Coinage used by the Voortrekkers

Pierre H. Nortje - January 2026

Introduction

In November 2014, Professor Francois Malan of the University of Pretoria published a paper entitled “A Review of South African Numismatic Research and Literature for the period 1900 – 2014”.

On page 30, he writes, “Almost no numismatic literature is available on the monetary aspects of The Great Trek and the coins taken along by the Voortrekkers. The book Voortrekkerlewe (1) describes that banknotes were not used during the Trek and Boers took large sums of gold coins with them. This area requires research as so little is known about the money used by the Voortrekkers during the first few years after the Trek”.

Regarding the hard currency in circulation then at the Cape, the late Dr. Frank Mitchell wrote an article in 1986 entitled “A Foundation Stone Hoard het Nuwe Kerk, Cape Town 1833.” (2). He starts off his paper by asking questions like “What coins did the Voortrekkers take with them when they set off North with their wagons in the 1830’s?” and ends off … “I wonder if Piet Retief and his friends had similar pieces in their pockets when they took off on their Great Trek in 1837?”

Dr. Mitchell tells us that in 1967, the “Nuwe Kerk”, a church building of the Dutch Reformed Church in Cape Town, was demolished. An engraved silver plaque on the foundation stone proclaimed in Latin that it had been laid by the British Governor at the Cape of Good Hope, Sir Galbraith Lowry Cole, on 20 April 1833 during the reign of King William IV. When the foundation stone was removed during the demolition, a collection of 20 coins was found with other contemporary articles, such as a newspaper. He says when he examined this hoard, all the coins so carefully placed under the stone … “were pieces which were familiar, and presumably in circulation, in Cape Town at the time.” The hoard included 9 pieces from Great Britain, 8 from the Netherlands and 3 from other countries.

We will come back to the coins found in this hoard later in this paper.

Money matters during the period at the Cape

When Great Britain occupied the Cape in 1806 for the second time, hard currency (coins) was still a scarcity, with paper notes filling the need for money. During this period, Great Britain’s silver coin production virtually ceased until 1816 with the so-called “Great Recoinage”, when a massive coinage program was undertaken to help stabilise the United Kingdom's finances following the Napoleonic War. (3) As a matter of interest, the 3-pence and 2-shilling denominations were not included in the recoinage program, with the former only struck in 1834 and the latter in 1849.

By the 1830s, the old rixdaalder (rixdollar) notes, once so abundant at the Cape, were practically phased out as a circulating currency, although the term was still used in some accounting ledgers and verbal transactions for some years that followed. (4)

Twenty years after the second occupation of the Cape, the British government decided to put the currency of all its colonies on a sterling basis and on 1 January 1826, British coinage was introduced as the official currency of the Cape Colony consisting of the ¼d, ½d, 1d, 6d, 1/-, 2/6, 5/-, 10/- and £1. The picture below from Baldwin’s (London) shows these denominations in a set of 1831.

It must, however, be pointed out that after 1826, when the supply of British coin was insufficient to pay the garrison troops, foreign silver coins like the Spanish dollars were still used. (5)

The Cape of Good Hope Almanac and Annual Register for 1841 (6) reports that the coins in circulation are exclusively British, consisting of gold Sovereigns and half Sovereigns, silver Crowns, half Crowns, Shillings, Sixpences and copper Pennies, Halfpennies and Farthings and that these have been established by H.M. Government as the circulating medium of the Colony.

The Great Trek

During the first quarter of the 1800s, dissatisfaction grew among the Dutch-speaking (Boer) population with British colonial policies in the Cape Colony. This was caused by the imposition of English as the language of the judiciary, the abolition of slavery, and a feeling of loss of control over their labour force. As early as 1832, a scouting party was sent to Natal, followed by another party in 1834. The reports were favourable, and between 1835 and 1840, various parties left the Cape Colony with their ox wagons, trekking north-eastwards. It is estimated that 6 000 people (roughly 10% of the Cape Colony's white population or 20% of the white population in the eastern districts) joined the treks during this period (7). They would become known as the Voortrekkers (Pioneers, literally meaning "ones who trek ahead”).

A map charting the routes of the largest trekking parties during the first wave of the Great Trek (1835-1840) along with key battles and events. - Source: Wikipedia

From the above map, it is clear that the various treks started in the Eastern Cape from towns like Graaf Reinet, Grahamstown and Uitenhage. These towns and surrounding areas had a substantial number of English-speaking inhabitants during the 1830s due to several groups of British colonists who settled in the eastern part of the Cape Colony under the auspices of the government of the United Kingdom in 1820.

