Christlieb Booda was a Khoekhoe captain who lived at Genadendal from the time the mission reopened in 1792 until his death in 1826 [MS]. He was probably Hessequa [MS]. Like other Khoekhoe captains of the time, he served the Cape government, which gave him a staff of office [MS]. That staff passed down through his family for almost 180 years and is now in the Genadendal Mission Museum [MS].
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.
- [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from the mission’s church registers and records, as told in Genadendal: A Long Walk by Isaac Balie. They have not been checked against the colonial government’s own records.
- [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
At a glance
| Born | At Grootbrakrivier. The year is not known [MS]. |
| Died | 10 October 1826, at Genadendal [MS] |
| Known for | Serving as a Khoekhoe captain in the Swellendam district, and the staff of office now in the museum [MS] |
| Link to the valley | One of the Khoekhoe leaders who lived at the reopened mission |
Khoekhoe captains
In the late 1700s there were two Khoekhoe peoples in the region, whom Balie’s history calls the Koopmans and the Hessequas [MS]. Their chiefs had no place in the mission’s own government [MS]. The Cape authorities employed them to recruit men for the Cape Corps and labourers for public works, to report runaway slaves, and to transport prisoners, and paid them for this work [MS]. As a sign of office they received a polished stinkwood staff with a bronze knob bearing the British coat of arms [MS]. The missionaries’ diaries show captains leading their people in the government’s service from 1793 [MS]. See The Valley Through TIME.
His life
The church registers say Booda was born at Grootbrakrivier and came to Baviaanskloof when the mission reopened in 1792 [MS]. In 1799 he became a Christian and a member of the church [MS]. By then he was already in the government’s service, in charge of the Swellendam district [MS]. On 27 October 1808 he married Johanna Haas [MS]. In his will he called her “myne laaste vrou” (my last wife), so she was probably not his first [MS].
He signed his will on 23 September 1826 and died on 10 October 1826, leaving nine children: Andreas, Henoch, Friederica, Elizabeth, Martinus, Petrus, Philippine, Charlotta, and Joshua [MS]. He left his house and oxen to Charlotta, and asked that if the government did not pay his pension, his possessions be sold to pay his debts [MS]. He named the missionary Hans Peter Hallbeck as his executor [MS]. The magistrate’s court at Swellendam paid 858 rixdollars into his estate, and a Mr Rivers paid 136 rixdollars more [MS]. After his debts were paid, 215 rixdollars were left to share among his children [MS].
The staff
Booda’s staff went to his eldest son, Andreas, and after Andreas died in 1853, to his grandson Petrus [MS]. Petrus had no sons, so it passed to his daughter Rosina, who married Pieter Scholz, and then to her daughter Maria [MS]. In 1895 Maria moved to Caledon and married into the Van der Schyff family [MS]. In the 1990s one of her grandsons agreed to let the museum keep the staff, and it was handed over on Heritage Day 2005 [MS]. It is shown in the museum’s Political Room, with the staff of the Koopman captains [MS].
Links to other figures
- Hans Peter Hallbeck was the executor of his will.
- Captain Koopman, another Khoekhoe captain at Genadendal, told C.I. Latrobe in 1816 that the grazing land given to the church and two neighbouring farmers left his people too little for large herds [MS]. See Christian Ignatius Latrobe.
What is still open
- When he was born, and when he became a captain.
- What the Cape government’s own records say about his service.
- Whether he was Hessequa, as Balie’s history suggests.
- How his descendants remember him.
Related
- Valley History
- Hessequa
- Khoekhoe
- The Valley Through TIME
- Genadendal: A Long Walk
- Genadendal Mission Museum
References
- Balie, I. (2023). Genadendal, The Valley of Grace: A Long Walk Through the History of the First Mission Station in South Africa. AuthorHouse. First published 2020. The captains’ duties and staffs, his life, will, and estate, and the history of his staff. Page numbers are on Genadendal: A Long Walk.