Within several years of the first permit for the slaughter of seals in Algoa Bay being issued, the seal population on St Croix island was exterminated. Steadily the seals on adjacent islands followed their fate until it was only the seals resident on Black Rocks near Bird Island which remained. This colony would be the only one to survive and even today it is the only island or outcrop populated with a colony of seals.
This is the story of the slaughter of the Algoa Bay seal population until it collapsed, except on Black Rock, never to regenerate. The only plausible explanation for this is that the waters around the Black Rock outcrop were too treacherous for the seal hunters to ply their trade there. In fact, the seas are so treacherous that many seals die in their endeavours to reach their patch of rock.
Main picture: Islands and outcrops on which seals used to reside
Korsten’s life prior to seal hunting
After Frederick Korsten’s naval service was truncated due to being captured by the Royal Navy at Saldanha Bay on 18th August 1796, he ultimately married the daughter of Jan Hoets, a successful merchant in Cape Town in 1799.
As luck would have it, Korsten, a Dutch citizen, obtained a senior appointment in the civil service by the British authorities. Why did the British appoint an enemy Dutchman to run the Customs Department? I contend that it was due to necessity. The overriding consideration was the language question. None of the British officers could speak Dutch whereas Korsten was proficient in English. This consideration overrode all the negatives. At a later stage, Korsten met the daughter of a Mr. Jan Hoets, a wealthy merchant, whose daughter he was attracted to. This relationship resulted in Mr. Hoets employing Korsten to assist him in his merchanting business and in the process, he showed him the ropes. After several years with Hoets, Korsten elected to operate as a merchant for this own account. Frederick Korsten’s life to that point was merely training and preparation for the rest of his life.
The inflection point in Korsten’s life came on the 4th February 1812 when he signed a contract for the supply of 3000 vats of salted beef per annum for the British forces on Mauritius. Amongst the plethora of activities which evolved from this venture, was a relatively minor one, seal hunting. In my opinion this activity should be reclassified as seal decimation. Within several years, Korsten had almost single-handedly succeeded in decimating the seal population on Bird Island
Korsten’s initial focus on this tender was the production of salted beef. This entailed not only the slaughter of at least 40 head of cattle per day, but also the manufacture of casks in the cooperage, gathering of salt in the salt pans, salting the beef, delivery of the filled casks to the awaiting vessels. As a spinoff Korsten cured hides and milled grain. This was expanded to providing all manner of items found in a general dealer. Ultimately Korsten diversified into whaling, sealing and fishing.
Seals take centre stage
Seal skins have been used by the peoples of North America and northern Eurasia for millennia to make waterproof jackets and boots, and seal fur to make fur coats. Sailors used to have tobacco pouches made from seal skin. In order to remove the pelts from the animals’ carcasses, the sealers split the seals’ skins in half. This was a smelly, dirty and messy job. Imagine having to kill these creatures. One had to stare them in their cute eyes before bashing their brains in.
A plenitude of seals
As the seals were only located on rocky outcrops and islands, these animals were noticed and reported on by the first ships to enter Algoa Bay. Covering these islands were seals in their tens of thousands basking and barking in the sun but ripe for the picking. In the case of Algoa Bay, it was the Portuguese explorer, Perestrello, while surveying Algoa Bay in 1575 that he noted that “innumerable sea wolves” occupied two island groups prompting him to name it Baiha dos Lobos – Bay of the Wolves.
On first sighting the fur seals, Korsten foresaw new business opportunities. In his mind, it was yet another source of income. Korsten would not be the first person to exploit this resource, but Korsten would do it on a grand scale thereby placing the survival of the fur seal in doubt. For the early settlers of the Cape, seals served as a cheap source of meat for their slaves whereas the oil rendered from the seals’ blubber was used for fuel and lighting. When the Dutch was still in control of the Cape, pelts and oil were shipped to Batavia and India by the VOC, but this proved not to be profitable.
Korsten takes the bait
Prior to the British occupation of the Cape, the whaling and sealing industry was booming globally. Two years after the British first occupied the Cape in 1795, Rear Admiral Pringle issued a Notice prohibiting any foreign vessel from “killing whales or seals on the coast of the Colony within five leaguers of the land, or in any part of the bays and creeks between Cape Negro and Delagoa Bay. All whales and seals captured within this area have to be of British taking.” It was into this milieu, that Frederick Korsten would cast his hat into the ring.
Amongst the contenders in the seal stakes were an 1820 Settler Party from Deal in Kent, England. With prior experience in sealing, whaling and fishing, they were settled in an area eponymously known as Deal Party. Under the leadership of Charles Gurney, they applied for the right to exploit the seals on St. Croix which lay just offshore their adopted home. The grant was acceded to and was applicable as from January 1822. This right was pursued with such vigour that within the three-year term of the lease, all seals on St Croix Island were exterminated, never to reappear. Even today none are resident on this rocky outcrop.
Now it was Korsten’s turn to “harvest” the seals. In the same year as Gurney’s application was lodged, Korsten petitioned the Governor of the Cape, Lord Charles Somerset, for exclusive sealing and fishing rights to the Bird Island group, which comprises a main island and a number of rocky outcrops, for an annual fee of RxD100. In his applications dated 14 June 1822 Korsten averred that he would “manage his enterprise properly.” This undertaken was given in contrast to the Deal Party whose wanton slaughter of seals on St Croix Island instead of husbanding the resource rendered it extinct.
