The Kok family
Kok is the family of the Griqua captains (kaptyn) who led one of the main Griqua groups. Two accounts of the line are available, and they do not agree on every point. Don Pinnock’s 2021 Daily Maverick article says Adam Kok I was born about 1710 to a female slave and an unnamed Dutchman, gathered displaced men and people evading colonial commandos, and married Donna Gogosathe, the daughter of a Khoi chief; the Cape authorities recognised him as a buffer and gave him the title Kaptyn. Wikipedia’s Griqua article calls him a former slave who bought his freedom. Pinnock names Cornelius as Adam I’s son, baptised about 1800 after meeting the missionary John Philip, and Adam Kok II as his grandson; Wikipedia gives Cornelius in two different relationships and we cannot resolve them.
Adam Kok III
Wikipedia’s article on Adam Kok III gives his dates as 16 October 1811 to 30 December 1875. It says he was a son of Adam Kok II, educated at the Philippolis mission school, who succeeded his father after the latter’s death in 1835, ahead of an older brother, Abraham, because the elders preferred his political experience. (Pinnock says he took over the captaincy in 1837.) Much of that article rests on a single archived website of the Griqua Royal House, and it carries maintenance flags.
- Philippolis. The article says the Napier Treaty of 1843, negotiated between Kok III and Moshoeshoe I, recognised Moshoeshoe’s jurisdiction over land between the Orange and Caledon rivers. Trekboers leased land in Griqua territory, with more than 1,500 farmers there by 1836 according to the article, and Kok III passed laws in 1838 and 1840 to control the leases.
- The trek. In 1861 he accepted a British offer to resettle in the eastern Cape. Pinnock says he ceded the Philippolis area to the Free State for 4,000 pounds and led the trek to Nomansland with about 3,000 people, 300 wagons, 20,000 cattle and 200,000 sheep, and that about 90 percent of the stock was lost before they descended the Drakensberg. Wikipedia says the Griqua crossed the Drakensberg in February 1863 and founded Griqualand East near Mount Currie.
- Griqualand East. The article says they set up a government, legislature and taxes, and printed currency in 1867 that was rarely used. In 1874 the Cape placed the territory under custodial government, and Kok III died on 30 December 1875 at Umzimkhulu after a wagon accident, without an heir. The territory was annexed by Act 38 of 1877, effective 17 September 1879.
What we have not read
Both main sources are secondary and the Wikipedia articles carry citation notices. We have not read the books they cite (Cavanagh, Waldman, Ross, Penn), the Griqua Royal House’s own pages, or any account by a Kok family member. We do not know who leads the Kok line today.
Izithakazelo and totem
We have found no recorded praises or totem for the Kok family, so we are printing none. If you belong to the Kok family and want its history recorded here, with your permission and credited to you, we would like to hear from you.
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Adam Kok III
- Wikipedia: Griqua people
- Don Pinnock, Daily Maverick: The Kok family and the longest trek in South Africa (2021)
See also Griqua, Waterboer and Le Fleur.
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