Jan Willem Janssens was the Governor of the Cape for the Batavian Republic, the Dutch state of the time, from 1803 until the British took the Cape in January 1806 [IC]. In 1806 he renamed the mission at Baviaanskloof Genadendal, “valley of grace” [IC]. His government recruited Khoekhoe soldiers at the mission, and mission sources say it was their courage that moved him to give the new name [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 Moravian records, including the missionaries’ diaries, and the histories written from them, above all Genadendal: A Long Walk by Isaac Balie.
- [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
The diary passages
Some facts on this page come from new English translations in the Genadendal Diaries repository. They are machine translations that no person has checked yet. See The Genadendal Diaries.
At a glance
| Born | 12 October 1762, at Nijmegen in the Netherlands [IC] |
| Died | 23 May 1838, at The Hague [IC] |
| Known for | Governing the Cape for the Batavian Republic, 1803 to 1806, and losing it to Britain at the Battle of Blaauwberg [IC] |
| Link to the valley | He renamed Baviaanskloof Genadendal [IC] |
Governor of the Cape
The Cape was handed back from Britain to the Dutch, now the Batavian Republic, in 1803, and Janssens governed it from 1 March 1803 [IC]. On 8 January 1806 a British force defeated his troops at Blaauwberg, near Cape Town, and the colony surrendered on 18 January [IC].
Soldiers from the mission
Janssens’s government recruited Khoekhoe men at Baviaanskloof for its army. The missionaries’ diaries record that 22 men enlisted in September 1803, and that in October two baptised men were made corporals [MS]. In 1804, 187 women and children of the soldiers came from the camp at Wynberg to be cared for at the mission [MS]. Balie’s history says men from the mission served in the Corps Vrije Hottentotten, the Battaillon Ligte Infanterie, and later the Cape Regiment, and that the missionary Johann Philipp Kohrhammer was chaplain to the Corps Vrije Hottentotten from 1804 to 1806 [MS].
The new name
Balie’s history says Janssens was so moved by the courage of the soldiers from Baviaanskloof that he decided in 1806 to replace its name, “glen of baboons”, with Genadendal, “valley of grace” [MS]. It also says he took the decision after a visit to the mission in 1806 [MS], and it reproduces his letter announcing the new name [MS]. The mission’s guest house lists him among the governors who stayed there [MS].
Links to other figures
- Christian Ludwig Rose was superintendent at Baviaanskloof when Janssens’s government recruited its soldiers there.
- Lord Caledon governed the Cape for Britain soon after Janssens left.
What is still open
- The exact date of the renaming, and of the letter that announced it. Janssens lost the Cape in January 1806, so a visit in 1806 would have come in the first days of that year.
- How many men from the mission served in his army, and what became of them after Blaauwberg.
- Whether the residents themselves asked for, or welcomed, the new name.
Related
References
- Wikipedia. Jan Willem Janssens. His birth, death, term as governor, and the Battle of Blaauwberg.
- Wikipedia. Genadendal. The renaming in 1806.
- 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 soldiers, the corps, Kohrhammer as chaplain, the reason for the new name, and his letter. Page numbers are on Genadendal: A Long Walk.
- Genadendal Diaries repository. A363597, September and October 1803, and June to November 1804. The recruitment of 1803, the corporals, and the soldiers’ families. Unreviewed machine translations.