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Olof Bergh
Olof Bergh (sometimes spelled Olaf or Oloff Bergh) was an early Swedish-South African explorer and Cape Colony official as well as the progenitor of the well-known Bergh family in South Africa. He is also a former owner of South Africa's first wine estate "Groot Constantia" after Simon van der Stel. His accounts of his travels to the interior of the Cape Colony are among some of the first Dutch writings to originate on South African soil.
Olof Martini Bergh was born on 16 April 1643. in Gothenburg in Sweden to Norwegian parents. Little is known about his pre-South African background; however, he appears to have been the youngest son from an aristocratic family of Swedish-Norwegian origin. At the age of 22, he entered the service of the Dutch East India Company in 1665. Bergh left Texel, Netherlands in the Netherlands on the ship Constantia on 8 October 1665, stopping briefly at the Cape on 26 February 1666 before travelling to Batavia (present day Jakarta), where he arrived on 25 May of the same year. He served in Batavia before moving to the Cape in 1676 where he continued his service with the Company. He married Anna de Coningh on 10 September 1678 in Cape Town, who herself had arrived in the Cape with her mother in 1657. When Simon van der Stel became governor in 1679 he was an ensign at the Cape.
Not much is known for certain about Anna's early life, as meticulous records were not kept on individual slaves. It is known that her mother was Angela van Bengale, who had been brought to the Cape as one of the earliest known slaves, presumably from the Ganges Delta (as indicated by her name). Anna is presumed to have been born at the Cape around 1661 to a white father.[1] It is not known for certain who her father was, but a man named François de Koninck from Ghent (in modern day Belgium) was at the Cape around this time, and Anna's last name would suggest it might have been him
Some of Bergh's earliest work at the Cape included leading bartering trips to the neighboring as well as to the more remote kraals such as those of the Hessequas, a Khoi tribe, in search of livestock and in particular cattle. In addition to these, one of the earliest accounts of Bergh's expeditions included leading a small party of colonists assembled to recapture and return to the Colony three men, who had escaped a few days earlier, which he did.
In 1682, shortly before his scheduled trip to Vigiti Magna, Bergh was despatched instructed to investigate and retrieve any surviving treasures from the stranded English ship Johanna, which had was wrecked near Cape Agulhas on 8 June 1682. This ship had sunk beyond present day town of Hermanus, in the neighborhood of Gansbaai. After three months, Bergh returned with more than 28,000 guilders worth of treasure and a great deal of experience in conducting local expeditions. The details of this story named the "Landtocht na de Cape das Agulhas in den jare 1682" were recorded in the Company Day Register.
Six weeks later, on 30 October 1682, Bergh embarked on one of his most well-known expeditions, in which he was despatched by the then Governor of the Cape in search of the Nama and fabled "Copper Mountains" which had garnered significant attention of both the Cape officials and the VOC itself. He turned north and the details of this trip were again recorded, this time in "Die Journael van de landtocht gedaen by d'E Vaendrich Olof Bergh". During this expedition, Bergh and two other members of his group inscribed their names on the face of a rock near the site of a spring (later to become known as "Berghfontein", and designated as a former South African National Monument) as well as discovered and spent the night in a large cave (later to become known as "Heerenlogement", and which was used subsequently by numerous later explorers, including Van Der Stel himself).
He returned to the Kasteel at the Cape on 19 December 1682 without any tangible results, although one success of his trip was an initial detailed mapping of this region of the Cape. Despite the failure of his own expedition, it has been noted that both Bergh's expedition as well as that of a previous explorer (Jonas de la Guerre, who set out in 1663), were instrumental in paving the way for the later successful trip of Governor Simon van der Stel's expedition in 1685, in which he successfully sampled copper-containing ore near the present day town of Springbok. As a result of his experience in 1682, van der Stel again chose Bergh to lead another expedition in 1683 to the Nama people, the people from the North who came to trade copper ore at the Castle.[citation needed] This journey is documented in "Rapport van den Vaendrich Olof Bergh op hare reyse na de Cralie van de Namaquas" (1683).
