For a hundred years, most colonial farms beyond Cape Town were loan farms: grazing land that stayed the property of the Dutch East India Company, lent to a farmer for a yearly fee [IC]. In 1813 the British governor, Sir John Cradock, offered to turn them into quitrent farms: surveyed land with fixed boundaries and a title deed, which could be inherited and sold, in return for a yearly rent [IC]. The difference between the two decided what a farm was. A loan farm was a right to use land. A quitrent farm was a piece of property. This page explains that difference, shows where it touched the valley, and reads the change through the TIME model as an early form of the market. It adds detail to Land as Property. See Money and Land for the wider story.
What the letters in square brackets mean
Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.
- [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record such as a law.
- [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from Moravian mission records, here the missionaries’ diaries of the 1790s. They record the colony’s land rules as the missionaries saw them at work around Baviaanskloof.
- [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
Reading this page
The Markets pages follow the M of the TIME model: exchange at a price. The facts carry tags. The reading of what the change meant, and the comparisons with the ways the Khoekhoe and San held land, are the Forum’s interpretation, and carry no tag. See The Valley Through TIME.
The diary passages
Some facts about the valley come from new English translations in the Genadendal Diaries repository. They are machine translations that no person has checked yet. Each passage is cited by its Utrecht file number and line numbers.
At a glance
| Loan farm (leningsplaats) | Quitrent farm (erfpag) | |
|---|---|---|
| When | From 1714, under the VOC [IC] | From 1813, under British rule [IC] |
| Who owned the land | The company [IC] | The farmer, subject to a rent owed to the government for ever [IC] |
| What the farmer held | A licence to graze [IC] | A title deed to a surveyed farm [IC] |
| Boundaries | Never surveyed or described [IC] | Surveyed before the title deed was issued [IC] |
| Size | Large and loosely defined [IC] | Up to 3,000 morgen (about 2,570 hectares), unless the governor allowed more [IC] |
| Yearly payment | A “recognition” fee in money, for the right to use the land [IC] | A quitrent set by the land’s situation and fertility, up to 250 rixdollars a year [TBV] |
| Could it be sold or inherited | The land, no. In practice, the buildings and the right to the place changed hands [TBV] | Yes [IC] |
| Security | Could be taken back by the company [TBV] | Held for ever while the rent was paid [IC] |
| Khoekhoe and San land rights | Not recognised [IC] | Not recognised [IC] |
Loan farms (1714 to 1813)
In general
From 1657 the company granted colonists freehold farms near Cape Town [IC]. As colonists moved inland with their cattle, grazing licences grew up informally after 1703 [IC]. On 3 July 1714 a company placard turned them into a system of loan places, as a way to raise revenue [IC]. From 1717 new land in the colony was to be given out only as loan farms, and no longer as freehold [TBV].
A loan farm gave its holder the right to graze a stretch of land around a central point [TBV]. The land could not be described or measured [IC]. The holder paid the company a yearly fee, called “recognition”, because it recognised that the land still belonged to the company [IC]. Farmers were expected to respect each other’s grazing and not to encroach [IC]. In 1732 the company revised the system to enforce the rent, and farmers who gave up a loan farm could be paid for the buildings and other fixed improvements they left behind [TBV]. The buildings, called the opstal, were therefore the part of a loan farm that had a value of its own.
The system made it cheap to take up land and easy to move on. Historians describe it as a release for colonists who could not afford freehold farms, and as a spur to settlement far inland [TBV]. Many loan-farm holders were deep in debt: one historian cites farmers owing 6,000 rixdollars, 250 times the yearly rent of a loan farm [TBV].
In the valley
The farm Weltevreden, where Greyton now stands, was held by Marthinus Theunissen as a loan farm from 1791, and granted to him in 1793 [IC].
