Person:Charles Marais (2)

Notes from Marais Family Tree

Charles and his family came from Plessis-Mornay in the Hurepoix region of the Ile-de-France province, south and south west of Paris.

Charles and Catherine immigrated to South Africa on the ship “Voorschooten” on 31 December 1687. The passenger list of the ship showed the ages of the four children as follows: Claude (24), Charles (19), Isaac (10) and Mari-Madeleine (6). According to research undertaken by the genealogist Pascal Herbert at a later stage, Charles and Catharine had a fifth child named Jacques Marais. He was born ca. 1666 and accepted the Catholic faith when he was 21 years old on 4 November 1685. He decided to stay in Paris when his parents left for the Northern Provinces. Another piece of information found was the ante nuptial contract between Charles and Catherine. Some more facts found in the contract was that the parents of Charles were Jean Marais and Rachelle Milleseau. His farther was a well known shoemaker. Catherine’s parents were Jeanne Cronier and Claude Tabourdeux, with her farther working in the weaving industry. The witnesses with the signing of the contract were Pierre Anceaume, a tradesman from Dourdan, an uncle from Charles’s farther and Hierosme Legrand, a cousin from his father’s side. For Catherine it was two brothers, Jean and Jacques and family from her side. The ship belonged to the Chamber of Delft with Franz Villierius as captain.

They left Deltshaven on 31 December 1687 and arrived in Saldanha Bay on 13th April 1688. They landed at Saldanha Bay due to damage caused to the ship by a severe storm. A messenger was send to Table Bay to inform Simon van der Stel who sent the ship “Jupiter” to fetch the immigrants to arrive at the fort on 28th April 1688 with the following passengers on board: - Charles Marais & Catherine Tabourdeux - Claude (24), Charles jnr. (19), Isaac (10), Marie-Madeleine (6) Marais - Philippe Foucher & Ann Souchay - Anne (6), Esther (5), Jacques (3) Foucher - Gaspard Foucher (21) (now Fouché) - Jacques Pinard (23) & Esther Foucher (21), “dese 2 sijn alhier voor haer vertreck te samen getrouwt” - Gedeon Malherbe (25) “jaeren jonghman” - Estienne Bruere (now Bruwer) “jonghman oud 23 jaeren is een wagenmaker” - Jean Leroux “out 21 jaren jonghman” - Gabriel le Roux “out 17 jaeren” - Pierre Sabatier (22) “de Massiere jongman” - Jean Machepaste (Paste) “25 jaeren jonghman” - Pauel Godefroy (22) “jaeren jonghman” - Marguerite Basche “jonge dogter out 23 jaeren”.

Some of the Hugenots settling in the Cape of Good Hope were Francois Villion (Viljoen) in 1671, Jean de Long (de Lange) and his family the next year as well as Guillaume and Francois du Toit. Some of the colonists send to the Cape of Good Hope were send to strengthen the farming activities in the area. Eventually approximately 175 Hugenots settled in the Cape of Good Hope between 1688 and 1689 as part of the official colonization of the Dutch East India Company. It was during this period that the ship Voorschooten with the Marais family on board seeked shelter against a gale force wind in Saldanha Bay. There were also other ships bringing more refugees to the Cape of Good Hope like, Oosterland, Borssenburg, De Schelde, the Berg China, the Zuid-Beveland and the Wapen van Alkmaar. After January 1689 various smaller groups of Hugenots still arrived at the Cape. The Here XVII accepted the Hugenots for settlement at the Cape under the following conditions: “De Raad van Zeventien, representerende de Nederlandshe Oost Indische Compagnie (VOC), het in 1687 besluit om eenbeperkt getal Hugenoten als imigranten naar de Kaap over te brengen, onder de volgende voorwaardes: i. De Hugenoten worden na de eed van getrouwheid aan de Compagnie afgelegd te hebben kosteloos overgebracht naar de Kaap. ii. Alleen Kleederen en het noodige voor de reis is vergund mede te nemen uitgezonderd geld, die kan elk mede nemen zoo veel hy wil. iii. De Hugenoten verbinden zich, om voor den tyd van vyf jaren aan de Kaap te blyven wonen en in de boerdery te werken of een ambacht te dryven. iv. Aan diegenen die in de boerdery willen werken zal zoo veel land gegeven worden als zy instaat zyn te bebouwen. Ook zal saad en gereedschap aan hun geleend worden. v. Wie na afloop van vyf jaren wil terug gaan naar Europa betaald zelf zyn pasagie. Men zegt zelf dat er reeds in 1684 voor de herroeping van den Edict van Nantes, eenige vamilien aan gekome waren.”

