1816: Five Boers for the Slachter’s Nek Rebellion
Add comment March 9th, 2011 Headsman
“All those who know anything of the history of South Africa,” writes Ian Colvin, “have heard of Slachter’s Nek. (English Wikipedia entry | the more detailed Afrikaans)
“The very name has something of evil omen about it, and it is the gallows-tree on which the ravens of discord have sat and croaked ever since the five rebels were hanged in the memorable year of Waterloo.”
You’ve got to admit that a place like “Slachter’s Nek” (or Slagtersnek) definitely ought to be associated with a hanging. Luckily for this site, it is.
Though subsequently a grievance for the Dutch-descended Boers — a monument was erected in the hanged men’s honor on the centennial of their execution — this particular evil omen barely even registered when it came to British colonial disturbances.
A farmer, one Frederik Bezuidenhout, started the trouble by defying an order to appear in court for his maltreatment of a native; the Brits hunted him to a cave and killed him in a shootout.
This led to a very slightly wider spasm of resistance which one could very generously account “Quixotic”: a few dozen other Afrikaner farmers bent on driving out the “tyrants”, most of whom wisely threw in the towel when the tyrants’ military showed the colors. (With the literal boots-on-the-ground support of the colony’s preponderance of Dutch burghers.)
Thirty-nine stood trial, with a half-dozen death sentences meted out. In defiance of a widespread expectation of clemency, only one was spared.
Four of the five hanging ropes broke. Still no reprieve: fresh nooses were procured.
On this day..
- 1892: The People's Grocery Lynchings of Memphis - 2020
- 1803: Jillis Bruggeman, the last executed for sodomy in the Netherlands - 2019
- 2016: Coy Wayne Westbrook - 2018
- 1705: William Pulman, Edward Fuller, and Elizabeth Herman - 2017
- 1524: Klaus Hottinger, sausage radical - 2016
- 1422: Jan Zelivsky, Hussite defenestrator - 2015
- 2001: Willie 'Ervin' Fisher, traveling man - 2014
- 1981: Steven T. Judy, Hoosier rapist - 2013
- 1784: Anton Joseph Suter, Appenzell politician - 2012
- 1950: Timothy Evans, instead of John Christie - 2010
- 1009: St. Bruno of Querfurt - 2009
- 1944: Emanuel Ringelblum, historian of the Warsaw Ghetto - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Botched Executions,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,England,Execution,Hanged,History,Occupation and Colonialism,Public Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,South Africa
Tags: 1810s, 1816, frederik bezuidenhout, march 9, slachter's nek, slagtersnek
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