Georg Schmidt was a Moravian missionary, the first Protestant missionary to work among the Khoekhoe at the Cape [IC]. On 23 April 1738 he settled at Baviaanskloof, the place now called Genadendal, and started the school that still runs there [IC]. He was born in 1709 in a Moravian village where believers had kept the faith of Jan Amos Comenius in secret for almost a hundred years [MS]. This page tells his story and shows how it is linked to Comenius.
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 Moravian Church histories and records, including Schmidt’s own diary and letters. These often agree with each other because they share an origin, and have not been checked against sources that do not depend on them.
- [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
At a glance
| Born | 30 September 1709, at Kunewalde in Moravia (now the Czech Republic) [IC] |
| Died | 1 August 1785, at Niesky in Germany [IC] |
| Church | The Moravian Church, renewed at Herrnhut [IC] |
| Known for | Starting the first mission and school at Baviaanskloof in 1738 [IC] |
| Link to Comenius | Born in one of the villages Comenius wrote for, and sent by the church Comenius had led |
Early life and prison
Schmidt was born on 30 September 1709 at Kunewalde, the son of a peasant family [IC]. Kunewalde is today called Kunín, in the Czech Republic [TBV]. It should not be confused with Kunvald in Bohemia, where the Unity of the Brethren was founded in 1457 [TBV]. He was trained as a butcher [MS].
In 1726 he walked to Herrnhut in Saxony, the village where Moravian refugees were rebuilding their church [IC]. In 1728 the community sent him back into Bohemia with Melchior Nitschmann to hold secret meetings with the believers who were still hiding there [MS]. Both were arrested [IC]. Nitschmann died in prison [MS]. Schmidt spent about six years in prison and forced labour [IC]. Moravian sources say he gave up his faith in order to be released, and regretted it for the rest of his life [MS]. He was freed in about 1734 [IC].
At the Cape and Baviaanskloof (1737 to 1744)
In 1736 two ministers in the Netherlands asked Herrnhut for a missionary to the Khoekhoe at the Cape [IC]. Schmidt, then 27, went [MS]. He sailed from the Netherlands on 4 December 1736 and landed at Table Bay on 9 July 1737 [IC].
Later in 1737 he began teaching Khoekhoe people in Dutch, first at a kraal near the Sonderend River where Africo was the clan leader [MS]. On 23 April 1738 he settled at Baviaanskloof [IC]. Balie’s history gives the day as 25 April 1738, and says the Moravian practice of drawing lots decided the move [MS]. By the end of that year, 28 people were living and learning at the station [IC]. Balie’s history says thirteen colonists’ farms already lay near Baviaanskloof when he arrived [MS].
He taught reading and writing under a pear tree [IC]. He dug a water furrow and planted vegetable gardens, and people worked in exchange for supplies [IC]. In 1739 he built a hartebeeshuis (a house of reeds and clay), a sheep kraal, and a threshing floor [IC]. His students also learned to sow and harvest wheat [MS]. He kept a diary of this work, which was published at Bellville in 1981 [IC]. See Georg Schmidt’s Diary.
In 1742 his authority to baptise arrived from Herrnhut [IC]. He baptised five people, among them Willem, Africo, and Vehettge Tikkuie, who took the name Magdalena [IC]. The Dutch Reformed ministers at the Cape said he had no right to baptise [IC]. Farmers were also unhappy to lose cheap Khoekhoe labour [IC]. Schmidt left the Cape in 1744 and was never allowed to return [IC]. Sources give different dates for his departure, 6 January or 5 March 1744 [IC]. Balie’s history gives four different years for his first baptisms on different pages: 1739, 1740, 1742, and 1743 [MS].
The meeting at Baviaanskloof did not happen between equals. The Dutch East India Company ruled the Cape, and settlers had been taking Khoekhoe land for decades [IC]. What Schmidt started lasted because of the Khoekhoe who stayed. For 48 years after he left, Magdalena kept the small congregation together under the pear tree, reading from the Dutch New Testament he had given her [IC]. See History of the Valley.
Later life
Schmidt spent the rest of his life serving the Moravian Church in Germany, Bohemia, and Silesia [MS]. From 1752 he lived at Niesky, a Moravian settlement in Germany [TBV]. He died there on 1 August 1785 [IC]. Balie’s history says he was found dead on his knees, at the hour he kept for praying for his African congregation [MS]. He never learned that missionaries returned to Baviaanskloof in 1792 and found Magdalena still teaching [MS].
