free burgher, noun phrase

/ˈfriː ˌbɜːɡə/
Forms:
Also free burger, and with initial capitals.
Origin:
DutchShow more Partial translation of Dutch vrijburger, vrijburgher, vrij free + burgher citizen.
historical
A former employee of the Dutch East India Company who had been freed from its control; any white male who was not a Company official; vryburger. Also attributive. See also burgher sense 1 a.
1827 Reports of Commissioners upon Finances at Cape of G.H. II. 55The privileges accorded to the free burghers of Cape Town,..followed by an extension of these privileges to the European colonists.
1857 Cape Monthly Mag. II. Sept. 155The nocturnal expedition..and the Landdrost’s spirited assault of the ‘free burgher’s’ castle, were crowned with even greater success than had been anticipated.
1877 J. Noble S. Afr. 5Officers and servants of the company, a few of whom, after landing, were released from their engagements, and permitted to become ‘free burghers’ or cultivators of the soil.
1919 M. Greenlees tr. of O.F. Mentzel’s Life at Cape in Mid-18th C. 9The right to provide the meat is farmed out, for from six to seven years, to those of the free burghers who will guarantee to supply it at the lowest price.
1941 C.W. De Kiewiet Hist. of S. Afr. 5At the suggestion of van Riebeeck nine of the Company’s servants became ‘free burghers’ and landholders.
1953 Du Plessis & Lückhoff Malay Quarter 52Only the free burgers of Cape Town were allowed on the streets after nine o’clock at night.
1971 S. Afr. Panorama May 9Between February 21 1657, and February 13, 1658, 14 Free Burgher families had already been established at the Cape, though tenure papers were apparently not issued to all of them.
1971 Personality 14 May 27The free burghers possessed..such rights as the company was prepared to allow them.
1975 D.H. Strutt Clothing Fashions 30There were several separate and distinct classes of people, namely: the Company officials, the servants of the Company in de Kaap itself, and the Free Burghers farming away from the Bay and its contact with the outer world.
1988 D. Hughes et al. Complete Bk of S. Afr. Wine 33The late eighteenth century saw the emergence of the Free Burgher wine farmers of the Cape to an unexpected prosperity.
A former employee of the Dutch East India Company who had been freed from its control; any white male who was not a Company official; vryburger. Also attributive.
Derivatives:
Hence free burghership  noun phrase, the status of free burgher.
1858 Cape Monthly Mag. III. Mar. 147Requiring one Eksteen, who had received..free burghership, to go back into the Company’s service, at his wages of nine guilders a month.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

18271988

Derivatives

free burghership

Browse Related Words

By Category

Peoples

By Origin

Dutch

By Usage

historical
free black, noun phrasen. phr.Freedom Charter, noun phrasen. phr.
Copyright © 2023 Dictionary Unit for South African English.