The missionaries’ diaries show loan places at work around Baviaanskloof in the 1790s:
- A place with a condition. Baas Teunis’s son held a place about an hour from the mission. He was probably Marthinus Theunissen, and the place probably Weltevreden [TBV]. His father told the missionaries that it had belonged to the Khoekhoe, and that the acting governor, Johan Isaac Rhenius, had given it to him on condition that he did no harm to any Khoekhoe and did not drive them away. If he did, he would have to leave [MS]. By November 1794 the son was writing that he did not have to let the Khoekhoe’s cattle graze on “his ground” [MS].
- A place that was bought. In April 1795 the diaries record that a Mr Claude, probably Hendrik Cloete of Groot Constantia, had bought the land near the mission where the son had impounded the Khoekhoe’s cattle [MS].
- “Bought, and paid taxes on.” In September 1796 the Landdrost of Stellenbosch told the missionaries that the Khoekhoe’s new grazing was barren and the best had been kept back, but that land could not be taken from “those who had bought the places and paid taxes on them every year” [MS].
On paper, the company still owned these places. In practice, colonists bought and sold them, and the yearly payment was treated as a claim to keep them.
Diaries: A363595, lines 11962 to 12058; A363596, lines 863 to 899; A363349, lines 16622 to 16653
Quitrent (from 1813)
In general
In 1813 Governor Cradock invited the holders of loan places to claim their land and receive title deeds under what he called “perpetual quitrent tenure” [IC]. The land had to be surveyed before the title deed was issued [IC]. A farm was limited to 3,000 morgen unless the governor allowed more [IC]. The yearly quitrent was set by “the situation, fertility, and other favourable circumstances of the land”, and could not be more than 250 rixdollars [TBV]. A visitor in 1827 wrote that it was usually 30 to 50 rixdollars [TBV]. In return the farmer could inherit, sell, and borrow against the land [IC]. From 1843 Crown land was also sold as freehold at public auction [IC].
The change was slow. By 1800 only 29,612 morgen had been surveyed in the whole colony, and by 1811 more than 400 applications for land were waiting [TBV]. One historian argues that the government was never able to process applications under Cradock’s code properly in the years that followed [TBV].
Quitrent lasted a long time. By the 1880s a quitrent farm differed from freehold only in its perpetual yearly payment and in the government’s claim to precious stones and metals under it [TBV]. The Abolition of Quitrent Act of 11 June 1934 ended most quitrent payments from 31 December 1934 [IC].
In the valley
Weltevreden had already been granted in 1793 [IC]. What kind of title that grant gave, and whether later owners held it as quitrent, has not yet been checked. In 1854 Herbert Vigne divided it into freehold plots for sale, the start of Greyton [IC].
The mission land at Genadendal took neither path. Mission stations were given land by government “tickets of occupation”, which described land reserved for the use of their residents, usually far smaller than the grazing their people had once used [IC]. In 1858 Genadendal’s land was granted to the Moravian Church in trust for its residents [MS]. It was never surveyed into saleable farms. See TRANCRAA and Farm 39.
Reading the change through TIME
This section is the Forum’s interpretation.
The first peoples’ land. Before the colony, Khoekhoe groups held land together, and a group’s claim rested on its use of springs and rivers [IC]. That was the Tribes form: rights came from belonging to a group and using a place. Neither the loan farm nor the quitrent farm recognised it [IC]. Both treated land used by Khoekhoe and San as empty, and so as the government’s to give.
The loan farm: an institution lends. A loan farm belonged to the Institutions form. The company owned the land, set the rules, and collected a fee whose very name, “recognition”, said who was in charge. The farmer held a licence, not a thing. Yet the loan farm also carried the first seeds of the market. The fee was paid in money. The buildings had a value that could be paid for. And, as the diaries show around Baviaanskloof, places were bought and sold in practice, even though the land was not the seller’s to sell. Here the market grew in the gaps of an institution’s rules.
