Ward 2 Development Forum

Johann Christian Kühnel

Properties3
descriptionGerman Moravian missionary and knife-maker (1762 to 1813), one of the three who reopened the mission at Baviaanskloof in 1792. His forge of 1797 began the Genadendal knives, sold across the Cape.
tagstheme/heritage, lang/en
aliasesChristian Kühnel, Johann Christian Kuhnel, Joh. Chr. Kühnel, Brother Kühnel

10 min read

Johann Christian Kühnel was one of the three Moravian missionaries who reopened the mission at Baviaanskloof, now Genadendal, on 24 December 1792 [IC]. He was a knife-maker, or cutler, and the youngest of the three [MS]. After years of waiting for leave to build, he set up the mission’s forge in 1797, and the knives he made there were soon sold across the Cape [IC]. The forge gave the mission its first trade for sale, and taught the craft to Khoekhoe apprentices. His story is also told, with that of Hendrik Marsveld and Daniel Schwinn, on The Missionaries of 1792.

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 heritage register.
  • [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from Moravian records, above all the missionaries’ own diaries, and the histories written from them.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

The diary passages

Many facts on this page 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. See The Genadendal Diaries.

At a glance

Born10 June 1762, at Ober-Seifersdorf in Germany, according to [[history/genadendal-a-long-walk
Died20 April 1813, at Genadendal [MS]
Known forReopening the mission in 1792, and founding its forge and knife-making in 1797 [IC]
Link to the valleyOne of the founders of the mission that became Genadendal. Kühnel House, in the mission complex on Church Square, is a Provincial Heritage Site [IC].

A craftsman missionary

Moravian missionaries were chosen from among tradesmen, who were expected to earn their own living among the people they served [MS]. Kühnel was a German knife-maker [MS]. Balie’s history says he was trained as a cutler by the Neissers, a Moravian family [MS]. The Dutch copy of the diaries calls him and Schwinn “two German brothers”, who in the first months could not yet preach in Dutch [MS]. He brought files with him from Amsterdam, and the church in Europe sent him lathes, grindstones, and screw clamps, so that he could earn money towards the mission’s costs [MS].

Diaries: A363595, lines 11473 to 11533

The first years (1792 to 1795)

The three missionaries arrived on 24 December 1792 [IC]. In February 1793 Schwinn and Kühnel moved into the first room of the new mission house, built of clay by Khoekhoe helpers [MS]. In April 1793 the missionaries made a bell from a sheet of brass bought at the Cape, because the pupils had no clock and had to be called to school [MS]. A study of the Moravian mission bells credits Kühnel with making it [MS].

Kühnel shared the daily work of the mission: teaching, holding the singing meetings, visiting the sick, and leading Khoekhoe work parties to cut wood in the mountains [MS]. On 27 December 1794 he held the baptism of a woman who took the name Catharina [MS]. In April 1794 he rode east with Hendrik Marsveld and a Khoekhoe man, Jacob, to Swellendam and the Snake River, probably the Slangrivier near present-day Heidelberg, to visit Khoekhoe kraals [MS].

A workshop forbidden

The mission needed a workshop for Kühnel’s trade, and its foundation was laid in 1794 [MS]. Commissioner Abraham Josias Sluysken ordered that nothing be built until the Commissioners-General returned from Batavia [MS]. The missionaries wrote that if they built, they could be called disobedient, and “might perhaps give the whole mission a blow” [MS]. In January 1795 a senior officer in Cape Town, Colonel Gordon, asked Marsveld whether Kühnel had started forging knives. Marsveld answered that they had no workshop, because the Commissioner had forbidden them to build “anything at all, even a goat shed” [MS].

Diaries: A363349, lines 14598 to 14617; A363595, lines 2945 to 2979; A363595, lines 12948 to 12999; A363595, lines 13732 to 13806

The crisis of 1795

In March 1795 Juffrouw Teunis, of the company post at Soetemelksvlei, sent for one of the missionaries because Khoekhoe cattle had got into her garden. Kühnel rode to her, and told her the missionaries could not help it and she must do as she thought best. She had the cattle impounded, and their owners paid 2 shillings a head to get them back [MS].

On the night of 29 July 1795, when the order of Commandant Bisani reached the mission, Kühnel rode to Baas Teunis for advice. Teunis told him to obey, because “might goes before right”, and offered to keep the mission’s goods safe [MS]. Earlier that month Kühnel had ridden to the farms of Gildenheuser and Mary for news of the rebels [MS]. After the missionaries returned from Cape Town, he arranged with Baas Teunis in September to share out the government’s flour among 116 wives and children of Khoekhoe men serving at the Cape [MS].

