Page 15 - Bulletin 9 2005

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company reach shore, they were further faced with the difficult conditions on land. The
South African coast is relatively arid. There are few rivers to provide fresh drinking water

to shipwreck survivors; food would have been difficult to come by for foreign sailors in a
new land, and politics and war repeatedly resulted in hostility from local inhabitants.

The story of the English East Indiaman Grosvenor, wrecked on the Wild Coast while under
the command of John Coxon in August 1782, illustrates the hardships faced by shipwreck

survivors. As with so many other shipwrecks, the Grosvenor disaster had been the result of
rough seas and poor navigation. Officers had miscalculated the position of the ship to be at

least 200 nautical miles from the coast and despite warnings from the watch, the ship was
wrecked. Although the Pondo inhabitants watched the wreck from the shore, they offered

little assistance to the survivors struggling up the rocky ledges and low cliffs on the

shoreline. Of the 121 survivors who set out for Algoa Bay under the command of Captain
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Coxon , only 18 would survive. Those who died were overcome by hunger, thirst and
exhaustion, compounded by hostile or indifferent inhabitants. Two factors may have played

an important role in the hostility that the shipwrecked crew encountered. Firstly, news of
the frontier wars that were being fought between European colonists and indigenous people

to the south of the Grosvenor wreck site had no doubt reached the Pondo people, with the
result that Europeans would have been treated with suspicion and aggression. Secondly,

experience of earlier European shipwreck survivors such as those of the Portuguese ship
Nossa Senhora da Belem, who were aggressive towards local inhabitants, would have

resulted in a degree of mistrust.

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It is interesting to note that the election of the ship’s commander as party leader on shore is by no means unique to the Grosvenor. This
wholesale acceptance of maritime leaders as leaders both at sea and on land and the manner in which these people would have officiated
would have directly influenced developments of outposts and colonies. Even officials who were dispatched from Europe specifically as
administrators would have absorbed some factors of maritime command on the long sea voyages from Europe and applied it to their
duties in new lands. The importance of knowing the mindset of maritime travellers is clear, as it can be applied to colonial settlements all
over the world. The development of the Cape as a refreshment station specifically for shipping would almost certainly have been effected
by this acceptance maritime culture and this would have transposed itself onto all aspects of South African life and development. The
results of shipwrecks and the behaviour of people arriving on South Africa’s shore is reflected time and time again in the development of
the country into its current form. The early arrivals at the Cape from Europe and other parts of Africa fundamentally changed the history
of southern Africa and the continent as a whole.