4. RESEARCH DOCUMENTS Cruel Justice at the Cape
But let us go back to the beginning and trace the awesome history of this infamous place and review the atrocities perpetrated there in the name of justice. There is not a square of ground in South Africa which has a more gory or shameful background than this quarter-acre of blood-soaked earth. The Castle Good Hope, though not finally completed until 1697, came into use officially in 1674 when the garrison took possession. During this period at the Cape only the Castle and a small settlement of burger dwellings existed. The Castle housed the Governor, the garrison and all the Dutch East India servants, including the Council of Justice. A Journey into the Colourful and Fascinating history of the Cape
July / August 2004 – Volume 4 Issue 7 No. 40
The Cape Odyssey
Cruel Justice at the Cape
Incredible public tortures and executions by Mervyn Emms
In 1795 the British under the command of General Craig occupied the Cape after the Battle of Muizenberg. After the signing of the peace treaty at Rustenberg House in Rondebosch the British reached the Castle to take occupancy. As they skirted the Castle they observed on their flank a square of high ground surrounded by a wall and festooned with wheels, gibbets and gallows.
Hardened soldiers that they were, living in an age of rough justice, nevertheless they must have shuddered at the stark barbarity of the place. But Justitie Plaats as it was officially known, though it had blighted the landscape for nigh a hundred years, was already nearing the end of its infamous reign.
Major General Craig, on taking over the reins of government, promptly lodged a protest to the President and members of the Civil Court of Justice regarding the severity of sentences and the conducting of public torture, but this was not heeded. The Court of Justice felt that it would increase crime if they relaxed the sentences.
When Lord Macartney took over as Gvernor of the Cape in 1796 he abolished torture as part of executions, but these were still done in public and the exhibiting of heads and gibbeting of bodies as a deterrent of crime continued.
But let us go back to the beginning and trace the awesome history of this infamous place and review the atrocities perpetrated there in the name of justice. There is not a square of ground in South Africa which has a more gory or shameful background than this quarter-acre of blood-soaked earth. The Castle Good Hope, though not finally completed until 1697, came into use officially in 1674 when the garrison took possession. During this period at the Cape only the Castle and a small settlement of burger dwellings existed. The Castle housed the Governor, the garrison and all the Dutch East India servants, including the Council of Justice.
The Castle contained dungeons and torture chambers, and the Leerdam bastion on the corner of the present Darling and Buitenkant Streets was set aside as the place of execution. This site, however, had a number of disadvantages. Executions had by law to be a public spectacle and were well attended. As the population at that time was around 600 Europeans it was difficult to accommodate spectators. It was also not good for security to allow all and sundry free access to the Castle. As torture was a prolonged affair and the victim often endured several days, it is probable that this was disturbing to the Governor and residents of the Castle.
The bodies of the executed had to be publicly exhibited at the entrance to the town so that all who entered could heed the warning and slight rise on the left of the entry road and directly opposite the Leerdam bastion became the convenient place for this display. When it was decided to discontinue executions in the Castle, they were then conducted on this same area of high ground where previously bodies ha been gibbeted. This probably took place shortly before 1700.
Cape Town in the late 17th century had no private dwellings between the Castle and the Heerengracht (now Adderly Street). From the Castle the Parade extended to the Heerengracht and from the beach (now the site of the old railway station) it extende up to the Burger Gardens beyond the present Roeland Street. The Castle moat was filled by the stream from Platteklip Gorge which came down in the vicinity of the present Harrington Street andmarked the town's southern limit (this stream now feeds into the Duncan Dock via the Parade Street drain which links up with the Adderly Street drain at ta point on the new foreshore).
The track from the Castle to the Burger Gardens was thus on the extreme outskirts of the town and became known as the Buitenkant (the outside). The areaof high ground which was to become Justitie Plaats was conveniently situated at the entrance to the town, but just outside its limits and on the town side of the stream known as the Capel Sloot.
Many sketches of the period give us a glimpse of Justitie Plaats. There is a paintingby Simon Fokke (1712 – 1784), now at Rust-en-Vreugde, featuring Justitie Plaats in the background replete with gibbet, cross and wheel. The sketch by Lady Anne Barnard drawn in 1797 in the last years of its existence gives us a very clear and detailed view. Her comments on the matter is also interesting: "Thank God, the days of torture are over abd the sad evidences of what was practised by the DutchGovernment only remains on a high ground hard by the entrance to the Castle; it froze my blood at first, but habit hardens the nerves, I hope without hardening the heart."
Other travellers before Lady Anne had remarked on this place and though public gibbeting was at the time universal, the impact of Justitie Plaats on hardened travellers shows that here they witnessed a spectacle of unprecedented barbarity.
Spaarman in his description recorded in 1772 states: "I saw to my horror about half a score of wheels placed round it and the gallows was the largest I had ever remarked in any country being indeed of itself a sufficiently wide door to eternity, though by no means to large for the purpose of a tyrannical Government that in so small a town as the Cape could find seven victims to be hanged in chains".
Another traveller commenting thereon states, "Drawing near the place of execution we beheld a horrid spectacle. Upon the sands were erected a number of stakes and gibbets upon which were the remains of upward of a dozen malefactors who had been executed at the Cape at different periods. Some were suspended by the feet, decapitated: others were laid across the narrow wheel on which they had been racked, bent double and hanging down on each side, whilst many seemed to preserve by the attitude in which they were placed, the last writhings of pain and approaching death."