Many of the 1820 Settlers initially arrived in the Cape in about 60 different parties between April and June 1820 and were granted farms near the village of Bathurst. They were supplied with equipment and food, but their lack of agricultural experience led many of them to abandon agriculture and withdraw to Bathurst and other settlements like Grahamstown, East London and Port Elizabeth, where they typically reverted to their trades like bakers, blacksmiths, saddle makers and cobblers (8).

During the 1830s, various merchants and shops operated in the area and British coinage as a circulating medium must have been well established by then. Many British soldiers were also stationed in the Eastern Cape due to the so-called Xhosa Wars (also known as the Cape Frontier Wars) and were paid in cash.

In his article previously mentioned, Dr. Frank Mitchell tells us that in the late 1950's, a quantity of British silver coins were found near Lake Arthur in the Cradock district. Most were shillings, with a few half-crowns of George IV and William IV, in uncirculated though corroded state. With them were a few pieces of the last coinage of George III, which had seen some circulation. The latest pieces were shillings of William IV dated 1836. It was assumed when the hoard was found that these coins represented soldiers’ pay, which had been hidden in time of crisis by some military paymaster during one of the many Frontier Wars.

Grahamstown in 1827. Source: eBay, Australia.

Even earlier hoards from the Eastern Cape are recorded: In his book From Barter to Barclays, Eric Rosenthal records that many years ago, on the banks of the Great Fish River near Cradock, fifteen Netherlands Guilders were picked up, the dates ranging from 1687 to 1785 (9).

The amount of money in circulation at the Cape during the period

The Cape of Good Hope Almanac and Annual Register for 1841 records that the amount of specie (coins) imported by the Commissariat between the years 1825 and 1838 was £342 005. Coins imported by merchants and others to the end of 1839 amounted to £372 530 (consisting of £316 860 in gold, £55 070 in silver and £600 in foreign coins).

The document mentions something of great importance: It says that the money in circulation at the Cape (including the Eastern Cape) “…has been much diminished by various sums, principally in gold taken from the colony by sea, - more particularly by the emigrant farmers (the Voortrekkers thus), and which is supposed to be very considerable.

The document estimates that the amount then in circulation (by 1841) was not less than £350 000 in coins and notes, whereas the total a few years earlier (before the Great Trek?) was estimated at almost £650 000.

The Coins of the Voortrekkers

Most, if not all, of the coins that the Voortrekkers took with them must have originated in the trade in the Eastern Cape. In his diary, Louis Trichardt, a well-known Voortrekker leader, notes that they kept their intentions to trek a secret, and hoarded all the coins they could find and accepted no other forms of payment. He says (translated from Afrikaans) that …

“Grahamstown was literally drained from all hard currency in order that the emigration would be a deep and well-considered scheme” (10).

In his book The Great Trek (1985:35), C. Venter, the author, tells us that many of the Voortrekkers were prosperous and well-to-do by the standards of the time. However, few were “money-owners” and measured their wealth by the extent of their herds and flocks. Others were less well-off and even poor, but on the whole, the Voortrekkers were representative of the established and prosperous farmers of the Eastern Frontier. (11)

The author also says that before the emigration started, the Voortrekkers had to sell their fixed properties - farms as well as town properties and in many cases for ridiculously low prices.

Still, It would seem that at least some of the Voortrekkers were very rich men: The book Voortrekkerlewe (1) notes that Joseph van Dijk had £10 000 on his wagons whilst others like Isaak Roberts, who was murdered with Piet Retief had £1000, and Albert Smit, who trekked with a horse wagon, also had a large sum of gold with him. Incidentally, £1000 in gold sovereigns in 1838 would be worth R16.72 million today.

As a matter of interest: In preparation for the building of the Voortrekker Monument near Pretoria, the artist W.H. Coetzer was asked to draw up sketches in 1937 for the historical marble frieze. Twenty-seven scenes would be depicted, the first being the departure from the Cape (1835–37). Coetzer’s first drawing of the departure is packed with people, animals, furniture, household goods, weapons and landscape, with a number of ox wagons departing or about to depart, all contributing to the main theme. The Historiese Komitee (Historical Committee) made many demands of the artist, one being “… die Engelsman moet die Boer met klinkende munt betaal” (the Englishman must pay the Boer with metal coins). (12) In the first drawing, it looks like the Englishman is paying in banknotes, but in the second, he is paying with coins with a small money bag in his other hand.

