Ward 2 Development Forum

Soeswa

Properties3
descriptionLeader of the Chainoqua, the Khoekhoe people whose land took in this valley when the Dutch arrived. He met Jan van Riebeeck in 1661 and died in 1663. For a time the Chainoqua were known by his name.
tagstheme/heritage, lang/en
aliasesSousoa, Soesoa, Sousa, Chainoqua chief

4 min read

Soeswa was the leading chief of the Chainoqua, the Khoekhoe people who lived in the Overberg when the Dutch East India Company (VOC) came to the Cape [IC]. Their land ran from the Hottentots Holland mountains towards Cape Agulhas and inland to the Riviersonderend mountains, and some of their kraals stood near where Genadendal is today [IC]. Soeswa was so well known that within twenty years of first contact with the Dutch, the Chainoqua were often called by his name [IC]. He is the earliest leader of the valley’s people whose name has come down to us.

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 records of one side only. For Soeswa, nearly every record was written by VOC officials, such as Jan van Riebeeck’s journal. No account from the Chainoqua side survives in writing.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

At a glance

BornNot known
Died1663 [IC]
Known forLeading the Chainoqua, and agreeing a cattle trade with the VOC in 1661 [IC]
Link to the valleyHis people’s land took in the valley of the Sonderend River [IC]

The Chainoqua

The Chainoqua were herders who kept cattle and sheep and moved with the seasons [IC]. Their land covered some 12,000 square kilometres [IC]. East of the Breede River lived their neighbours, the Hessequa [IC].

They lived in four main groups of kraals [IC]. Each kraal was led by a headman, and a camp could hold from 20 to more than 100 matjieshuise, houses of reed mats [IC]. Cattle were the measure of wealth [IC]. Land was held by the group as a whole, and nobody could divide it up for themselves [IC].

Soeswa’s own group lived in the Villiersdorp valley and along the upper Riviersonderend [IC]. Another group lived between the Riviersonderend and the mountains, with smaller kraals near present-day Genadendal and Riviersonderend [IC].

Soeswa and the Dutch

The VOC set up its station at the Cape in 1652 [IC]. Its people first met the Chainoqua on 14 November 1657 [IC]. In 1661 Soeswa visited Jan van Riebeeck, the VOC commander, and agreed to trade cattle with the company [IC]. From 1662 to 1713, the Chainoqua and the Hessequa were the largest suppliers of cattle and sheep to the Dutch [IC].

Soeswa died in 1663 [IC]. Later Chainoqua leaders, among them Dorha (whom the Dutch called Klaas), tried to hold back the colony’s spread into Chainoqua land [IC].

What happened to his people

The cattle trade drew the Chainoqua deeper into the colony’s economy. Dutch travellers found rich grazing at the Huis River, where Greyton now stands, in 1669, and took land that looked empty while the herders were away [IC]. Smallpox, brought by ships in 1713, killed many Khoekhoe [IC]. Over the 1700s the Chainoqua lost most of their land, which was divided into farms for colonists [IC]. Independent Khoekhoe kraals were still recorded near Genadendal as late as 1803 [IC].

When Georg Schmidt arrived in 1737, the people he taught were living on what had been Chainoqua land [IC].

  • Africo led a clan near the Sonderend River in 1737, in the old Chainoqua area. Whether his clan was Chainoqua is not recorded [TBV].
  • Stoffel Koekson was a Khoekhoe leader whom Greyton sources place at Boschmanskloof later in the 1600s.

What is still open

  • When he was born, and how he became chief.
  • Who led the Chainoqua after him.
  • How the Chainoqua themselves remembered him. Families in the valley may hold stories that were never written down.

References

  • The Digging Stick, volume 6, number 3 (November 1989). Archaeological Society of South Africa. Chainoqua territory, first contact on 14 November 1657, the people known by Soeswa’s name, and the cattle trade of 1662 to 1713.
  • Wikipedia. Groenland mountains. The Chainoqua under Soeswa and later Dorha, and their loss of land.
  • CapeNature. Riviersonderend Complex Protected Area Management Plan 2021 to 2031, section 2.5, citing Le Roux (1984) and Clift (2001). The four kraal groups, Soeswa’s group in the Villiersdorp valley, the meeting of 1661, and his death in 1663.
  • Bredekamp, H.C. “Die lewe van ‘n Khoikhoi-kaptein: Dorha alias Klaas”. On a later Chainoqua leader.
  • Elphick, R. Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa. The standard history of the Khoekhoe and the early Cape.

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