Hans Heinrich Hattingh (c.1662-1729),^[1] otherwise known as Hans Hendrik Hattingh, was a German settler in the Dutch Cape Colony. He was a free burgher of the Dutch East India Company.

Life

Hans Heinrich Hattingh was born in about 1662 in Speyer, Germany.^[2]

Upon immigrating to Southern Africa, he started farming at a place that would become known as La Motte. At this point, Hattingh married his first wife Marie de Lanoy. A number of years later, he was widowed. He then sold La Motte to Pierre Joubert, a Huguenot settler, who went on to name it after his ancestral home in France.^[3][4]

Hattingh later married Susannah Visser, a daughter of his fellow free burgher Jan Coenraad Visser and the Indian slave woman Maria van Negapatnam.^[5][6] During this marriage, he owned the Spier estate in Stellenbosch, which he also named after his own homeland in Europe. He had acquired it as a result of his being pressured into supporting Governor Simon van der Stel in his conflict with his fellow colonists.

After writing a letter of support for Van der Stel, the governor granted him the estate - one of the Cape's best. This was a fact that led to considerable resentment on the part of the rebel free burghers, as they regarded Hattingh as a traitor to their cause as a result of it. By the point of his death, Spier would be so valuable that the cost of its slaves alone would be sufficient to purchase a separate farm. Although he didn't leave an inventory of the structures on the estate, it is surmised that they were substantial for the period.^[7][8]

Hattingh had three children with his first wife, and ten with his second. He died in 1729.^[9]

Descendants

Counted amongst Hattingh's contemporary descendants are the South African politicians Chris Hattingh and Juanita Terblanche.^[10]

References