Here at Justitie Plaats died the criminals, murderers and the most evil dregs of humanity which this country has ever produced. Many of the bodies or parts of bodies are undoubtedly buried on the spot. But here, too, no doubt, died many an innocent person condemned by his own confession extracted under torture. Theirs was no swift death, but a lingering one, the prolongation of which was matched to the nature of the crime. It may be argued that contemporary Europe was able to match in severity and barbarity the sentences carried out here, but one cannot help feeling that in this far-flung outpost and its autocratic- governors, responsible only to the Chamber of Seventeen in Holland, a more severe and rough justice was meted out.
Torture as part of the punishment of offenders was a legal commonplace and was imposed irrespective of race, colour and position. It was also accepted that where guilt could be reasonably suspected torture be used to extract a full confession. There is no doubt many innocents were executed after confessions extracted under torture. All of the known instruments and methods of punishment, torture and execution were used. The stocks, whipping post, pillory and the wooden horse were used for minor offenders. The latter item was a wooden cut-out of a horse mounted on four legs and provided with a sharp wooden at the saddle point. Offenders were placed astride this with weights attached to their feet and could spend several days in this position to the accompaniment of derisive comments from spectators. This punishment was reserved for soldiers and sailors, many of whom were permanently maimed by it.
In scourging, the offender was suspended from the whipping post by the hands with only the feet touching the ground. The first stroke was delivered by the executioner, several by his assistant and the remainder of the flogging by the local help.
Burning at the stake was used in cases of arson. The offender was secured to a stake by a length of chain which allowed him some latitude. The brush wood was placed around him in a circle leaving the centre open. On lighting the pyre the offender would dodge around the stake to escape the flames until death became inevitable.
Execution included branding, pinching with red-hot tongs, mutilation, garrotting, beheading, disbowelling, the smashing of limbs, racking, impaling and breaking on the wheel.
One frequently used device was the strappado, which involved hoisting the victim by a rope and then dropping him from a height. This would be continued until the victim was reduced to a pulp.
Branding was used for minor offences. The branding iron left a mark in the shape of a miniature gallows, usually impressed on the forehead.
Impaling was of two types. In the one case the victim was thrust in a seated position on to a sharpened stake buried in the ground. In the other he was fastened to a whipping post by one or two long iron blots through the stomach.
A typical sentence pronounced on a slave in 1696 was that he be bound on a cross, his right hand cut off, his body pinched in six places with red-hot tongs, his arms and legs broken to pieces with red-hot tongs, his arms and legs broken to pieces and after that he was to be impaled alive before the Town House on the square. His dead body was afterwards to be thrown on a wheel outside the town at the usual place and left a prey to the birds of the air.
A case in 1714 where a white woman and her Black paramour were sentenced for the murder of her husband, records show that she was garrotted, allowed to recover and then strangled, whilst he was impaled seated on to a sharpened upright stake. He was given a bottle of arrack and when the onlookers facetiously remarked that he would get drunk, he replied that it did not matter as he now sat so firmly that he could not fall over. It is recorded that he survived in that position for two days.
It frequently happened that victims were mercifully dispatched in the night by friends or slipped a length of cord or cloth to effect their strangulation.
Executions were attached by much pomp and ceremony and commenced with the announcement of the sentence from the Kat balcony in the Castle. The prisoner was brought from the Castle to hear the pronouncement of sentence and he was guarded by a corporal and six soldiers armed with pikes. The sentence was read out by the secretary to the Council of Justice who acted as judge and jury.
The parade to execution was quite a spectacle. It comprised three companies of soldiers (33 men to a company), two of which were armed with muskets and the one with pikes.
The executioner, his assistant and the pinioned prisoner rode in an open cart. They were followed by the 11 members of the Council of Justice accompanied by a guard of 12 grenadiers and a corporal and a sergeant.
The parade led by a band moved off from the Castle to the place of execution. It is probable that the parade went via Stal Plein, stopping at Government House to have the sentence approved by the Governor. Originally the Governor was the secretary to the Court of Justice but after 1734 the Secundus presided.
At the place of execution the troops surrounded the area, forming a barrier with their pikes. Musketeers were placed both inside and outside of this barrier. The pinioned prisoner was led into Justitie PLaats by the executioner and his assistants, and the Council of Justice took their seats on the dais. The court messenger carrying his silver-tipped thorn rod of office, and the clergyman who would lead the prayers, were also present.
After a short prayer the proceedings were commenced, and on its conclusion the court messenger was escorted to Government House to deliver his full report, after which the troops returned to the Castle.
In the early days the executions were performed only by non-whites, but later a European executioner and a assistant were appointed. Besides a salary, board money and rations of arrack, bread and meat, they received extra for such refinememts as breaking limbs (12 rix dollors), pincing with red hot tongs (4), burning (12), decapitating (8), quartering and hanging up the pieces (6), chopping off the hand (4), and branding with a red-hot-iron (1). The assistant received half the above amounts.
Aboot 1,800 houses had been built fairly close proximity to Justitie Plaats, and residents protested at the bodies being left exposed after executions. Accordingly the location was moved to a site above the top of Strand Street where it remained until 1835, when it was finally moved to Gallows Hill (close to the Traffic Control Building in Green Point). Gallows Hill was used until 1860, after which public executions were conducted outside the gaol in Roeland Street.
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