The question must be asked what the Voortrekkers used their money for, as the areas they trekked through had no shops, with one exception - a trading post at Port Natal that was run by Francis Farewell and Henry Fynn since 1824. (13)

The answer is that the Voortrekkers used money among themselves and also to buy items from travelling traders (“smouse”). According to Voortrekkers.co.za, traders from the Cape visited the trekking emigrants to sell their goods, delivering mail and the latest news from the Cape. Other traders, like John Montgomery, a British Settler, actually accompanied the Boers on their trek northwards. (14) In Natal, an Italian woman, Therese Viglione, with three Italian men, constantly traded with the Voortrekkers. During the Zulu attack at Bloukrans, she rode out on horseback to warn the Voortrekkers of the imminent attack and helped to nurse the wounded. In his diary, Erasmus Smit says that Viglione had two bags of money in her saddle bags (No doubt money received from selling her wares to the Voortrekkers). (15)

As a matter of interest, in his From Barter to Barclays, Eric Rosenthal (9) mentions a purse that is in the collection of the Voortrekker museum (currently named the UMsunduzi museum) in Pietermaritzburg that belonged to a Voortrekker, Johannes Jacobus Rabie, who accompanied Piet Retief to Natal.

The Voortrekkers also made payments to church ministers who accompanied them. Erasmus Smit writes in his diary on 24 December 1837 that 5 rixdollars had to be paid each time there was a christening, reception and marriage. A salary of 300 rixdollars for the Minister was also approved by the church elders.

As we have stated earlier in this paper, many times when transactions were recorded in those days, they were expressed in the old mode of reckoning in rixdollars, skillings and stivers. So it is very difficult to say what the coin denominations actually were that changed hands during a transaction. In his diary, Erasmus Smit (15) records that business traders in Port Natal sold a bottle of wine to some Voortrekker for an amount of 2 rixdollars, 5 skellings and 2 stivers. (A rixdollar/rixdaalder was worth 1/6d, a skelling 2 3⁄4d and a stiver a ½ penny). So the amount was 3 shillings, 3 pennies and a farthing, but exactly what denominations were used, we cannot say.

One of the very few times a coin denomination was actually recorded was, according to Smit, on Sunday, 26 November 1837, when in the forenoon the Minister preached to a congregation of 30 listeners. A stranger named Bart Pretorius asked about the collection for the poor and gave a half-crown to this.

Another example Smit mentions is that on Tuesday, 31 July 1838, when Barend de Lange came with 2 wagons from Port Natal, he brought them nothing but a barrel of thin vinegar, at rixdollar a bottle; and some very small salted grey mullet, at an old two penny coin per piece. (Our comment: The denomination mentioned is presumably the old double Cartwheel Penny, a denomination only struck in 1797).

Cartwheel Penny 1797. Source: MA-Shops

In the diary by Louis Trichardt, as recorded by G.H. Van Roojen in Kultuurskatte uit die Voortrekkertydperk Deel 2 (1940) (16), one of the men hurt his leg, and the bleeding could not be stopped. He was then treated with potassium alum, and a gold Guinea coin was put on the wound.

"Had Carolus hem in zijn been gekapt en de bloed wouw niet ophouden als de avond omtrind tien uur. Heb wij daarop uitgebrande aluin gestrooijd en een gienie opgelegd”

(Our comment: The gold Guinea coin, for general circulation, was struck up to 1799, although the ½ and ⅓ Guinea denomination production only ended in 1813)

Trichardt also mentions an old Dutch coin, a Dukaton …

“Die middag kwam Albach bij] mijn, en zei dat hi] met ouwe Botha verackoordeert is voor een dikketon voor de velling in zijn (wagen) te maken, aan schapen (betaalbaar).” Albach and Botha (initially) agreed that a Dukaton must be paid per sheep on an upcoming auction. In his memoirs, Paul Kruger (1902:5) wrote that … the exodus over the Orange River commenced in May 1835. Here, my father sold about three thousand wethers (castrated rams) at a dikketon (an old coin, worth a little over two shillings) apiece to a butcher …” (17) (Our comment: The crown-sized Dukaton was also called a Silver Rijder and struck up to the year 1798. We are not sure if Trichardt and Kruger were referring to physical coins that were paid or expressing a value equalling that of a Ducaton)

Picture left: Gold Guinea. Picture right: Silver Rijder (Ducaton)

Source: Numista

The Voortrekkers sometimes used the Dutch-derived monetary terms (rixdollars, skellings and stivers) and British currencies interchangeably in Natal.

