Charles Etienne Boniface

Charles Etienne Boniface (2 February 1787 – 10 December 1853) was an early nineteenth century music teacher, playwright, journalist and polyglot who was born in France, but who spent his adult life in Southern Africa. His writings and compositions are amongst the earliest publications of what was then the Cape Colony.

Early years Boniface was born in Paris in 1787, two years before the outbreak of the French Revolution. At the age of twelve he had a grounding in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, Greek, had written short dramas in the style of Molière, played the guitar and had learned to dance. and his native French was one of the most popular dramatists in the colony.

In 1828 he became a sworn translator in the Cape Supreme Court.

His French-language writings included Relation du naufrage de l'Eole, published in 1829—a record of the journey made by the survivors of the Eole, a French ship that was wrecked off the coast of what was then known as "British Kaffraria" en route to Réunion from France earlier that year. He intended to translate it into English under the title Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Eole but never completed his translation though a translation and commentary was published in 2012.

In 1830, three years after he had been declared bankrupt following a libel suite, The Zuid-Afrikaan itself continued for 100 years. While editor he took a pride in stressing the unity between the Dutch and the English cultures.

Amongst his notable works with a local flavour was De Nieuwe Ridderorde of De Temperantisten, (The New Knighthood or the Temperance Societies) published in 1832. The play satirised the wave of British puritanism and temperance of the day and in particular John Philip of the London Missionary Society who had secured equality of all free people within the Colony. Although written in Dutch, the local patois (which was later to evolve into Afrikaans) was used by the appropriate characters. This is one of the first pieces of literature in which an Afrikaans-like language appeared.

Later years in Natal In November 1843 Boniface obtained permission from the Volksraad of the Natalia Republic to establish a newspaper. He left the Cape Colony to avoid a libel suite and moved to Pietermaritzburg. By the time the paper, named De Natalier, was launched on 5 April 1844 the republic had passed into British control and had been renamed the "Colony of Natal". De Natalier had a circulation of about forty copies per week and soon succumbed to financial pressure resulting from a libel suite. The gap that it left in the market was taken by The Natal Witness, which was launched by Boniface's former colleague Moll in 1846.

His continued association with le Mordant who had followed him to Natal with their three daughters brought contempt from the colonial population.