19th c Missionary letters from Natal: childbirth, journeys and daguerrotypes

There’s a gap in Charlotte Grout’s letters due to the birth of her daughter, Eliza, as is explained in a letter from Umvoti dated 28 July 1851:

Now my dear little Eliza is seldom willing to allow me time though my strength is increasing. She is at this moment lying on the bed beside me talking, laughing and tossing up her little feet. She is a very sweet child when she is well as she seems to be this evening. She is now 13 weeks old. She has been rather a crying child thus far …

My dear husband never seemed so precious to me as when at my bedside he besought the Lord to have mercy in that time of need. I have very slowly regained my strength, indeed I am not yet strong, but am comfortable. Two weeks ago we had company for a whole week of five or six persons, but Mr. G assisted me, & our girls were very faithful.

Last week we took a journey to Port Natal to obtain supplies, and I think neither myself or baby are any the worse for it. It occupied us the entire week. O!, you cannot fancy what a time we had each night in getting ready to retire, and each morning in dressing and packing up things in riding order. A. & N. had their bed made up on the bottom of the wagon in front, while we & baby slept on our mattresses elevated on a frame about a foot & a half from the bottom. Shawls, blankets & rugs all came in use in hanging up in the wagon to keep out wind and cold. You will probably be surprised to learn that each morning we were up, dressed, and riding often before sunrise, & that too in our winter mornings, when it is sometimes bitter cold. I often thought, & indeed said, that I would not think of taking the journey to Gen. Meeting in Sept. next … distant from us about 80 miles. But I have got home & rested & feel none the worse, so perhaps I shall start again in about five weeks. It is all hard work with children. The traveling & then living in the wagon after we arrive is quite trying, but we need the change. We need to meet the brethren & sisters of the Mission …

Can you believe that your daughter C(harlotte). is 40 years old?! I cannot realize it, and today I was thinking that James is 30. I was surprised to receive his Daguerreotype (sic) & see how old he looks. … Last week we received Oriana’s. How she has grown!

We hear that a man has arrived here from England who has knowledge of this art (daguerrotype) & I hope the time is not far distant when we shall be able to send you ours.

Above left: Charlotte Grout as an older woman.

The photographer to whom Charlotte refers is probably William Waller, who arrived in Natal in May 1851 and advertised in the Natal Witness in August of that year, indicating that he would be taking daguerrotype portraits. (Louis Daguerre had perfected the art, later named after him, in 1839.)

The Oriana mentioned is Oriana Grout (she never used her other forename, Relief) Aldin's daughter by his first wife.

American missionary letters from Natal continued.

Although Umpande had allowed Aldin Grout to found the Inkanyezi Mission Station, two years later the King gave his army orders to kill any of his subjects connected with the mission, though Grout and his family were to be spared.

At this point the American Board of Commissioners withdrew from the field. Not wishing to abandon his work, Grout went to Cape Town, returning as a Government missionary unconnected with the ABCFM, a position he held for a year in Natal. Meanwhile, Newton Adams had also decided to stay on, setting up his station at Amanzimtoti. Lindley became a minister to the Voortrekkers for five years (during which time he baptised a boy named Paul Kruger). Later, Lindley founded the Mission Station at Inanda.

Aldin Grout resumed his ties with the ABCFM in 1845 and the following year founded the Umvoti Mission Station. By this time Umpande’s power and popularity were in decline and large numbers – possibly as many as 100 000 - of his people had crossed the Tugela and moved into Natal.

Charlotte Grout soldiered on, coping with the daily vicissitudes of a frontierswoman. She writes in housewifely mode to her father from Umvoti on 16 August 1848:

I have often thought that you may at times feel anxious about us lest we suffer for the necessaries and comforts of life. True we are deprived of many of the good things we enjoyed at home, but we seldom suffer. There is no season of the year but we have something from our garden. It is now winter, and we have sweet potatoes, beets, tomatoes, lettuce, sugar cane and gooseberries. For the last eight months we have had daily green corn … and we often have peas, beans, onions, cabbage, and cauliflower. We do not have a good variety of meats, though we have fowls in abundance and pigs. We seldom have a piece of beef unless we slaughter. We have some sheep and goats, but not enough to slaughter very often. We usually have milk enough for family use and generally make our own butter, though sometimes purchase of a Dutch farmer who lives a few miles from us. Cows are becoming far more expensive than they have been owing to the number of white inhabitants which is constantly increasing. We can generally purchase wheat meal and fine flour, though we have sometimes been reduced to Indian meal for a short time … For dinner today we had fried ham and eggs and sweet potatoes, with a dessert of gooseberry and custard pies. These Cape gooseberries are delicious. I may sometime send you a bottle preserved. We can purchase very common clothing here, though it is expensive. We frequently send to Cape Town. Shoes are very poor here and are a great bill of expense to us, as our children wear them constantly on account of poisonous reptiles …

Our postboy … takes his mail bag on his back & starts on foot early Mon. morning, arrives at D’Urban Tues. evening, and returns here on Thursday evening. The distance is 45 miles. We always receive the Natal Witness and letters from some or all of the brethren and sisters. But our letters from home are worth all the rest.

If only we all had a Charlotte among our own ancestors, someone who maintained a regular flow of correspondence, allowing us illuminating glimpses into their daily lives. Letters remained the most important means of communication for the Natal missionaries, though the inevitable delays (waiting for ships to arrive, weather to improve or for rivers to subside) must have been frustrating. If there was one quality essential to a missionary it was patience.

Engraving of the Entrance to the Bay of Natal, a sailing ship entering the channel, with the Bluff

and Signal Station at right and the sandy spit known as the Point at left. 

American missionaries writing from Natal in the 1840s

Rev Aldin Grout's meeting with Umpande of the Zulus in 1840, established amity with the King. The following year Grout founded a Mission Station at Inkanyezi (near Empangeni in ‘the Zulu Country’) where he opened a school.

From Inkanyezi, Charlotte writes in March 1842 to her brother James Bailey in Holden, Massachusetts, telling him that her husband made a further, more recent, visit to Umpande, ‘in order to secure a continuance of the friendly feelings already existing between us’ (i.e. between the King and Aldin Grout). Charlotte, rising to the challenge, makes plans of her own:

I thought it necessary to have a short vacation in my school, and not deeming it pleasant to remain here alone concluded to accompany him. We were therefore obliged to fit our wagon with every thing necessary for ‘housekeeping’ in the open field during about two weeks. Our company consisted of our interpreter and six native children, members of our family, besides Mr. G. and myself. We left one at home to take charge of things … After riding 8 ½ hours since we started we outspanned for the night on the banks of the Insileni river.

Their journey took about four days of hard travelling, much of it in rain and cold. Despite this, Charlotte was eager to meet the King and get sight of what she calls his 'Capitol':

As we approached [the King’s kraal] we saw no rising dome to mark it - no spire of churches or other public buildings - heard no sound of the bell to remind us that time was passing - but merely saw on a small elevation from the Umfolozi river a brush fence enclosing a circle of perhaps four acres. Just within the fence were huts extending around the entire circle, amounting to two or three hundred. The fence is higher than the tops of the huts. There was one entrance perhaps four ft. wide where the cattle passed morning and evening, besides one or two smaller ones. We outspanned outside the kraal …

Most of the inhabitants had never before seen a white woman. Some were amazed at Charlotte's walking alongside her husband, since in Zulu custom wives follow at a discreet and respectful distance. The visitors were conducted past the outer enclosure into the presence of Umpande in the royal hut.

We stopped before the door which was a foot & a half high, supposing he would see us outside, but he insisted upon our coming in. We therefore dropped down, and crawled in as well as we could … As we approached him he smiled and shook hands. We then sat down in front of him. My first object was to view his appearance. The mat was spread on the earth floor & he sat upon it a little elevated from the floor by his pillow which is a block of wood. He had a band of black & pink beads … tastefully bound around his forehead, and his body was comfortably enveloped in a blanket. He appeared to be 35 years of age. He had a native basket by his side containing his snuff box, which was a little squash shell and which he was almost constantly opening to partake of its contents. He had a few earthen dishes standing one side of the room … That was all the furniture in the room … except a pot of burning coals standing at the centre. He conversed on various topics – said he was sorry we came at this season of the year, when he had nothing to give us to eat.

