Caatje van Bengale

K(C)aatje was a first generation slave at the Cape who was born in Bengal which lies predominantly in today's Bangladesh. Her birth place can be assumed to be somewhere in the tribal areas surrounding Chittagong.

Caatje or Kaatje is listed as a slave to [Johan Martin Vogel van Schnabelwald]: een slavinne gen:t Caatje van Bengalen, zijnde de moeder van evengem: Delia, met nog twee kinderen, in namen Bintan en Mina beide meede van de Caab

The relationship between Mina and Kaatje has not been fully verified.

It can be assumed that Kaatje arrived at the Cape around 1760.

Jan Martin Vogel owned several properties in the Cape Town area as far south as Hout Bay. Jan Martin Vogel was married to Anna du Plessis but he most probably fathered at least one of Kaatje's three children, Delia, but maybe also the other two, Bintan and Mina. Upon Vogel's death Delia was set free while Kaatje and her other two children were not. He is listed as having 35 Slaves.

(There is no documentary evidence to prove that Jan Vogel fathered children with Caatje)

Mina but probably also Kaatje and Bintan most likely ended up in the property of Christoffel Brand who was acquainted to Jan Martin Vogel and who was, amongst other things, the Resident Magistrate of Simon's Town. At the time of Vogel's death Brand lived for rent in one of the several houses Vogel owned in the Cape Town area.

Vogel died when Mina was about 7 years old. Eventually but certainly before 1787, she was moved to the farm Kleinriviersvallei in the Overberg region which was later to become the town of Stanford.

Christoffel Brand was the first real owner of the farm Kleinriviersvallei, then known as Elsje's Rivier. Only grazing rights had previously been registered in the area. Brand completed the first buildings on the farm in 1785 and the farm remained in his ownership until 1813 when he sold it to Johannes Truter. Kaatje and her children were probably moved to Kleinriviersvallei either shortly before 1785 or immediately afterwards.

- Information gathered by Engel descendants, including DNA test.