Korsten was granted the lease. In it was stipulated that they render assistance in every respect to all vessels lying at anchor off or at the islands. Korsten advertised the lease in The Cape Government Gazette on the 5th October that year and warned all trespassers “on pain of being prosecuted to the utmost rigor of the law”. According to Colin Urquhart, “a notice to this effect was affixed by paste and nails to the inside of the door of their newly constructed hut upon the island and another placed in a bottle hung outside the door.”
Short-lived supremacy?
In spite of Korsten’s assurance that “he would manage his enterprise properly” the reality was different in that his sealing teams proved to be almost as ruthless as Gurney’s. During the first year his teams deskinned 13,707 seals and 3,000 in the subsequent year. While still basking in his success, little was he aware that his undisputed reign over the Bird Islands would be short lived.
Bearing down on Algoa Bay and as yet over the horizon swooped the British cutter George IV, under the command of Capt. John Alexander. With the financial backing of a London merchant, John Milner, Capt. Alexander challenged Korsten’s exclusive rights by landing a party of ten men onto Bird Island and brusquely and peremptorily demanding his client’s portion of the sea harvest. Alexander then sailed across to St Croix where on the 12th December 1822 he landed a party comprising 18 men. Once again, he demanded his fair share of the spoils.
A bitter dispute
Would two experienced men in Korsten and Gurney kowtow to the demands of Alexander? Failure to acquiesce to Alexander’s demands ignited a bitter dispute with Gurney and Korsten claiming exclusive right in terms of their respective leases whereas Alexander claimed that he possessed a “licence from a superior power.” Stepping into the breach, John Damant, Korsten’s son-in-law and agent, attempted to enlist the assistance of the Landdrost at Uitenhage, Colonel J.G. Cuyler. On the advice of Cuyler, they were told to lay civil charges against Alexander and that is what Korsten did.
Alexander dethroned and “de-sealed”
Alexander assured in the righteousness of this claim, arrived back in Cape Town in his cutter late in the summer only to have it confiscated as well as facing a fine of RxD 20,000 for trespass and damages. Upon appeal, on the 24th March 1824, the Supreme Court ruled in the sea captain’s favour, but the plaintiff immediately appealed the verdict which he won in November. According to Colin Urquhart, “the Appeal Court ruled that the Governor did not have the power to grant the lease of the islands within the colony’s territorial waters and that Korsten had taken full possession of the Bird Islands. Defeated and found guilty of trespass, Alexander was ordered to return 1,232 skins or pay 4 Rix dollars for each deficient, to pay RxD 812 for oil that this number of seals represented and to pay a further RxD 4,000 dollars for damages.
John Milner’s displeasure
The loss of the case against Korsten did not sit well with the London financier, John Milner. He was highly displeased with the outcome as “he wanted his financial rewards for sending a ship all the way to Southern Africa. Seeking help, Milner approached His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of the Colonies, The Right Honourable Earl Bathurst. After lengthy correspondence between Lord Charles Somerset, Bathurst merely confirmed the ruling of the Cape Supreme Court.
Lt. King’s bid for the lease
Clearly not satisfied with the outcome, Milner adopted a different approach. Milner approached Bathurst directly about the possibility of leasing Bird Island in 1826. To his surprise he was informed that a former British naval officer, Lt James Saunders King had successfully bid for the lease but had disappeared off Port Natal. In fact, King’s brig Mary had been lost whilst attempting to cross the sandbar at Port Natal on 10 October 1825. Earlier correspondence between King and Bathurst revealed that Lt. King had also clashed with Korsten over Bird Island’s sealing rights. King claimed that he had landed a sealing party on the uninhabited island and applied to Lord Charles Somerset for the exclusive sealing rights. His application had been rejected by Somerset who said that he would not alienate positions of that nature. King stated that he was therefore surprised to find upon his return to Algoa Bay that Korsten had taken exclusive possession of Bird Island, chased off King’s men and kept the 3000 seal skins that they had procured. Failing to receive a satisfactory answer about the ‘discrepancies’ in the manner in which Somerset granted leases, Lt. King had vanished to Port Natal. Several years later, he turned up at Port Elizabeth as one of King Shaka’s emissaries. King died in 1828.
Validity of the basis of permits issued
The power of a bureaucrat often resides in their ability to grant permits. In awarding the permit, conditions are attached to its issue in order that their preferred awardee meets the criteria. Hence the claim by Alexander that he possessed a “licence from a superior power” could be indicative that the British monarch had the sole right to award such permits. This seems implausible. More perplexing are the competing narratives regarding exactly what and by whom permits could be issued. If so, is it possible that the “higher authority” that Alexander was referring to was Lord Charles Somerset himself? To me, this case has the look, smell and feel of skulduggery but without additional corroborating evidence, the culpability of any party cannot be determined.
Actions have consequences
As a consequence of the over exploitation of the seal colonies, today seals no longer reside on all the islands and outcrops in Algoa Bay. Only on one rocky outcrop, known as Black Rocks, do seals still have a presence. Apart from the wholesale slaughter of seals for profit, the subsequent excavation of guano on the islands has discouraged the return of seals to the other islands. Apart from human intervention preventing their return, the instinct known a natal philopatry which directs the animal to breed at the same location where they were born, has largely suppressed their desire to repopulate neighbouring islands.
Source
East to the Isles: The Story of the Bird Islands of Algoa Bay, South Africa by Colin Urquhart and Norbert Klages [1996, Bluecliff Publishing, Port Elizabeth]