Page 61 - KBHA Bulletin 14

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Era 2: 1742 – 1795: DEIC winter anchorage at Simon’s Town: Horse and wagon tracks link the
farms on either side of the Steenbergen, and the Fish Hoek Valley farms with Simon’s Town.

 1741: The DEIC declared Simon’s Bay the official May to August port as, four years

before, 200 people had died when eight ships had sunk in a single winter storm in Table

Bay. This declaration, and the associated establishment of a settlement there, stimulated
the production of fresh produce from the local area and also created pressures to improve

the coast road to Simon’s Bay.

 1742: Arising from the declaration, the first farms were granted to free-burghers in the

Fish Hoek Valley at Slangenkop (Imhoff’s Gift), Poespaskraal, Noordhoek, and Kleintuin
for the purpose of supplying fresh produce to the settlement and ships at Simon’s Town.

Christina Russouw was obviously a woman of great enterprise and energy. As Zwaanswijk was

halfway between Table Bay and Simon's Bay, she was in a good position to supply provisions to

the ships there during the winter months. The farm’s convenient situation also meant it was a
good stopping place for travellers over-nighting between the two ports. Here Christina provided

hospitality while they out-spanned under the large oak trees. Most people would have been

content to count their blessings but not Christina - fertile pastures lay between the Steenberg and
Simon's Bay which no-one had claimed so, when Baron Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff visited the

Cape in 1742, as Governor General of the Netherlands East Indies, she went to the Castle to ask
for this land. She must have been charmingly persuasive as he gave her more than 50 ha at

Slangkop, near Kommetjie.

On the same day another farm nearby in the Fish Hoek Valley was granted to her neighbour,

Carel Georg Wieser, the owner of Groot Constantia. They built two country houses: hers was
called Slangenkop, later known as Imhoff's Gift, and his was given the name Poespaskraal

(literally Hotch Potch House.) Rumours of love nests in the wilderness were rife, but Christina
worked hard - she grew vegetables on the farm and sent her cattle to graze as far south as Buffels

Bay near Cape Point. Most importantly, from the point of view of this story, both Christina