De Oosterland

Model of De Oosterland (The Model Shipyard)

The Oosterland (also known as “De Oosterlandt”) was a vessel of 1123 tons and was 160 feet long and 39 feet wide. It was built in 1685 at the Zeeland Yard, in Middelburg, for Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company. It was owned and operated by the Dutch VOC company until it sank off the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa in 1697.

She set off for Asia for the first time in November 1685. Bad weather forced her return after only a fortnight, and it was to be February 1686 before she sailed again, eventually arriving in Batavia in five months later. She left for home at the end of that year, and stopped off at the Cape in March of 1687, loaded with cargo including spices as pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and mace.

The Oosterland's second voyage, a very successful voyage of only 2 months and 10 days, from the Netherlands brought her back to the Cape in July 1688. Most voyages from the Netherlands took between 4 and 6 months! This time she carried refugees from France among her 33 passengers, including some Huguenot families who were to become significant in South Africa's later history.

Individuals:
Name	Origin
Sarah Avicé	Châteaudun, Orléanais
Jean Cloudon	Condé-en-Brie, Champagne
Jean Du Bus	Marck, Picardie, Flanders
Jean Imbert	Nimes, Languedoc
Jacques Nourtier	Saint-Blaise, Picardie
Jean Nourtier	Saint-Blaise, Picardie
Jean Parisel	Villiers-le-Bel, Ile-de-France
Jacques Therond	Nimes, Languedoc
Families:
Name	origin
Pieter le Clerq	Serooskerk, Zeeland
Sara Cochet (wife)	Walcheren, Oost-Souberg
Abraham Zeeland (child 1)
Joost le Clerq (child 2)
Jeanne le Clerq (child 3)
Jacques De Savoye	Aeth, Hainaut
Marie Madeleine le Clerq (wife)
Antionette Carnoy (mother-in-law)	Tournai, Flanders
Marguérite-Thérèse (child 1) 17 years old
Barbe-Thérèse (child 2) 15 years old
Jacques (child 3) 9 months old
Jean Prieur Du Plessis	Poitiers, Poitou
Madeleine Menanteau (wife)	Poitiers, Poitou
Charles (child 1) born at sea
Daniel Nourtier	Saint-Blaise, Picardie
Marie Vitu (wife)	Guines, Picardie
Isaac Taillefert	Chateau Thierry, Champagne
Susanne Briet (wife)	Monneaux, Brie, Champagne
Elisabeth (child 1) 14 years old
Jean (child 2) 12 years old
Isaac (child 3) 7 years old
Pierre (child 4) 5 years old
Suzanne (child 5) 2 years old
Marie (child 6) 1 years old

For six months the ship traded between the VOC's stations in Asia, before returning home in August 1689. Her third trip, undertaken between February 1691 and October 1693, followed a similar pattern.

In July 1694, by now ten years old, the Oosterland left Holland again, this time as one of a fleet of 21 ships. After over a year of trading around Asia, she left Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in February 1697 with a cargo which included diamonds, and again set sail for home, this time in company with four other ships. Eleven people died aboard the Oosterland during her three month voyage to the Cape. It is possible that the quality of the drinking water caused not only these deaths, but also of the illness that struck 35 others of her complement. Having arrived once more at the Cape, in early May, the Oosterland and her companions waited for another dozen ships from Batavia to join them for the voyage home.

On 23 May 1697, a strong north-westerly gale blew up in Table Bay. One ship broke her anchor cables, those of another had to be cut, and the Oosterland was rammed and damaged by her drifting companions. On the next day, when the wind changed, the Oosterland went adrift, and this time hit the sea-bed near the mouth of the Salt River. As soon as she touched bottom, her main mast broke, and the hull began to break up. Of the more than three hundred people on board, only two survived.

Departure	From	Destination	Arrival	Skipper	Cape of Good Hope
25/11/1685	Wielingen	Batavia	31/07/1686		17/05/1686 - 08/06/1686
13/12/1686	Batavia		08/1687	Karel de Marville	20/03/1687 - 20/04/1687
29/01/1688	Wielingen	Batavia	19/07/1688		25/04/1688 - 15/05/1688
25/12/1688	Batavia		09/08/1689	Aamoud Scheiteruit	17/03/1689 - 17/04/1689
08/02/1691	Wielingen	Batavia	28/09/1691	Aarnoud Scheiteruit	17/06/1691 - 20/07/1691
28/02/1693	Ceylon	Rammekens	04/10/1693	Aarnoud Scheiteruit	20/05/1693 - 12/06/1693
16/07/1694	Zeeland	Batavia	11/06/1695	Pieter van Ede	31/12/1694 - 03/03/1695
7/02/1697	Ceylon		24/05/1697

All but the last voyage saw the vessel’s port of origin as Zeeland, the last port of origin was Amsterdam to which the vessel never returned.

The wreck of the Oosterland was discovered in 1988 by divers Graham Raynor, Michael Barchard and Christopher Byrnes. They immediately realised the significance of what they had found, and cntacted Bruno Werz, the Maritime Archaeologist based at the University of Cape Town. When the divers showed him photographs of two bronze cannon, found lying on the seabed, he identified them as having once belonged to the Dutch East India Company, and the National Monuments Council were then also informed of the find.

The wreck lay in only 6m of water, a few hundred metres from the entrance of the Milnerton Lagoon, where a combination of strong winds and currents, cold water temperatures and bad visibility, made diving very difficult.

The Oosterland excavation was notable because it was the first proper "maritime archaeology" project carried out in South African waters. The justification for "doing archaeology" lies in its ability to provide information that is not available in the documentary record. In the case of a shipwreck, such as the Oosterland, information can be gathered about what goods were carried on the ships, both as cargo and as personal effects, and also can be seen how they were packed. The complement of crew and passengers had to be self sufficient in both skills and equipment, due to the long periods of time spent at sea. Archaeology can help to learn about the social and technological aspects of this self-sufficiency.

Sources:
Bruijn, J.R., Gaastra, F.S., Schöffer, I. Dutch-Asiatic Shipping In The 17th and 18th Centuries (3 Vols). The Hague, 1979, 1987
Turner, Malcom. Shipwrecks & Salvage in South Africa, 1505 to the present. Cape Town, 1988
The Huguenots Story (from France to South Africa) By Leon Coetzee and Frans Jordaan

VOC Shipwrecks (No longer exists)
Image: The Model Shipyard, Mossel Bay, South Africa