Buys community in the sources
The Buys community is a group of mixed-descent families in the Soutpansberg, who trace themselves to the frontiersman Coenraad de Buys and his sons Gabriel, Michael and Doris. They came into Venda country in the early nineteenth century, were intermediaries and tribute collectors for the Boers, were the first community of the Dutch Reformed mission, and in 1888 were granted land that is now Buysdorp.
What the sources say
Arrival. Nemudzivhadi writes that the “Coloured Buys family” and the Tlokwa had settled, respectively, at Mara and Mphagane between 1820 and 1825, and describes the Buys people as descendants of Coenrad Buys, said to have fled justice in the Cape Colony; he married a Black girl and, after her death on the Vhembe River, “disappeared”, leaving his sons Gabriel and Michael among the Venda, who married Black women and continued the “Coloured community”. Relations with Ramabulana were amicable; because they knew the Venda language, the Buys served as intermediaries when the Boers arrived at Thivhalalwe, and some later became tax collectors (pp. 6 to 7). Michael’s own account is on Michael Buys.
With the Ramabulana house. Nemudzivhadi cites speculation that Ramabulana, while sheltering at Mount Rida after Ramavhoya drove him out, communicated with Louis Tregardt through Doors Buys, who had accompanied him there and with whom he was on good terms; and M. M. Motenda’s statement that Ramabulana sent Buys to Potchefstroom to ask for help (p. 13; see Ramabulana and Ramavhoya). E. Mudau’s account that Ramabulana asked the “Buys volk” to help him in a war between the Vhasenzi and the Vhadau is rejected by Nemudzivhadi as unlikely (pp. 44 to 45; see Tshakhuma).
Under the Republic. Under Potgieter and Schoeman the Buys clan were entrusted with collecting opgaaf, and Nemudzivhadi says Michael could not discharge the duty effectively; the Welgevonden meeting of 21 July 1868 was attended by Tsonga, members of the Buys community and Davhana (Nemudzivhadi pp. 63, 108). In the Spelonken in 1883, when Makhado’s army attacked Nthabalala and Begwa’s kraal, Nemudzivhadi writes that Commandant Vorster went to rescue Doors Buys, who was trapped with his family, and that the combined Boer and Tsonga army freed the Buys, whose headquarters Makhado’s men had surrounded; the schans built afterwards was guarded by ten local Boers, eight Buys and 600 Tsonga; and the road to the Buys settlement in the west was called Buis-paden (pp. 153 to 155). See Schoemansdal and João Albasini.
Mission. The Dutch Reformed Church’s first Soutpansberg station, Goedgedacht, was founded among the Buys at Michael’s request, and Nemudzivhadi says Hofmeyr “did not confine his attention exclusively to the Buys settlement” but also worked among the Venda (p. 128). Hofmeyr’s book describes the early baptisms of the Buys, conversions in the household, restlessness among the young and the loss of some to the diamond fields; chapters 17 and 18 (the first dated April 1883) have “a pulpit made by one of the Buys” and “dissatisfaction among the Buys” in their headings (chs 8, 17, 18).
The land. Michael de Jongh’s 2004 article records that Coenraad de Buys had nine recorded children, three of whom, Gabriël, Michael and Doris, were decisive in founding the community in the foothills of the Soutpansberg, and that in 1888 President Paul Kruger granted about 11,000 hectares to the Buys people as a reward for services to the Boers and the Transvaal Republic. See Buysdorp.
People of the Buys community with their own pages
Michael Buys, Gabriel Buys, Doris Buys and the later Gabriel Buys, evangelist to the Banyai; and the founding ancestor Coenraad de Buys.
Overview articles
For the opgaaf system the community was part of, see Tribute, land and the Boer state in the Soutpansberg, 1855 to 1898.
For a single account of the community’s history, see The Buys people of the Soutpansberg: an overview.
Cautions
The Buys community is much better recorded by Boers, missionaries and anthropologists than by itself. The 1998 thesis by a Venda historian treats the Buys as a minor group in Makhado’s story, and gets Coenraad de Buys’s story at second hand. The sons’ names and numbers differ between sources (Doris, Doors, Dorha, Dorka; Gabriel, Michael, Jan, Baba, Piet). We make no statement about who now belongs to the community or how it governs itself. The Buys people are described in the sources by outsiders: a missionary in 1866 to 1890, a Venda historian in 1998, an anthropologist in 2004 and an unsigned encyclopedia entry. The older sources use words for them and for Africans in general that we do not repeat, and we have found no history written by the community itself.
Izithakazelo and totem
We have found no confirmed totem or praise poem for this page. If you belong to the Buys community and wish to share your family’s history, we would like to record it, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Mphaya Henry Nemudzivhadi, “The attempts by Makhado to revive the Venda kingdom, 1864-1895”, PhD thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (1998); open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; we read it by OCR, and page numbers cited are the thesis’s printed numbers)
- Stefanus Hofmeyr, Twintig jaren in Zoutpansberg (Cape Town: J. H. Rose, 1890), chapters 2 and 8, in Dutch; read in the Internet Archive scan (page numbers below are the book’s, as marked in the scan’s text)
- Michael de Jongh, “The Buysdorp conundrum: constructing and articulating community and identity in Soutpansberg, Limpopo Province”, Anthropology Southern Africa 27(3-4), pp. 86 to 91 (we read only the publisher’s abstract page)
- Wikipedia: Buysdorp (a short article with no inline citations)
See also Michael Buys, Buys community, Coenraad de Buys, Buysdorp, Stephanus Hofmeyr and Schoemansdal.
Do you belong to the Buys community? Tell us what your family says about its history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.