How he is linked to Comenius
Schmidt was born 39 years after Comenius died, so the two never met [IC]. The link between them runs through three things. The Comenius page has a diagram of the whole line.
1. The village he came from. Late in life, Comenius wrote a catechism for the secret believers in Bohemia and Moravia [MS]. He marked the villages it was meant for with initials only [MS]. Church historian J.E. Hutton identifies them as Fulneck, Kunewalde, Zauchtenthal, and five others, the villages that sent the first exiles to Herrnhut [MS]. Schmidt was born at Kunewalde [IC]. He belonged to the “Hidden Seed” that Comenius had prayed would survive, and in 1728 he went back into Bohemia to serve it [MS].
2. The church that sent him. Herrnhut saw itself as the same church Comenius had led as bishop [IC]. Its founding agreement of 1727 was shaped by Comenius’s account of the old church’s order, the Ratio Disciplinae [IC]. Schmidt had lived at Herrnhut since 1726 [IC].
3. His authority to baptise. Comenius made his son-in-law, Peter Jablonski, a bishop, and Peter made his son Daniel Ernst Jablonski a bishop [MS]. Daniel Ernst, Comenius’s grandson, consecrated the first bishops of the renewed church: David Nitschmann in 1735, and Count Zinzendorf, with Nitschmann, on 20 May 1737 [IC]. In 1742 the authority to baptise reached Schmidt at Baviaanskloof from Herrnhut [IC]. When the Cape ministers rejected his baptisms, they were rejecting a line of bishops that went back to Comenius.
His teaching. Schmidt’s school at Baviaanskloof matched many of Comenius’s ideas about education. It was open to all who came, taught reading in the local language, and taught through work in the gardens and fields [MS]. Whether Schmidt learned these methods from the Comenius tradition at Herrnhut has not been shown [TBV]. A 1961 study by Jerome Clauser on Comenius and Moravian schools may settle the question. It has not yet been read for this page.
His legacy in the valley
- The school he began is now L.R. Schmidt Primary School in George Schmidt Avenue, Genadendal [IC].
- 23 April 2038 marks 300 years since he settled at Baviaanskloof. See Future of the Valley.
- The Genadendal Mission Museum keeps the history of the mission he started [MS].
What is still open
- Whether Schmidt learned Comenius’s teaching methods at Herrnhut.
- The day he settled at Baviaanskloof. Most sources give 23 April 1738. Balie’s history gives 25 April 1738, without a source. Schmidt’s own diary, published in 1981, may settle it.
- The exact date he left the Cape in 1744.
- Whether Kunewalde is today’s Kunín.
- How the Khoekhoe who met him, such as Africo and Magdalena, saw him. Almost everything known about him comes from his own diary and from Moravian records.
Related
- Jan Amos Comenius
- Africo
- Magdalena
- The Missionaries of 1792
- Valley History
- History of the Valley
- Future of the Valley
- Genadendal
- L.R. Schmidt Primary School
- Moravian Church Genadendal
- Genadendal Mission Museum
- Genadendal: A Long Walk
References
- Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Schmidt, Georg. Birth, imprisonment, teaching from 1737, the founding in 1738, departure in 1744, and death at Niesky.
- South African History Online. Georg Schmidt. Birth date and place, Herrnhut, six years in prison, the voyage, departure on 5 March 1744, Niesky, and death on 1 August 1785.
- Moravian Church in America. Coffee with Moravian Ancestors: Georg Schmidt (2021). The mission with Melchior Nitschmann, his recanting, the five baptisms, departure on 6 January 1744, and his later years.
- Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Tikhuie, Vehettge Magdalena. Magdalena’s baptism and her 48 years.
- Genadendal Project. History of Genadendal and Surrounds. His first months near Africo’s kraal, and the buildings of 1739.
- Hutton, J.E. (1909). A History of the Moravian Church, chapter 16, “Comenius and the Hidden Seed, 1627 to 1672”. The villages behind Comenius’s catechism, and the line of bishops.
- Wikipedia. Daniel Ernst Jablonski and Nicolaus Zinzendorf. The consecrations of 1735 and 1737.
- Schmidt, G. and others (1981). Das Tagebuch und die Briefe von Georg Schmidt, dem ersten Missionar in Südafrika (1737 to 1744). Bellville: Wes-Kaaplandse Instituut vir Historiese Navorsing (Western Cape Institute for Historical Research). See Georg Schmidt’s Diary. His own diary and letters.
- 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 date of 25 April 1738, the lot, the neighbouring farms, the wheat, the dates of the first baptisms, and the manner of his death. Page numbers are on Genadendal: A Long Walk.