The quitrent farm: the market takes shape. Quitrent was an early Markets form, and it shows what a land market needs before it can work. Land had to become a bounded thing, so it was surveyed. It had to have one owner, so it received a title deed. It had to be priced in some way, so a yearly rent was set by its quality. Once all that was in place, land could be inherited, sold, and used as security for a loan. Every one of those steps was made by an institution: surveyors, a land office, a register of deeds, and courts. The market in land did not replace the Institutions form. It was built on top of it, as the TIME model expects. Where the institution was weak, as the long waits for surveys and title deeds show, the market was slow to start.
Early market coordination. In a full market, prices bring buyers and sellers together. In the early land market at the Cape, land still came first from the government, by application. Prices appeared mainly when a farm changed hands afterwards. Loan farms and quitrent farms were steps between a world where the company decided who used land and a world where money did.
Three forms side by side. By the 1850s the valley held all three at once: Khoekhoe families whose own claims to land had never been recognised, Genadendal’s land held by an institution in trust, and Greyton’s freehold plots on sale. The questions this raises are still open. See The Valley Through TIME.
Who gained and who lost
- Colonial farmers gained cheap access to wide grazing under the loan farm, and secure, saleable title under quitrent [IC].
- The company, and then the British government, gained a yearly income from both [IC].
- Khoekhoe and San communities gained nothing from either system. Their customary rights were disregarded, and land they had used was treated as the government’s to grant [IC]. Many poorer people, including Khoekhoe who still lived on unsurveyed land, were pushed off when farms were surveyed [TBV]. They were paid nothing for it.
- The Khoekhoe of Baviaanskloof won some grazing through the colony’s officials, as in 1793 and 1796, but the best land stayed with farmers who had bought their places [MS].
What is still open
- The size and fee of a typical loan farm in the Overberg, and what Weltevreden paid as a loan farm.
- What kind of title Weltevreden received in 1793, and whether it was ever held as quitrent.
- Which farms around Genadendal and Greyton were converted to quitrent after 1813, and when.
- Whether any Khoekhoe in the valley ever held a loan farm or a quitrent farm in their own name.
- When Genadendal first received a ticket of occupation, and for how much land.
Have your say
To correct a fact, add a record, or read these changes differently, contact the moderators via How to Submit.
Related
- Money and Land
- Land as Property
- Money and Banks
- Dutch East India Company
- History of Greyton
- The Valley Through TIME
- TRANCRAA and Farm 39
- Valley History
References
- McLachlan, J.N. (2019). “History of the dispossession of the rights in land of pastoral indigenous communities in the Cape Colony from 1652 to 1910”. Fundamina 25(1). Grazing licences after 1703, the placard of 3 July 1714, recognition, unmeasured land, Cradock’s quitrent of 1813 with its survey, size limit, and rent, and tickets of occupation.
- Dye, A. and La Croix, S. (2017). From Land Grants to Loan Farms: Property Rights and the Extent of Settlement in Dutch South Africa, 1652 to 1750. Working paper. The change from grants to loan farms by 1714.
- Muatze (Mansell Upham). Sir John Cradock: Cape Governor and Land Reformer (2020). The quitrent reform of 1813.
- Duly, L.C. (1965). “The Failure of British Land Policy at the Cape, 1812 to 1828”. Journal of African History 6(3). Surveys by 1800, the backlog of applications, and the slow working of Cradock’s code.
- Clarke, P.T. (2025). “The Voracious Frontier: Policing, War, and Mercantilism in Dutch South Africa, 1652 to 1830”. Journal of African History. Loan farms as a release for young colonists, and their holders’ debts.
- Dictionary of South African English. Quitrent. Cradock’s invitation of 1813, the usual rent in 1827, and quitrent compared with freehold in about 1881.
- Wikipedia. 1717 in South Africa and 1732 in South Africa. New land as loan farms from 1717, and the revision of 1732.
- South African Government. Abolition of Quitrent Act 54 of 1934. The end of most quitrent payments.
- Genadendal Diaries repository. Genadendal Diaries. English translations of the missionaries’ diaries, cited by file and line number. Unreviewed machine translations.