The Rev. Pieter Daniel Rossouw (Cape Town, 17 October 1845 – Fraserburg, 11 October 1896) was a pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) and an early writer in the Afrikaans language.
The literary professor P.J. Nienaber called him "one of the first poets and writers in Afrikaans and an advocate for Afrikaans at a time when the Church was generally very hostile to the ‘kitchen language’." Nienaber wrote that "at the time, it took courage for a minister to speak openly in favor of Afrikaans, and especially to write in Afrikaans. But the Rev. Rossouw went even further than a pastor in those days could in that he wrote the first sermons in Afrikaans in the controversial Die Afrikaanse Patriot, entitled Evangeli in di Volkstaal." L.B. Odendeel wrote in the Suid-Afrikaanse Biografiese Woordeboek, vol. III, that Rossouw’s "most important contribution to the Afrikaans Language Movement lies in his clerical writing, though his poetry is undoubtedly significant." John Christoffel Kannemeyer described him in Die Afrikaanse literatuur 1652–2004 as follows: "Pieter Daniel Rossouw (1845–1896) is best-remembered today for his satirical poem 'Stellaland,' a poem mocking John MacKenzie’s dissolution of the Boer republic of Stellaland (in what is now Botswana) to create British Bechuanaland through repetition of the three rhyming syllables in Mackenzie's name in each sentence."
Background and childhood Daniël Pieter Rossouw was young when his father died, and then his mother moved from Cape Town to Burgersdorp, where he worked in a store to support her in her old age. Enrolled at the local Albert Academy, he gained the attention of the headmaster, Dr. John Brebner, a popular figure among the local youth. Dr. Brebner sent the gifted youth to the South African College in Cape Town, where he struggled financially, and later to the NGK Kweekskool (theological seminary) in Stellenbosch. The Rev. Rossouw later told of how he rented a small room and studied by a whale oil lamp, working odd jobs over the holidays to fund his studies; though better off financially in Stellenbosch, he still lived sparingly.
On 12 March 1869 he completed his theological studies and was ordained in the church, though it is not recorded where. That July, he began preaching in Uniondale and thus gaining fame.
In Uniondale He married Sophia Agnes Johanna Human, daughter of Jurgen Johannes Human. One son, Pierre Daniel Roussow, served as a school inspector, while a grandson, Dr. Pierre Etienne Rousseau, ran the state enterprise in Sasolburg. The Rev. Roussow arrived in Uniondale on 21 January 1870, and was ordained the next day by the Rev. J.G.J. Horak of Mossel Bay. The Rev. Kuys would have received him but was ill, but the Rev. M.C. Botha of Knysna and the Rev. George Murray of Willowmore were in attendance, as was the Rev. Dower of the local Independent Mission Church. The Rev. Horak, then the consulent or acting pastor, chaired a special church council meeting the following Saturday evening to hand over his duties to its first official Reverend, and following the latter’s thanks adjourned until the next Monday morning at five o’clock. The meeting notes state "on Monday morning, the entire church council came together again."
The most pressing issue for the council was the matter of a parsonage. A committee on the matter decided to wait for the pastor’s arrival to consult with him, but a Mr. F. Taute of Molenrivier Farm donated a house and land for the purpose for £550. The council rejected the offer and decided to rent one for the time being, given the treasurer-deacon’s report of a £25 shortage beyond the £300 debt on the Lyon land purchase. The town of Uniondale had been founded in 1856, when the owners of each of the two parts of Rietvallei farm, Mr. James Stewart and Mr. A.L. du Preez, each founded their own villages, Hopedale and Lyon respectively. The neighbors disagreed until they wrote to the NGK George Ring (sub-synod) on 24 September 1865, stating their intention to unite the two villages as Uniondale and separate their own congregation from the George Reformed Church (NGK). The Ring agreed on 19 October, and on 20 January, the Uniondale Reformed Church was founded with the Rev. A.G.M. Kuys of George as consulent.
To fund the parsonage, the council organized two sales and assigned £200 as salary for the pastor and around £50 a year for the reader-verger. When the controversial purchase of land in Lyon came to light, the Rev. Rossouw sought quick repayment. Since G.W.B. Wehmeyer was no longer a council member, deacon A.N. Smuts served in his place as deacon-treasurer, but in practice the pastor kept his own books. When Wehmeyer left, the Rev. Rossouw thanked him "for his many years of loyal service" and hoped that he would continue to assist the congregation. Three councilors, C.J. Fourie, H.J. Kritzinger, and J.H. Barnard, agreed to pay the debt, and the Rev. Rossouw (also the secretary) contracted with bondholders Barry & Neven to pay the debt and take over the churchyard. Inexperience with such transactions, the Rev. Rossouw contacted an old school friend, lawyer John Cairncross of Mossel Bay, to settle the case, which Wehmeyer saw as a motion of no confidence in his agency and past trust for business transactions.
Harsh words for Wehmeyer at a future council meeting led to a sharp exchange of letters between him and the Reverend. He demanded the public calumnies be retracted and was given the chance to meet with the council, whence they appeared to resolve things. However, tensions continued over the litigation.
