C.H.Heatlie: The first three generations of Heatlies in South Africa

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This free space is for most of the contents from the book The first three generations of Heatlies in South Africa, written by Charles Hugo Heatlie and self-published in 1981 to be sold at the local farm museum 'Kleinplasie' in Worcester.

Charlie was the farmer at "Orange Grove", part of the original Zeekoegat along the Hex River. He had a great pleasure in digging up historical details from the old farm books, graves, old newspapers, and he was an active visitor of various archives. For him it was all about finding great stories about the past, both about the good and the very bad behaviour of his ancestors. Whenever he bumped into a story mentioning a slave at the Cape, he noted it down. He liked to get people on the wrong foot by telling the stories about violent slave revolts against dictatorial masters, and the very harsh penalties against the slaves.

As a young boy, he knew a very old servant at the farm of his father, who looked after the horses. Or rather, he was 'retired', and was the boss of the man who did this work. This Moya had been originally brought to the Cape from Mauritius, as a slave boy, by the first Thomas Heatlie, and then survived three generations. Charles seemed to have felt an urge or a duty, to prevent old Moya getting forgotten, by gathering and telling the stories about him.

The first Thomas Heatlie first came to South Africa with the British 20th Light Dragoons, in the invading force of 1806. After further adventures in Argentina, he returned to Scotland. But there, he fought a duel, and had to run away. So he ended up in the Cape, together with his brother George.

Thomas married Anna Catharina van Niekerk, who, as we now know, carried the mitochondrial DNA of Krotoa of the Goringhaicona. Their son Thomas Tennant settled at Seekoegat, with a colourful career. He had many sons, some of whom where top rugby players, who got involved with the political career of their father in the rough and tumble elections of the Worcester district for the Parliament of the Cape Colony.

This book is a great collection of fantastic stories describing some part of the life in 19th century South Africa.

Uploaded here, you find: 1. A pdf made from pictures takes of the pages of this wonderful treasure trove of family stories. 2. A pdf with the Heatlie family tree from pages 129-135. For privacy of living people, the more recent descendants of the Heatlies in the 20th century have been blanked-out in this list.