The following two examples illustrate this: In August 1841, the Volksraad decided to pay Landdrost Boshoff of Pietermaritzburg one-half crown (2 shillings and 6 pence) for each title-deed issued and Rds. 2 for each farm transferred. In February 1842, the Volksraad announced that the secretary of the Volksraad would be paid 100 pounds sterling per annum, as well as Rds. 2 for each erf transferred and one-half crown for each title-deed issued. (18)

In the introduction to this paper, we mentioned the article by Dr. Mitchell that records the coins that were found under the foundation stone of the church that was demolished in Cape Town. Dr Mitchell presumed that the coins, when they were put there in 1833, were representative of coins that still circulated at the Cape during the 1830s. He then asks the question of whether Piet Retief and his friends had similar pieces in their pockets when they took off on their Great Trek in 1837

The English coins were the following: -

Sovereign: George IV 1824

Half-sovereign: George IV 1826

Half-crown: George IV 1826

Shilling: George IV 1824

Sixpence: George IV 1824

Sixpence: William IV 1831

Penny: George III 1797

Half-penny: George IV 1826

Farthing: George IV 1826

We will remember that according to The Cape of Good Hope Almanac and Annual Register for 1841, the coins in circulation in the Cape Colony then were exclusively British, consisting of gold Sovereigns and half Sovereigns, silver Crowns, half Crowns, Shillings, Sixpences and copper Pennies, Halfpennies and Farthings. (The only denomination not in the church hoard is the Crown). So we can safely assume that the Voortrekkers were familiar with all these denominations.

The non-English coins were the following: -

Skilling or 6-stuiwer: (Scheepjesschelling) Zeeland 1791

Skilling or 6-stuiver (Rijderschelling): Nijmegen 1791

1/8 Dukaat or Pietje Zeeland 1781? (Date defaced)

2-stuiver (Dubbeltje) West Friesland 1787

2-stuiver (Dubbeltje) Holland 1791

1-stuiver (Bezemstuiver) Zeeland 1789

1/4 Gulden (Kwart Scheepjesgulden) Batavia 1802

50-stuiver Louis Napoleon, Kingdom of Holland 1808

1-Riksdaler Sweden Gustav Adolph IV 1797

Half-Pagoda, Silver, English East India Co. “Temple Type” 1807-1812 over-struck on cut down Spanish American 8-Real

2-Reals: Guatemala Charles IV of Spain 1795

Some of these coins were over 40 years old when they were buried, and it is questionable if they all were still to be found in circulation in the Cape by the mid-1830s. Many of them date from before the first British occupation of the Cape in 1795, and the reason they were included in the hoard was probably that they formed part of the earlier numismatic history of the Cape. However, in a monograph of the National Cultural History and Open Air Museum entitled Op Trek – Die daaglikse lewe tydens die Groot Trek (19) under the editorship of J. Celestine Pretorius, a picture is shown of a moneybag with coins that the Trekkers took with them, and not all of the coins were English issues. One is described as a Gulden with the emblem of the Dutch East India Company and dated 1786. It belonged to Margaretha Louisa Joubert, a sister of the Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief.

What is confusing about the picture is the inclusion of a coin depicting Queen Victoria. When the first treks left the Eastern Cape under leaders like Louis Tregardt, Hans van Rensburg, Hendrik Potgieter, Gerrit Maritz, Piet Uys and Margaretha Louisa’s brother Piet Retief, no Victorian coins were yet minted. (20) The other coins we could identify on the picture are the Dutch Gulden (already mentioned) a Crown (5/-) of George III (1818-1820), a French 5-Franc of Louis-Philippe I (1832-1843), a George III Cartwheel Penny of 1797 and what looks like a fake George III Half Penny of the late 1700s. We could find no definitive proof that Margaretha Louisa, who was married to a Daniel Jacobus Joubert, joined any of the treks, but it is possible that the coins (at least the Gulden) were a gift to her brother Piet Retief or some other Voortrekker.

Actual coin finds

A friend of the author, Lukas van der Merwe from Patensie (Mount Ingwe Lodge) in the Eastern Cape, owns one of the biggest private museums in South Africa.

