Khoikhoi and Dutch bartering sheep and cattle for copper and tobacco.
Although the officials always tried to downplay the political rights of the burghers, they had representatives on some of the most important governing bodies. This enhanced their claim that they were not simply agents of the Company. It was true that they were not represented in the Council of Policy, made up of the highest Company officials. However, when the highest court, the Court Justice sat, three burghers were on the bench whenever the court heard cases involving a burgher. These burgher councillors were entitled to present burgher grievances to visiting commissioners. Thus from an early stage they could speak on behalf of the body of freemen.
Two burghers sat with the same number of officials on two other important boards. One was the Matrimonial Court, before which couples intending to get married had to appear, and the other was the Orphan Chamber. No widower or widow might remarry before satisfying the board that the rights of their children had been safeguarded. In the eighteenth century all wills and inventories of estates had to be registered with it. Since money often had to be deposited, it also served as a loan bank in a settlement that would have no regular commercial bank until deep into the nineteenth century.
