| Notes |
- He was a Veldwachtmeester in the Hantam (present day Calvinia).
In July 1786 he set off for the North, purportedly on commando to recover stolen cattle from the Khoikhoi, for which he had been provided powder and shot by the VOC, but in fact it was a hunting, trading and raiding expedition. He took two wagons, his sons Petrus and Andres, his brother in law Jan Wiese, four Khoikhoi servants and four "Bastaard Hottentots" - a term denoting someone with a white father and a Khoikhoi mother. (Two of them were the offspring of a colonist named Willem Engelbrecht.)
They travelled to Great Namaqualand across the Orange River (now Southern Namibia), where they spent several weeks hunting elephants. Leaving some of the party to guard the wagons, they proceeded up the Orange River. Encountering a large kraal of about 400 people, probably the Great Korana, van Zijl claimed that the Korana then requested their assistance against a group further upstream, though this was likely claimed in court in mitigation of later events, as we shall see. After travelling for 15 days upstream they reached a tributary which they called "de Geel Rivier" (Yellow River), probably the Vaal River. Here they encountered a group of Khoikhoi called the Nuncquinqua. With no warning the colonists opened fire, with van Zijl threatening his Khoikhoi servants with being shot themselves if they did not open fire. Van Zijl and his party then rounded up 262 cattle belonging to the group leaving several dead and wounded of the Nuncquinqua behind. When challenged by one of his Khoikhoi servants,
Returning down river they rejoined the rest of the party, attacking another kraal capturing only a further 15 cattle. Eventually they arrived at the remote farm of Petrus Pienaar, at the confluence of the Hartbees and Orange Rivers. The Hartbees River was the best route south and back to their farms in the Hantam, as there was likelihood of encountering water, even though the Hartbees is a seasonal river.
Petrus Pienaar was himself a well known frontier character, who later became well known for raiding and stirring up trouble on the frontier, but he was absent and the farm was in the care of Pienaar's servant, one Jan Bloem, another notorious character. He had apparently fled the colony after murdering his wife and was living at the Orange River out of reach of justice, where he had acquired several Korana wives.
While the van Zijl party camped on Pienaar's farm, it seems Bloem noticed the dubiously acquired cattle and concluded there would be no harm in taking a few for himself. Discovering this, van Zijl and Wiese assaulted Bloem, leaving him unconscious and bleeding, rounded up their missing cattle, and set of south.
Back in the Hantam it was hard for them to conceal the new cattle from their neighbours, who began complaining that the cattle were gazing on their land, having been to Calvinia myself, I can confirm that there is very little for cattle to graze on. Rumours began circulating about the source of the cattle and a story emerged of a group of about 400 "Namaquas", probably van Zijl's victims, who were searching for van Zijl to attack and kill him. They were only dissuaded when they heard how far away the Hantam was from the Orange River.
The landdrost at Stellenbosch (this was nearest court at the time, showing how remote the Hantam was) became alarmed and summoned the Khoikhoi servants to be examined. Subsequently Andries van Zijl, his son Petrus and Jan Wiese were arrested. Andries was spared because he was only 14 at the time of the raid. In 1788 Andries van Zijl and Jan Wiese were sentenced to be banished to the Netherlands, while Petrus was to be imprisoned on Robben Island for two years. The banishment only lasted about two years after which van Zijl and Wiese were back in the Colony.
While Petrus was imprisoned, Andries (now about 18) seduced his wife Margaretha Johanna van Schalkwijk. After Petrus was released, Andries continued to live with Margaretha and fathered several children with her, while Petrus took another wife. Incidentally, Margaretha was first cousin to Petrus and Andries, their Mothers were sisters. The Hantam was a rough place in the 18th century!
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1735 - 