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  • The Estate of a Chinese Woman in the Mid-Eighteenth Century at the Cape of Good Hope
  • James C. Armstrong (bio)

Among the Chinese exiled to the Cape Of Good Hope from Batavia in the 18th century, one person, Thisgingnio, stands out, not only by reason of her gender, but for the extent and detailed record of her estate. So far as is known, she was the only Chinese woman who was so exiled. Thisgingnio was from Ceribon (Cirebon) on the north coast of Java.1 She was sent to the Cape on the Dutch East India Company's (VOC) return-ship Standvastigheid, arriving 9 April 1747 (Cape Archives Depot [hereafter CAD] CJ 3186, 52; Bruijn et al. 1979: Voyage 7256.2). There was horrendous mortality among the convicts and exiles sent on the 1747 fleet, both on board and post-arrival, more than 60 dying in June, July and August (CAD CJ 3186: 50–54). Thisgingnio was one of the very few to survive this journey and its aftermath. Although the reason for her exile has not yet come to light, she spent ten years in the Company's Slave Lodge, and was released in 1757.2 No details of her decade in the Lodge are available.3 She may have endured very hard conditions there or been assigned to some official's household, as we later find for some Chinese men. Pending further documents, it is fruitless to speculate. She did survive the terrible winter of 1755, when 196 Company slaves and convicts died, chiefly of smallpox (CAD C 372: 462–70). It is only with her regained freedom that she becomes more visible. Following her release, she lived in freedom for almost six years, until her sudden death.

In the Annotatie Boek der Bandietten … 1722–1757, there is a marginal note which reads in part:

According to the statement of the supervisor of the Company's Lodge Sr. [Carel Maximiliaan] Adleda, dated 28 July 1757 the Chinese woman is, by the noble lord Governor [Ryk Tulbagh], discharged from the slave lodge….

(CAD CJ 3186: 52). [End Page 111]

In context, this mention of the Governor is not a perfunctory or routine annotation: such high-level interest in the fate of a Chinese exile is unprecedented, and not at all self-explanatory. Her prompt discharge, upon the completion of her ten-year sentence, certainly with the Governor's approval and perhaps intervention, suggests that she was a person of some consequence, as indeed is borne out by her subsequent career (CAD CJ 3186: 52). She appears on the 1760 burgher rolls, as Theongingon, without children or property, but not on subsequent rolls (CAD CJ 3186: 52; NA VOC 4220: 35).

At some point her path crossed that of one of the most prosperous Chinese exiles at the Cape, Ongkonko (Ong Hao Ko; Pinyin: Wang Xiao Ge). He, like Thisgingnio, had arrived at the Cape in 1747, but his life there was that of a free exile. Ongkonko was convicted by a 12 December 1746 decision of the Heeren Schepenen at Batavia of the crimen perduellionis, his sentence to be exiled for life (CAD CJ 3186: 53). The Council of India confirmed this on 16 December, exiling him to the Cape. Unfortunately the sentence does not reveal the details of his interesting crime, which was high treason.4 Ongkonko arrived at the Cape in 1747 on the rice-ship Nieuwstadt, which also suffered appalling mortality (CAD CJ 3186: 53–54). In 1757, he sold a slave to the prominent Cape burgher, Joachim Von Dessin, and is described as a free Chinese. By 1760, he was listed on the opgaaf rolls (registers), owning six slaves (NA VOC 4220: 35). In 1761, he rented two houses, one large and one small, from Hermanus Keeve, a former senior surgeon of the VOC.5 His will of 1761, in the name Onkocko, left Rixdollars (hereafter Rxdrs.) 200 to his sister Insaaij in Batavia, and the remainder to the free Chinese woman, Tjojingjo, "known in the Company's books as Thisgingnio" (CAD MOOC 7/1/15: No. 20). It is noteworthy that Thisgingnio is not described as his wife in this testament. As non...

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