Willem Adriaan van der Stel

Willem Adriaan van der Stel (24 August 1664 – 11 November 1733) was an Extraordinary Councillor of the Dutch East Indies, and Governor of the Cape Colony, a way station for the Dutch East India Company (VOC), from 23 January 1699 to 1707. He was dismissed after a revolt and was exiled to the Netherlands.

Early life

Willem van der Stel was the eldest of six children of Simon van der Stel (1639–1712) and Johanna Jacoba Six (1645–1700), who were prominent members of the Dutch merchant class. He was baptized in Haarlem and had a younger brother Adriaan (1665-1720). His paternal grandfather had been the VOC commander of Mauritius, and his grandmother a mestizo. His mother was related to Jacob J. Hinlopen and Jan Six and who was involved in the silk trade and a friend of Rembrandt. Willem was fifteen when he went to the Cape in 1679 with his father and aunt (Cornelia Six); his mother stayed behind. He worked for the company as bookkeeper. In 1684, he married Maria de Haze, and returned to Amsterdam where he would have four children baptized but two died. (Her late father François de Haze worked for the Dutch East India Company as an opperhoofd on Deshima, and in Persia and Bengal, and was also involved in the silk trade).

Willem Adriaan van der Stel held the lordship of Nieuw and Oud-Vossemeer on the island of Tholen, probably through his wife. In 1691, he became an schepen of Amsterdam. He did not return to the Cape until January 1699 when he was appointed to succeed his father as Governor of the colony.

Rule as Governor

Van der Stel displayed an interest in horticulture and agriculture and conducted extensive farming experiments. He sent quite a few aloes to the Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam. He was the author of one of South Africa's earliest gardening almanacs. Van der Stel expanded the VOC's gardens and sent expeditions into the interior to the north to explore the rest of the country. He established the "Land van Waveren", now known as Tulbagh, and laid the cornerstone for the Groote Kerk in Cape Town. He left the colony in 1708 and returned to the Netherlands where he spent the rest of his life in exile. Subsequently, no VOC employees were allowed to own land in the colony.

Three years after his dismissal, Vergelegen was sold and divided into four separate farms, and the homestead was ordered to be demolished.

Alternative views on Van der Stel's legacy

There is some disagreement regarding Van der Stel's legacy. Although most sources agree that his rule at the Cape was authoritarian, beset by favouritism, and characterised by misuse of company assets, others claim that this was in no way unique to Van der Stel's tenure as governor.

Some point to the scale of his plans and activities in agriculture and horticulture as evidence of a man of great vision and imagination.