Gordon of the Cape

In his country of birth Robert Jacob Gordon is mostly forgotten, and in South Africa where he spent much of his adult life it does not seem to be much better. Two books have been published about him some decades ago, and when you google his name, you find it mostly associated with the introduction of merino sheep.

Mr. Panhuysen does not even mention the sheep. He presents Gordon as a discoverer and a foot soldier of the scientific Enlightenment, a time when people "recognised there was more to discover than to speculate", a time of "collecting data", of collectors and encyclopédists. Gordon was convinced of European superiority as he was of the fundamental equality of modern and primitive man. He saw no moral contrast and considered Rousseau an armchair philosopher. When Denis Diderot looked Gordon up on his trip to Holland he defended the equality of the Hottentots against remarks in the works of Buffon, author of the internationally best selling 36-volume Histoire naturelle, to which Gordon nevertheless contributed regularly.

Born into a military family in Doesburg in 1743, Gordon studied in Harderwijk. He was 30 years old when he made his first trip as a captain in the Dutch army to colony at the Cape of Good Hope. Together with the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg he made a first trip into the interior and learned the Hottentot language. At the end of the trip he presented 16 springboks for the zoo of Stadtholder William V, a man he idolised. The Stadtholder’s zoo and Natural history cabinet were objects of prestige. The cabinet alone attracted some 18,000 visitors per year.

At age 33 he managed to be transferred to the Dutch East India Company to become a captain in the regiment of Cape Town. As Holland was not at war with other European nations, his military responsibilities did not really keep him busy. Therefore he could concentrate his energy on other tasks like mapping and "regulating" the border of what was considered East India Company territory and scientific research. Mr. Panhuysen calls Gordon a discoverer, but in general he seems to have mostly travelled in an area that was already (sparsely) inhabited by or in the vicinity of farms of Trekboeren: poor white farmers that had left the coast for pastures and a dangerous life in the interior. Still, very few Westerners had ventured so deeply into Africa.

On this second expedition he visited an area shared by Bushmen/San and some 200 Boer farms in the Karoo. Creating peace between Bushmen and Boers, that had intruded the Bushmen's hunting grounds, was one of the objectives. Gordon understood the Bushmen as victims of the Boers, who had killed many, and he was ordered to stop the bloodshed. This failed, because of retreating Bushmen's, and the Boer companions that wanted to return to their farms after a few weeks. Gordon then travelled to the "Kaffer"/Xhosa territory near the river he baptised the Oranje Rivier. He found the Xhosa a "beautiful tall people with a free and cheerful physiognomy". He started learning their language and participated in their dances. Despite their constant requests for tobacco and other gifts, Gordon enjoyed their presence. He ten travelled towards the Groot-Visrivier that he followed to its end in the Indian Ocean, and ordered the natives to move across to the eastern board.

Besides mapping the land the scientific work consisted of meteorological measurements and cataloguing stones, plants and animals. Animal research included measuring body parts and bone structure, observing movement, behaviour and character, and tasting their meat and milk. The book contains pictures now held in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum of a hippo's anus, genitals and intestines. With equal interest Gordon demystified the so called schortje or "apron" of Hottentot women. Gordon concluded that the schortje was not a natural "fig leaf", but the women's stretched outer labia.

Mr. Panhuysen describes three more expeditions in his book, where Gordon travelled to land occupied by Trekboere, but also to areas where he met Bushmen that had never seen a white man. Gordon travelled with a mixed native-Dutch crew with horses and oxcarts and sheep for food. The terrain was often dry, lacking drinking water and meat and causing the wooden wheels of the ox-carts to shrink and reducing Gordon's range of action. All the time he collected notes and material that he sent to Leiden for inclusion in Buffon’s Histoire naturelle. He also described hard life of the native people. Cattle robbing and vendettas were at the order of the day. Many kraals had little food, and some people offered their children as gifts to increase their own and their children's chances of survival. The fourth expedition to the Oranjerivier had as an additional goal to find the elusive giraffe, an animal that had been recently rediscovered by the elephant hunter Jacobus Coetsée. The giraffe had become a legend in the Middle Ages, and Gordon wanted to see it for himself before he believed in its existence. The first giraffe they shot was eaten by “wolfs”, but they succeeded in shooting a second one. Its 15 feet skeleton and skin were sent to the zoo in The Hague, together with some 500 drawings and water colours. Gordon was honoured as a naturaliste judicieux

After this trip Gordon married the Swiss Suzanna Nicolet. With some difficulty he got promoted to lieutenant-colonel, the highest military authority in the colony. Although he went on one more expedition, his life became much more sedentary. His house Schoonder Sigt below Table Mountain contained a museum with maps, drawings, stuffed animals (including a giraffe), and James Cook’s rifle. His dinner table was about the only one where visiting foreigners could speak their mother tongue. Unlike others, Gordon never wrote a book about his travels, and his journals were only rediscovered in England in 1964. When visitors confronted Gordon with substandard knowledge obtained from the books of other travellers he was angered.

It would get worse for Gordon. The harsh regime of the East India Company had led to conflicts between followers of the Stadtholder and Patriots similar to the mother country. Gordon was very much in favour of the Stadtholder. The Stadtholder was also the head of the East India Company, whose practices were hated by the local farmers. When France attacked the Dutch Republic, the Stadtholder escaped to Britain. The colony was only partly informed about these developments. In June 1795, a squadron of British ships arrived in Valsbaai. The British commander Elphingstone falsely claimed that the Republic was crushed by the French. He did not mention that the States-General had abolished the Stadtholdership. Elphingstone gave a letter of William V requesting support for ships of the British ally. The local counsel questioned the British claim, but not Gordon. The commander of the local regiment withdrew his soldiers to Muizenberg. After one British attack they were withdrawn to Wynberg. Gordon was the first to plead for surrender, which soon followed. The English hoisted the Union Jack, not the Prince's Flag. Gordon became an outcast in the small community and shot himself. Two of his sons joined Napoleon's army, both died. ( )

Een leesbare biografie over werk en leven van Robert Jacob Gordon (1743-1795). Deze in Nederland geboren Schot maakte een vijftal grote reizen door Zuid Afrika, en deed hiervan verslag in woord en beeld in wat nu de Atlas Gordon heet, en die tegenwoordig deel uitmaakt van de collectie van het Rijksmuseum. In een tweetal kleurenkaternen is een aantal tekeningen uit de atlas opgenomen, maar helaas wordt in de tekst niet naar deze afbeeldingen verwezen. Het is een vlot geschreven boek, maar het ontbreken van voetnoten maakt het vrijwel onmogelijk de feiten te controleren, en zo tot een weinig bruikbaar boek. Zo betitelt Panhuysen Gordon een aantal keren met de anachronistische term 'museumdirecteur', en het blijkt niet te achterhalen of deze term van Gordon zelf afkomstig is, of dat de auteur dit heeft verzonnen. ( )