SUSANNA

36| PROSPERITY AND POVERTY

Commander Cornelis van Quaelberg was not an easy man to love. He was everything that Zacharias Wagenaer was not. Harsh and selfish, he considered nobody's happiness but his own. Many justified his behaviour in the beginning.

'Give him time,' they canvassed on his behalf. 'The poor man lost his wife. Death changes a man.'

'Prosperity is a gift of God bestowed upon some. That gift had been given to me, your Commander. I share that power with some of you.' he chastised the few who held the keys of power in the settlement. 'The acquisition of wealth and prosperity fell outside the realms of those with low rank and inferior birth because it breeds insolence.'

But sympathy had a short shelf life among those who held no sway: those at the coalface of Khoe attacks; those who guarded outposts, and those who toiled the land from dawn to dusk.

Some of his utterances soon reached the ears of those without rank and station. Each joke behind the back of Commander van Qualberg inculcated a perception that those eking out an existence at the fringes of the Colony were not equal to those with station. That putting food on the tables of the growing Dutch settlement and on the ships in the harbour to and from Batavia, the Netherlands and elsewhere made them lesser men because the God they prayed to had only bestowed his favour on a few. The Commander's different way of doing things did not hold any promise of a better life. The freemen, who still bore the scars of their previous existence as low-ranking soldiers and sailors had no intention of dying in poverty.

'We fought in those wars. The blood of our forefathers, our family and fellow countrymen fertilised the battlefields of our fatherland's war for independence. We carry the scars. These hands lowered the bodies of fellow mates who died of disease, hunger and thirst in the belly of the Company's ships into the sea. They are at rest at the bottom of the ocean, and we made it, living in the throngs of a Golden Age. Except, we are not living. We are tired of existing. We must demand a part of this wealth that cost so many lives.' They gathered on the farms and inns and found inspiration in their shared visions of upward mobility. 'We will write to the Netherlands. We want a part of this Colony. Our dreams will not be eaten by the beliefs of this stork.'

The few with rank and station in his administration had begun to buy into the belief that labour was a commodity and the Dutch East India Company determined its price and value. Loyalties were split. Old ties broken. Power was something to behold, revered and protected. Labour was restless. Messy. Expendable. Bought and sold at a whim to the highest bidder. It was not a bridge to power and station.

Van Qualberg summoned his most trusted spies and instructed them in secret. 'I want all eyes and ears on the Saldanha traders. Use every available source at your disposal. Any drunk, whore or slave. Bring me something to stop that rot of indecency that is festering among them.'

'We misjudged him,' they whispered after church on a Sunday. 'The Bible promises good things to those who wait on the Lord. It is God's wish for us to prosper.'

In the public square the newsreader proclaimed, 'Wagenaer was the log, you would agree? There is agreement from various quarters of the Colony that the gods in Batavia had elevated a stork to the ranks of Commander.'

Things were not going in the favour of all the freemen and soldiers. But there were some at the Cape of Good Hope destined for a ride on the wave of prosperity that accompanied the visitors who were at the helm of the Golden Age.

Among the slaves Angela was one of the chosen few upon whom the kiss of prosperity lingered. She ran her own fresh produce business and had distinguished herself as a formidable business woman in the Colony.