Diaries: A363596, lines 474 to 510 and 599 to 615; A363596, lines 1789 to 1830 and 2050 to 2085; A363596, lines 2422 to 2441

The forge (1796 to 1797)

Under British rule the mission could build. In December 1795 Kühnel rode to buy boards and to show Baas Teunis the new permit to cut building timber [MS]. In July 1796 the overseer of the warm baths made him a pair of bellows, a tool so dear that some farmers had paid 40 or 50 rixdollars for one [MS]. In October 1796 the missionaries decided to build a workshop for him [MS]. In March 1797 he and Marsveld drove to Cape Town for the tools the smithy needed [MS].

The forge was built in March 1797 [IC]. The farmers round about had agreed among themselves not to buy anything the mission made [MS]. Before the smithy was even finished, they were ordering knives, and by the end of 1797 Kühnel could not make a quarter of what was wanted [MS]. He took a young Khoekhoe man as an apprentice [MS]. The knives became known as Genadendal knives and were sold across the Cape [MS].

Diaries: A363349, lines 11466 to 11487; A363349, lines 16286 to 16293; A363349, lines 16673 to 16680; A363349, lines 15871 to 15878; A363349, lines 12633 to 12646

Later years

Kühnel went on teaching as well as working the forge. In May 1797, when children misbehaved in school, he told them he could not speak to them of the Saviour and sent them home. The children crowded round him and begged forgiveness, and he spoke with them and forgave them [MS]. In August 1797 he fetched sheep from a farmer who had bought them on a journey into the Xhosa country, giving the mission a flock of its own for the first time [MS].

In December 1803 Kühnel and Brother Rose rode with some Khoekhoe to the boundary of the mission’s land to welcome the Commissioner-General, De Mist [MS]. Kühnel signed the mission’s diary in February 1804, with Rose, Kohrhammer, Marsveld, and Schwinn [MS].

In 1800 Schwinn came back from Europe with brides for Kühnel and Marsveld, chosen by lot, and the couples were married in Cape Town [MS]. Kühnel’s wife, Christiana Amalia Dressler, was born at Arnsdorf near Görlitz in 1769, and died at Genadendal on 8 June 1810, aged 41 [MS]. Kühnel died at Genadendal on 20 April 1813 [MS]. Balie’s history quotes the mission’s report, which called him “a most active, useful and faithful servant of Christ” [MS]. His grave is in the old mission cemetery [MS]. Balie’s history says his knife trade became one of the mission’s main sources of income [MS].

Diaries: A363349, lines 16098 to 16145; A363349, lines 12397 to 12426; A363597, lines 1029 to 1077; A363597, lines 1506 to 1510

How to read his story

What is known of Kühnel comes almost entirely from the diaries he and his fellow missionaries wrote for their church in Europe. They record what the missionaries did and thought. The young Khoekhoe man who learned the trade at his forge is not named, and nothing is recorded of how the Khoekhoe residents saw him.

  • The Missionaries of 1792. Kühnel, Hendrik Marsveld, and Daniel Schwinn arrived and worked together. Their shared story is told on that page.
  • Hendrik Marsveld. His companion on the journey to the Snake River in 1794, and to Cape Town for the smithy’s tools in 1797 [MS].
  • Abraham Josias Sluysken. The company’s head of government, whose ban on building held up Kühnel’s workshop until 1796 [MS].
  • Bisani. The rebel commandant whose order drove the missionaries away in July 1795 [MS].
  • Gildenhuijs. The neighbouring farmer whose farm Kühnel visited for news in 1795 [MS].

His legacy in the valley

  • Kühnel House, in the mission complex on Church Square, is a Provincial Heritage Site [IC].
  • Genadendal knives, made in the tradition Kühnel began, are in the collection of the Genadendal Mission Museum [MS].
  • The forge began the mission’s crafts for sale. In the second half of the 1800s factory goods undercut them, and many people left to find work elsewhere [TBV]. See The Mission Economy.

What is still open

  • Whether Kühnel House was his home. Balie’s history says the building is the old Genadendal guest house of about 1800, and that the name Kühnel House was given in the 1960s, when it became part of a hostel for high school boys [MS].
  • The name of his Khoekhoe apprentice, and whether the craft passed down in Genadendal families.
  • What Genadendal knives sold for, and where.

References

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