According to the Daily Register, in a journal kept by Hendrik Claudius ("Dagregister van de landtocht van de Caap de Goede Hoop, waren gedistineert naar de Tropikus Caprikornij"), Bergh also undertook a trip to North in search of the Tropic of Capricorn. On this journey, however, he did not progress much further than the Doornbosch River (now Green River) due to the great drought and the difficulty of the terrain he encountered.[full citation needed]
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Olof Bergh
Olof Bergh (sometimes spelled Olaf or Oloff Bergh) was an early Swedish-South African explorer and Cape Colony official as well as the progenitor of the well-known Bergh family in South Africa. He is also a former owner of South Africa's first wine estate "Groot Constantia" after Simon van der Stel. His accounts of his travels to the interior of the Cape Colony are among some of the first Dutch writings to originate on South African soil.
Olof Martini Bergh was born on 16 April 1643. in Gothenburg in Sweden to Norwegian parents. Little is known about his pre-South African background; however, he appears to have been the youngest son from an aristocratic family of Swedish-Norwegian origin. At the age of 22, he entered the service of the Dutch East India Company in 1665. Bergh left Texel, Netherlands in the Netherlands on the ship Constantia on 8 October 1665, stopping briefly at the Cape on 26 February 1666 before travelling to Batavia (present day Jakarta), where he arrived on 25 May of the same year. He served in Batavia before moving to the Cape in 1676 where he continued his service with the Company. He married Anna de Coningh on 10 September 1678 in Cape Town, who herself had arrived in the Cape with her mother in 1657. When Simon van der Stel became governor in 1679 he was an ensign at the Cape.
Not much is known for certain about Anna's early life, as meticulous records were not kept on individual slaves. It is known that her mother was Angela van Bengale, who had been brought to the Cape as one of the earliest known slaves, presumably from the Ganges Delta (as indicated by her name). Anna is presumed to have been born at the Cape around 1661 to a white father.[1] It is not known for certain who her father was, but a man named François de Koninck from Ghent (in modern day Belgium) was at the Cape around this time, and Anna's last name would suggest it might have been him
Some of Bergh's earliest work at the Cape included leading bartering trips to the neighboring as well as to the more remote kraals such as those of the Hessequas, a Khoi tribe, in search of livestock and in particular cattle. In addition to these, one of the earliest accounts of Bergh's expeditions included leading a small party of colonists assembled to recapture and return to the Colony three men, who had escaped a few days earlier, which he did.
In 1682, shortly before his scheduled trip to Vigiti Magna, Bergh was despatched instructed to investigate and retrieve any surviving treasures from the stranded English ship Johanna, which had was wrecked near Cape Agulhas on 8 June 1682. This ship had sunk beyond present day town of Hermanus, in the neighborhood of Gansbaai. After three months, Bergh returned with more than 28,000 guilders worth of treasure and a great deal of experience in conducting local expeditions. The details of this story named the "Landtocht na de Cape das Agulhas in den jare 1682" were recorded in the Company Day Register.
Six weeks later, on 30 October 1682, Bergh embarked on one of his most well-known expeditions, in which he was despatched by the then Governor of the Cape in search of the Nama and fabled "Copper Mountains" which had garnered significant attention of both the Cape officials and the VOC itself. He turned north and the details of this trip were again recorded, this time in "Die Journael van de landtocht gedaen by d'E Vaendrich Olof Bergh". During this expedition, Bergh and two other members of his group inscribed their names on the face of a rock near the site of a spring (later to become known as "Berghfontein", and designated as a former South African National Monument) as well as discovered and spent the night in a large cave (later to become known as "Heerenlogement", and which was used subsequently by numerous later explorers, including Van Der Stel himself).
He returned to the Kasteel at the Cape on 19 December 1682 without any tangible results, although one success of his trip was an initial detailed mapping of this region of the Cape. Despite the failure of his own expedition, it has been noted that both Bergh's expedition as well as that of a previous explorer (Jonas de la Guerre, who set out in 1663), were instrumental in paving the way for the later successful trip of Governor Simon van der Stel's expedition in 1685, in which he successfully sampled copper-containing ore near the present day town of Springbok. As a result of his experience in 1682, van der Stel again chose Bergh to lead another expedition in 1683 to the Nama people, the people from the North who came to trade copper ore at the Castle.[citation needed] This journey is documented in "Rapport van den Vaendrich Olof Bergh op hare reyse na de Cralie van de Namaquas" (1683).
According to the Daily Register, in a journal kept by Hendrik Claudius ("Dagregister van de landtocht van de Caap de Goede Hoop, waren gedistineert naar de Tropikus Caprikornij"), Bergh also undertook a trip to North in search of the Tropic of Capricorn. On this journey, however, he did not progress much further than the Doornbosch River (now Green River) due to the great drought and the difficulty of the terrain he encountered.[full citation needed]