In 1688 a party of some 180 French Huguenots arrived, fleeing religious persecution in France and Belgium. Simon van der Stel settled most of them in Franschhoek and Drakenstein (today’s town of Paarl) and gave instructions that the French be interspersed with the other burghers ‘so that they could learn our language and morals, and be integrated with the Dutch nation’.
The authorities in Amsterdam took a more lenient line, however, and permitted them to form a congregation. In 1691 Drakenstein became the third congregation after the Cape and Stellenbosch. But the policy of forced cultural assimilation remained in force; by 1750 no one under the age of 40 could still speak French.
The Huguenots did much to stabilise the free burgher population. Without a fatherland to return to, they had to take root or disappear. Religious persecution had made them more determined and more prepared to overcome obstacles. Descendants of the Huguenots were to establish positions of leadership in Afrikaner society out of all proportion to their numbers. Some 40 Huguenot surnames still survive.
The Huguenots made a difference in another important respect. Previously, the shortage of European women prompted many men to take half-caste slaves as brides or mistresses. The Huguenots were generally already married, young as well as fecund. As the girls in these large families grew up, men’s stable liaisons with non-European women declined and a clearer pattern of endogamy became established.