Charles and his family received a farm of 60 morgen in the Drakenstein region close to Simondium, the area situated in the Simonsberg in Groot Drakenstein. Charles names his farm “Le Plessis Marlè”, the same as his town of origin.

The particulars regarding Charles’ death were reported in Simon van der Stel’s diary and read as follows – “Tegens de middag wordt hier door den Hottentots-kaptein Thomas een zijner Hottentotten en hechthenis gebracht, dewijl hij een der Franse vlugtelingen woonagtig aan Drakenstein, moordadig om het leven heeft gebracht. 21 April – Is de gevangen Hottentot, over een manslag aan een Fransman door hem gedaan, deze morgen door de Raad van Justitie de dood aangeseid. 23 April – Heden is de gevangen Hottentot ter dood gebracht in Confronmiteit van de volgende Sententie: Also de Hottentot Edescha, bijenaamd Dikkop, resorterende onder het kraal van zijn overleden Kaptein Thomas, altans’s hierdie gevangene meer dan 25 jaren oud, aan de Ed. Achtborn Raad van Justitie aan deze plaats, buiten pijn en dwang van ijzeren banden of te enige dreigementen van dien, vrijwillig heeft beleden en bekend, en zulks genoeg zijnde gebleken, dat hij (gevangene) niet heeft ontzien, op de 29 ste Maart laasleden’s middags omtrent een uur voor zonondergang te komen, benewens twee andere Hottentotte van’t zelfde kraal, in de tuin van de Franse landbouer Charles Marré, wonende aan Drakenstein, en denzelfe op een onbeleefde manier en met wrange woorden watermeloenen af te vragen, en tot antwoord van de voornoemde Marré gekregen hebbende, geen van die rijp te zijn, - dat hij (gevangene) onderstaan hadde op zijn eigen autoriteit een derzelve af te plukken, en die niet bekwaam om gegeten te worden bevinde, dat hij dezelwe naar’t hoofd van die gezeide Charles Marré heeft geworpen, zonder hem nochtans te raken, dat hij (gevangene) ook niet geschroomd heeft uit enkele baldadigheid tot twee verscheiden malen klei of klipstenen op te rapen, en daarmede de gemelde Marré diermate in zijn linkerzijde of lies te treffen, dat dezelve daardoor genoodzaakt was hem naar huis te begeven en zich aldaar te Bergen. Dat hij (gevangene) zich vervolgens naar zijn voorzeide kraal vervoegd, en aldaar verstaan hebbende, dat Charles Marré na verloop van vier dagen, en sedert dat hij hem geworpen hadde, was komen te overlijden, hij zich versteken hadde, en landvluchtig geworden was, totdat hem zijn eigen volk en landraad achterhaald, en in handen van Justitie overgeleverd hebben. Dat aan de Ed. Achtborn Raad van Justitie gebleken is, door de verklaring van de Chirurgijn van Stellenbosch, Jan du Plessis, na gewone inspektie en gedane opening van des overledens lichaam, ten overstaan van de Landdrost en heemraden in geschrifte gegeven, als dat hij (du Plessis) in de linkerdije of lies van de overledene Marré een grote Contutie zowel binnen als buiten, een hartader gebroken, en’t bloed door’t lichaam samen geronnen gevonden heeft, oordelende daarop de dood gevolgd en veroorsaakt te sijn. Dat hij (gevangene) eindelik zo voor gekommitteerden ui de Ed. Achtborn Raad van Justitie, alsmede in Judicis in’t bijwzen van de omliggende Hottentots Kapteinen openlik beken en vrijwillig beleden heeft zijn voorzeide feit waarachtig, en daarom des doods schuldig te zijn“. As far as it is known, this was the first autopsy performed in South Africa that was documented. According to Charles’s death certificate, the autopsy was attended by the Landdrost Jan Mostert, two Heemerade, Dirk Coetse and Jacques de Savoye. As far as it is known, this was the first murder that took place on a farm, where the farmer was killed in South Africa. The reason being that the killer wanted a watermelon that was not ripe yet ending in the death of Charles trying to explain why he could not have a watermelon yet.

This tragic event happened just before Simon van der Stel signed the official land grant on 1 December 1693. After the death of Charles, his son Claude assumed responsibility for the farm.

