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From: "Mansell upham" <>
Subject: [ZA] Re: SOUTH-AFRICA-D Digest V03 #649
Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 03:24:38 +0200


Greetings!

There were several contemporaneous slave women named Maria van Bengale
during the early Dutch colonial occupation of the Cape of Good Hope.

Jan van Riebeeck is on record as privately owning a woman named Maria Van
Bengale who was caught in flagrante delictu but her daughter was NOT
Machteld Cornelisse.

Machteld Cornelisse was the daughter of the slave woman Catharina van
Malabar and her lawful husband the Dutchman Cornelis Claesz. Catharina's
family is featured in various publications, eg Capensis, Die Eertse
Vryswartes van Stellenbosch and the recently published book on the various
Claassen families of South Africa.

Best wishes
Mansell Upham

>Hi Keith,

>I have read elsewhere that Maria was "owned" by Jan van Riebeeck; and at
>some stage she was found in bed with a constable, Willem Cornelis. He was
>dismissed from his post and she was sent back to her own room. The child of
>this liaison was Machteld Cornelisse, who married Gert Willemse (my wife's
>Stamvader). Was this story incorrect -- and that she was not van Riebeeck's
>slave. Where does the Cornelis affair fit in?

>Graham McMorland

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