Reinterpreting Millenarian Sentiments at the Dutch Cape Colony

The Incredulous Colonial Responses to the Khoikhoi Uprising of 1788 and the Religiously Syncretic Longing for an Apocalypse

Author(s)

  • Anne Marieke van der Wal Leiden University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.9746

Abstract

During the long nineteenth century, European colonists, in among others Asia and Africa, were often confronted with self-proclaimed prophets who predicted an apocalyptic uprising which would bring about a new era of peace and independence from European control. The Dutch colonial world has known several of such ‘prophets of rebellion’, as millenarian beliefs flourished particularly in times of distress. This article focuses on the Khoikhoi uprising of 1788 and their revealed prophet the ‘liewe heer’ Jan Paerl, in the Dutch Cape Colony, and seeks to break with patterns in the current study of apocalyptic prophecies and messianic, anticolonial uprisings that approaches these phenomena from a religious radicalisation perspective. Instead, this article aims to reassess whether the religious dimension of this uprising was indeed seen as the most threatening to Dutch colonial authorities at the time, as well as the most appealing and convincing component for its followers.

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Author Biography

  • Anne Marieke van der Wal, Leiden University

    Anne Marieke van der Wal is University Lecturer in African History at Leiden University. Specialising in the history of slavery and colonial rule in South Africa, postcolonial theory and oral traditions, her PhD thesis Singing of Slavery, Performing the Past (2016) explored the oral traditions at the Cape as counter memories of South African slavery. She has published several articles on commemorative songs including, ‘Slave Orchestras and Rainbow Balls, Colonial Culture and Creolisation at the Cape of Good Hope, 1750-1850’ (2016, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004314986_015); ‘The Sea as a Site of Memory in the Folk Songs of the Enslaved Community and their Descendants at the Cape’ (2020). Her other fields of interests lie in world history. She co-edited the handbook World History for International Studies together with prof. dr. Isabelle Duyvesteyn (Leiden University Press 2022). E-mail: a.m.van.der.wal@hum.leidenuniv.nl.

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Published

2023-12-21

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Articles

How to Cite

van der Wal, A. M. (2023). Reinterpreting Millenarian Sentiments at the Dutch Cape Colony: The Incredulous Colonial Responses to the Khoikhoi Uprising of 1788 and the Religiously Syncretic Longing for an Apocalypse. BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 138(4), 4-27. https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.9746