The remainder of the Grouts’ visit passed peacefully enough that weekend, the King presenting them with a large ox before they left on the return trip to Inkanyezi. However, the missionaries’ future remained insecure, as they were well aware. But trouble was to come from an unexpected quarter a few months later.

Charlotte’s letter to her brother remained unposted until mid-June 1842, when she added a postscript in tiny handwriting:

We learn from natives the Eng. have arrived at Natal & taken the Port, with a loss of several killed both on the part of Eng. & Dutch. We feel anxious to hear from our brethren Adams & Lindlay [sic]; it has now been four months since we heard from them.

For more about the conflict at Port Natal to which Charlotte refers above, see:

www.genealogyworld.net/military/port%20natal%201842.html

www.genealogyworld.net/military/port%20natal%201842_b.html

Engraving of Port Natal with ox-wagon in foreground.

Grout missionary family letters from Natal.

Charlotte Grout (nee Bailey), wife of missionary Rev. Aldin Grout, writes to her father in Massachusetts from Umlazi, Port Natal, giving details of their new South African life:

Sep. 29, 1840

You perceive by the date of my letter that we are still at P. Natal ... We are both enjoying uninterrupted health for which we cannot be sufficiently grateful. We arise in the morning before the sun and while I am dressing Ira [one of the people on the mission station] has made a fire in the kitchen and boiled the kettle. He boils the coffee and toasts the bread which with a little butter is always, uniformly, our breakfast. Immediately after breakfast, family devotion. Then I attend to my domestic concerns a part of which are every day to make a loaf of bread. I spend no time on making pies or cake. The remainder of the A.M. we devote to study. At twelve we eat a lunch, and at three have dinner and tea at the same time. (I take neither tea or coffee.) So you see how our time is divided. But here let me say, it is not so easy performing domestic labor here as at home. We are exceedingly annoyed by a multiplicity of red ants. If a piece of bread or meat is laid down, it is entirely covered in a few minutes. All the way we can preserve food on dishes is to set everything in a cupboard and set the bottom of the cupboard in a trough of water. Our floors are of earth which we cover with rush mats, like what Mr. G. brought home. It is necessary that they be smeared once a week, which is done with cow dung and water. Everything must be lifted from the floor, for we have chests standing about. Mats must be taken up and carried out to dry, and then it takes all of a pleasant day to dry the floor, which when done, all things must be replaced …

These dung floors, well-rubbed when dry, could attain a glossy, polished appearance; best of all - and this may be more difficult to believe - they discouraged flies. This type of floor was traditional among the Zulu and other tribes and is still seen today in rural areas.

Charlotte, like other female pioneers, missed her garden 'back home', and requested family members to send seeds of favourite flowers, which unfortunately did not always thrive in the sub-tropics:

Tell sister A. that I have sown the flower seeds she gave me, but nothing came up except one marigold and two or three china asters, and the ants have destroyed those today. I think there are two or three pinks which Mr. G. sowed, if so I shall value them. He has some cotton, flax, broom corn, buck wheat … all of which grew well. This is a beautiful country. It is indeed a garden.

But Charlotte Grout's letters are not taken up solely with domestic detail; she is fully aware of the tenuous position in which missionaries found themselves in Natal and makes comment upon political and economic developments as well as religious matters. At the time Charlotte Grout was writing, Umpande was the Zulu King (successor to Dingane).

What is in reserve for us I know not. One thing we have confidence in. The Lord reigns and will do his pleasure notwithstanding the devices of men. The Dutch have not yet settled the affair mentioned in my last letter with Umpandi [sic]. They have sent for U. to be present at the Raad [Dutch Council] which is now in session. We think it doubtful whether he comes, but if he does it may throw some light on our future course.

In the end, Umpande refused to attend the Raad so it was necessary for members of the Raad to go to him instead. Rev Grout, with his interpreter, was to accompany this expedition. Charlotte would be left alone at Umlazi Mission: 'I expect a lonely time, but the Lord will take care of me. I shall have more anxiety on Mr. G's account.' 

In 1840 Umlazi Mission Station (seen in the drawing at left)  was a small collection of primitive buildings: if he believed Charlotte would be safe there, Aldin Grout's faith must have equalled hers as he left on his journey across the Tugela River into the land of the Zulu.