Page 75 - Bulletin 14 2010

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Considering all the evidence, Burman concluded, in a Cape Times article on 5 August 1961, and
re-affirmed in 1969, that there was nothing at all to support Wallace’s claim that a “main road” or

Ou Pad over the Steenbergen to Simon’s Town had ever existed during late DEIC times, 1742-
1795.

Later still, Malcolm Cobern (1984), an authority on the history of the Fish Hoek valley dismissed
the idea of an Ou Pad. Detailed researches into aspects of DEIC history at the Cape, by Bekker

(1990) and Sleigh (1993), make no reference to an Ou Kaapsche Pad over the mountains.

The authority on the passes of the Cape, Graham Ross, author of The Romance of the Cape
Mountain Passes (2002), analysed the history of almost 500 passes in the Cape but his data-bases

contain virtually no information on the Ou Pad.

Transportation and economic realities during the late DEIC era

Nullifying Wallace’s myth, all travellers’ accounts and old maps prove that the main road
connecting Table Bay to Simon’s Bay from 1742 onwards, ran southward from Wynberg Hill

towards Muizenberg, skirting Sandvlei on its east side, and then along the coast through Kalk
Bay, Fish Hoek and Glencairn. However, of themselves, they do not explain why this was so.

The answer lies in the DEIC’s raison d’etre and the way in which it organized a pattern of
resource collection points (buiteposte) to fulfil this, as well as the economic realities confronting

it. This story is told by Dan Sleigh in his mammoth work, Die Buiteposte (1993), and the

following account is drawn exclusively from it.

The DEIC’s main interest was in shipping raw materials and finished goods from Batavia back to
Holland – a round-trip of some 40,000 km that took two and a half years to complete. The fleets

that sailed three times a year from Holland needed to be re-victualled en route and the settlement
at Table Bay was one of the stations serving this purpose. As sufficient resources for replenishing

the visiting ships were not available within the confines of Table Valley they had to be sought in

the hinterland. For this purpose the DEIC established a system of buiteposte (outposts) on the