Robert Jacob Gordon

It was occupied by Dutch colonists who used violence to conquer more and more land around Cape Town, where VOC ships stopped for supplies en route to Asia. Gordon, who was Dutch but of Scottish descent, was a man of the Enlightenment. He was very interested in the original inhabitants of the Dutch colony, as well as its fauna and flora. He learned Khoisan and Bantu languages to communicate with the people he met, and in detailed drawings he documented their way of life, the animals and the landscape. When Gordon died, his manuscripts, drawings and maps came into the possession of the Duke of Sutherland, who oversaw the compiling of hundreds of Gordon’s drawings and maps into six books. These volumes are now held by the Rijksmuseum, under the title The Gordon Atlas.