Coenraad de Buys
| Coenraad De Buys | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Coenraad De Buys 1761 Wagenboomrivier, Montagu |
| Died | 1821 Zoutpansberg area |
| Cause of death | Possibly Yellow Fever |
| Other names |
Coenraad Buys "go kgowa", ancient Tswana verb meaning "to peel with a knife"- because the painfully sunburnt Coenraad had left him with red skin that "was regarded as bare flesh peeled off with a knife". |
| Children | Coenraad was said to have fathered 315 children! |
| Parent(s) | Johannes (Jean) Du Buis (01 Jan 1731 - Sept 1769) Christina Scheepers (05 Dec 1723 -) |
| Signature | |
 |
|
Coenraad Buys
"Moro", an adulteration of the Dutch/Afrikaans "More", with which he greeted the Hurutshe.
Coenraad De Buys (1761 – 1821) was described as "a remarkable figures" on the frontier of the Cape Colony. Travellers described him in tones of awe. Their accounts mentioned that he was an impressive figure, nearly seven foot tall and with enormous self-confidence.
Jean De Bus, a wine farmer from Calais, arrived at the Cape with the French Huguenots on board De Oosterland on 25 April 1688. He married a French woman, Sara Jacob, and his son Jean and grandson Jean (sometimes known as Jan) married Cape Dutch women. This last marriage produced a number of offspring including a son, Coenraad De Buys / Buys. Coenraad is regarded as the stamvader (progenitor) of the De Buys/Buys people.
By 1773, about eight homesteads had been built in the Langkloof. The pioneers of the area included Jan De Buys on the farm De Ezeljacht. He was the father of Coenraad De Buys. Coenraad was born on the farm Wagenboomrivier in 1761. He had his own farm, De Opkomst, near Kareedouw/Montagu.
When Coenraad was around 7 years old saw his father sitting on a chair "with his legs drawn up as stiff as planks". He was clutching his stomach and screaming. All that night he writhed in pain and died the next day. Coenraad walked to his half sister, Geertruy's house and hold her about the death.
Geertruy told Coenraad that she had seen another man die in same way - her father, Christina's first husband, Dirk Minnie.
It is widely believed that Christina had poisoned them both. Coenraad decided not to go back home and lived with Geertruy and her husband, David Senekal, raising the livestock he received from his father's estate. Christina married David's brother, Jacob Senekal within six months.
In the early 1780s Coenraad lived on a farm near the Bushmans River in the Zuurveld with a Baster-Khoikhoi woman, Maria van der Horst, with whom he had seven children. Maria was of slave descent.
He often crossed the Fish River and raided cattle from the Xhosa. Langa, a Zuurveld chief, charged that De Buys had seized his wife and used her as a concubine, and two other chiefs said that De Buys had ‘withheld’ their wives and cattle. He went to live in the homestead of Ngqika well beyond the colonial border. Here he married Ngqika’s mother, Yese, the wife of Mlawu kaRarabe, and became Nqqika's main advisor. He also took a Thembu wife, Elizabeth, and had many children with her.
...
Wikipedia