Van der Merwe sent the author some pictures of coins that were found at Post Retief (an English fort built near Fort Beaufort on Piet Retief’s property in 1837 during the Xhosa wars), as well as finds from the site of the Battle of Bloukrans that took place in February 1838.

The three copper coins (all British) on the left are from Post Retief, with the one clearly dated 1827. The three on the right are from the site of the Battle of Bloukrans with the copper coin dated 1836. The shilling (showing its obverse and reverse) on the far right is dated 1839, so it was lost after the battle took place. It’s much worn condition indicates that it was lost many years after the battle, probably by friends or family of those murdered visiting the site in later years.

The money runs out

By the late 1840s, the Voortrekkers were permanently settled north of the Orange River. By that time, it seems that most of the money brought with them from the Cape was depleted, with barter being the only means of trade. In the Voortrekker-Gedenkboek van die Universiteit van Pretoria (1938:104), Professor SP Viljoen writes that the only money the Voortrekkers had at that stage was English currency that constantly had a tendency to filter back to the English Colonies (Cape Colony and Natal) where they originated from. (21)

In an article entitled Helpmekaarbewegings onder die Voortrekkers van die Groot Trek by Jackie Grobler and published by Maroela Media in November 2021, she mentions that the Volksraad of Lydenburg (a short-lived, independent Boer republic) wrote a letter on 31 October 1851 to friends in the Netherlands informing them of their desperate financial situation. The letter says that trade is conducted almost exclusively with the Cape Colony, and payments are made by slaughtered livestock and ivory, which have taken the place of money. However, due to the abject poverty among them, it is even for the most affluent impossible to hoard money and keep it that way. (22)

In his book Money in South Africa (1987: 64), C. L. Engelbrecht writes that by 1852, the Volksraad of the ZAR – literally hat in hand – had to approach the public for contributions in order to place at least something in the empty state coffers. “In the whole of the Transvaal, there was almost no money in circulation at the time”. (23)

Coins of the Voortrekkers and a 40-rixdollar note of 1831. Source: Voortrekkerlewe

Final Comments

We are certain that many, if not all, of the various treks that left the Eastern Cape in the second half of the 1830s took large amounts of cash with them. This money was predominantly English coins minted during the reigns of George III (up to 1820), George IV (1821-1830) and William IV (1831-1837). The first coins of Queen Victoria were struck in 1838, and we are sure that at later stages of the treks, the Voortrekkers came in contact with coins of her early reign period.

Rixdollar notes were finally recalled in 1831, although, according to Engelbrecht (23), the last day for redeeming the old rixdollar notes was 31 March 1841. He tells us that after the rixdollar notes were recalled, notes in sterling denominations of £1, £5, £20, £50 and £100 were first issued by the Cape government in 1831. This leaves the question of why the Voortrekkers (according to some sources (1)) did not take paper money with them? We believe, although we have no proof of this, that some Voortrekkers had at least small amounts of paper money in their possession.

Another pressing question is, if the Voortrekkers took any other coins than British issues with them, why would they do so?

British coinage, as we have stated earlier in this paper, was introduced as the official currency of the Cape Colony on 1 January 1826. A decade later, when many treks were on their way northwards, very little foreign coins would still have been in circulation, and the travelling traders from the Cape, and later from Natal, from whom the Voortrekkers bought their wares, would probably have been apprehensive in excepting such coins.

We must however mention that according to the Cape of Good Hope Almanac and Annual Register for 1841, (6) by the end of 1839, merchants “and others” brought foreign coins to the value of £600 into the colony and even after the 1826 proclamation, when the supply of British coin was insufficient to pay the garrison troops, foreign silver coins like the Spanish dollars were still used. (5)

However, in our view, the few non-British coins that may still have been in the possession of some of the Voortrekkers were kept as keepsakes and mementoes of times gone by, and not used for circulation purposes as such.

So our final conclusion is that the Voortrekker coinage was predominantly, most probably exclusively, the issues of Great Britain and remained so in the Trans-Orange for many years to come.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Professor Francois Malan from the University of Pretoria and Derick Rabe, the webmaster of the Western Cape Numismatic Society, for all their support and assistance. Also to Lukas van der Merwe from Mount Ingwe in the Eastern Cape, and the numismatist Anthony Govender from Durban, who edited the grammar.

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