Meanwhile, Cairncross continued to forward the council’s purchase payments on the plots and pass on the deeds of conveyance through his Cape Town contacts. Once all territory in Uniondale and the hamlet of Krakeel was secure, Cairncross was paid £125, including accrued interest on the purchase price. Despite all the expenses, the Rev. Rossouw reported a balance at the end of 1870. Considerable money was spent to repair a dilapidated church in Krakeel for the pastor to hold four services a year, up from two, other Sundays being handled there by the teacher and reader D.P. Terburgh since 1855. The Rev. Rossouw did not get along well with the people of Krakeel, and once the council even censured Terburgh and one of the Strydoms over their hostile behavior towards each other; ultimately, Terburgh left to work as a teacher and shopkeeper.
The reader in Uniondale, J. van der Werff, resigned to teach for the Independent church in Dysselsdorp. The council’s search for a successor started with the verger, M.P. Mostert, followed by F.W. Schmidt doing triple duty as reader, verger, and teacher. Ultimately, the young P.C. Schoonees was hired for £50 per year as reader and verger in 1872 after helping his father (Mr. L.A. Schoonees) perform these duties in Mossel Bay. P.C. and his brother L.J. both married Terburgh sisters, thus connecting the two reader dynasties in marriage.
First parsonage in Uniondale In 1872, the question of a parsonage re-emerged as the pastor’s family continued to rent the home of pledged co-donor Stewart. After the other donor from 1865, Du Preez, went bankrupt, the council gained a few of the plots. Joined at a meeting with the council by Wehmeyer and M.P. Zondagh (who had been there for the 1865 promise), Stewart paid £15 to release his remaining obligations. He agreed, however, to sell to the council another house, the current parsonage and former home of Anglican pastor the Rev. A.A. Dorrell, for £700. The Rev. Dorrell continued to use it for services while the Anglican church was under construction in town.
Right after the parsonage’s purchase, the council began restoration. The floors were replaced with sturdy yellowwood lumber bought in Haarlem. In 1872, even the Krakeel sale raised £172, £66 more than the one in Uniondale, showing the commitment across the congregation to funding the efforts. The two bazaars raised £270 in 1875 despite the severe drought that year. By the time the Rev. Rossouw left, the parsonage was fully paid down as the congregation’s property.
A shocking fratricide Although the local economy was growing, especially in the field of ostrich farming, the council remained concerned about morale. Council reports often expressed concern over bootlegging and other vices, and the 1874 one even reported a fratricide. A seventeen-year-old boy named Theunis J. Swart was scolded by his older brother, Hendrik, to watch the livestock that day, prompting the long-harried young man to shoot his brother in cold blood. Swart was tried in Oudtshoorn and sentenced to death, the whole affair causing great consternation in the quiet Uniondale community.
The Pace affair Merchant Robert Pace was one of the first settlers of Lyon, and as a supporter of Wehmeyer, he contributed £10 to the pastor’s salary. In 1865, he was involved in a court case claiming other villagers had vandalized his fruit trees, heard by a judge in George who claimed that "Lyon where this happened must be a miserable place, and it is high time to put an end to such cases." Sentencing the offender to six months in jail, the judge’s decision scandalized the George council already reeling from two prominent residents’ charges of drunkenness, leading to a dispute between Pace and Elder Dannhauser that the council resolved.
At the end of 1876, Pace filed a more serious complaint against the Uniondale congregation. At the auction for the Lyon plots, the three Jewish brothers Gompert had purchased one, setting up a store there but later moving on to Kimberley upon which Pace bought them and took possession. The surveyor, Mr. Melvill, had made a serious error, marking the block T when the boundaries made it J. Pace wanted to correct the deed, but couldn't since Du Preez was in Transvaal. Since Wehmeyer had bought the "remaining extent of Lyon" for the church in 1867, however, block T-cum-J was technically church property and the council believed that Pace was squatting on it.
The June 1876 notes show the council deciding to auction off the church land in September, though they claim the above block as church property despite the Gomperts building from the 1860s: "We must also find out who has damaged the foundation on block J6, the church’s property, and bring the perpetrator to justice by an agent of the congregation." Aware of prior occupation and Pace’s objections, the council sold J6 to Deacon D.J. Swart. Pace pointed out that the corner beacons and boundary lines clearly showed the yard as the one he bought from the Gompert brothers, but the Rev. Rossouw lost his temper, ripped the map from Pace’s hands, and instructed auctioneer G. Haese to continue the sale.
According to later court testimony, Wehmeyer also explained the illegality of the sale to a council member based on firsthand knowledge of land he bought in 1860, but no settlement was possible by this point. Dr. J.A. Heese wrote in the congregation’s centennial commemorative book: "23 September 1876, was truly a fateful day in the Uniondale congregation’s history. To a large extent, Mr. Wehmeyer and the Rev. Rossouw’s magnificent building was razed to the ground by the court case." That evening, the council discussed and approved the sale, while 23 congregation members led by Wehmeyer signed a petition calling for a general congregation meeting discussing the congregation’s financial practices, one the council called "beneath its dignity to acknowledge." This turn of events led Pace, with Wehmeyer’s support, to file suit with the magistrate to block the sale, resulting in a December court order suspending it pending the council’s justification of its claims.