stone bridges. The network of canals were covered over, throughout Cape Town, in the 1860s. The Herengracht river and canal therefore became an underground pipe-line. For many years the street was residential, lined with large oak trees. The Herengracht was also so-named because of the Herengracht in Amsterdam as most of the first European settlers of Cape Town were Dutch.
Huis Herengracht had a stoep (veranda) that opened onto the Herengracht and overlooked the Grand Parade. It is located between Castle (Krotoa Place) and Hout Streets but closer to Castle Street, opposite to where the Golden Acres shopping centre currently stands. In the record of the deed of transfer in the Deeds Office in Cape Town, it is listed as being erf E4574 in the "Heere Gragt in Block C, no.2 - date 3 June 1728 - bordered to the north-east by the erf of the Honourable Lord de Wet, to the north-west by the erf of Advocate Aalders and south-west by the captain of engineering the Honourable Lord Tiebault and surgeon Grimbeek". Like other remaining townhouses of the Dutch period in this affluent street, Huis Herengracht is double-storeyed with pedimented façades (dwarf gables) with a pitched roof and triangular gable ends. Prior to land reclamation, Huis Herengracht was located near the sea and its address was 2 Herengracht, Cape Town but is currently 52 Adderley Street, Cape Town. Dirk and Sara Coetsee lived in Huis Herengracht for four years.
In 1682, the Dutch Governor of the Cape Colony, Simon van der Stel, granted Coetzee/Coetsee land at the foot of the Stellenbosch Mountain on the banks of the Eerste River which Coetsee named Coetsenburg. After moving onto Coetzenburg/Coetsenburg, the Coetzee/Coetsees used Huis Herengracht as their townhouse.
Coetzenburg/Coetsenburg Estate