Catherine married Daniel des Ruelles just the following year after the death of Charles and Daniel unfortunately died in 1726 and Catherine following him in 1729. With this being some of the history leading to the immigration of Charles and Catherine Marais with their four children to South Africa.

The Cape settlers from this part of France (Loire to the Channel) came largely, but not exclusively, from the towns and villages of coastal Normandy and from rural quadrilateral with Paris, Orleans, Blois and L’Aigle at its corners. Indeed one refugee ship brought a party of French settlers from the United Provinces whose original homes, despite indications to the contrary (by C. Graham Botha and J.L.M. Franken) were all within the quadrilateral. The ship was the Voorschooten of Delft, which sailed from Goeree on December 31, 1687 under the captaincy of Frans Villierius. Special provision had been made for the spiritual needs of the immigrants. The ship carried two new quarts French Bibles and ten books of the psalms of Marot and Bèze, and for the edification of the refugees on the voyage, the sermons of the former Caen pastors Pierre du Bosc and Jean Guillebert. In the context of this voyage, Franken’s identification of the Cape farm Le Plessis-Marlè with a locality near Marlè in Picardy is certainly wide off the mark. It was the refugee Charles Marais who perpetuated the name of this place of origin in the designation of the farm granted to him in 1688. He and his family came from the Hurepoix region of the Ile-de-France, south of south west of Paris, and were members of the congregation worshipping at Le Plessis-Marlè near Longvilliers, a village north-west of Dourdan towards the Rombouillet forest. Le Plessis-Marly was the estate of the Duplessis-Mornays, the family which gave the statesman Philippe de Mornay to the Protestant cause in the troubled days of Henri IV. Le Plessis-Marly came into Philippe’s possession through his mother Francoise, daughter of Charles du Bec-Crespin, vice-admiral of France. Formerly owned by her maternal aunt Jeanne de Deauvilliers, the property was acquired by Francoise in June 1561. The church was chosen in 1601 by the royal commissioners Francois d’ Angennes and Pierre Jeannin to serve the Calvinists of the Montfort-l’ Amaury bailiwick, replacing an earlier place of worship at Garancières-en-Beauce to the south-west. The Mornays made personal provision in 1606 for the salary of the minister and for the support of the poor. The church was included in the Beauce colony of the synodal province for the north-east of France and had close connections with the seineurial church of the La Norville in the Hurepoix, sharing the same pastor, Maurice de Laubèron de Montigny, for a number of years after 1626. The Paris temple had been sited in the Hurepoix before 1606, first at Grigny and later, in 1599 at Ablon-sur-Seine, both south of the capital, but with the removal of Charenton, Le Plessi-Marly and la Norville alone served the region. The anti-Calvinist drive mounted by Louis XIV (1685) drove the pastor Jacques Rondeau of Le Plessis-Marly to England, while Charles Marais, his wife Catherine Tabourdeux and their children Claude, Charles, Isaac and Marie-Madeleine made their way to the United Provinces. Like so many other refugees of the period they had been compelled to accept Catholicism at the revocation, but returned to the reformed faith in their first country of refuge. Charles, his wife and older children rejected their forced conversion (on Oct.1685) at the Walloon church in Hague on September 14, 1687. Tradition has it that Claude served as an officer in the French army and that the family occupied a higher social position than most other Cape refugees. However, apart from the fact that it was to the more aristocratic congregation of Hague that they were attached in the united Provinces, nothing has been discovered to substantiate the claim. Did economic hardship play any part in deciding the Marais’ to quit France? The peasantry of the Hurepoix, essentially a region geared to the production of cereals and wine for the Paris market, suffered a long period of growing pauperization in the seventeenth century, as Jacquart has amply demonstrated. The crisis reached its peak in 1652 during the military operations of the Fronde, with widespread famine and general misery. A subsequent increase in land appropriation, in which the Paris bourgeoisie played a conspicuous part, subjected the humble rural population to further degradation. We do not know the circumstances of Charles Marais daily life, but it is possible that, even without religious persecution, his position was becoming intolerable. The Hurepoix, unlike some other agricultural regions of France, did not generally offer alternative means of remunerative employment, apart from the usual run of village crafts. Those who normally made a living from land could often turn elsewhere to small scale textile manufacture. However it was virtually only on the stocking industry of Dourdan that such an opportunity existed in this part of the country. But were opportunities for immigrant agricultural workers much greater in the United Provinces? It is to be doubted. The Cape of Good Hope, however, needed farmers and if the Marais parents were a little old to begin a new life in a distant land, their children might be expected to prosper and make a useful contribution to the well-being of the colony.