Picture: Canva
Framing the narrative
The former Drostdy, now home to Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Theology, is often described in celebratory terms, emphasising its Cape Dutch facade and its role as an institutional landmark. Yet such framings risk reproducing colonial memory while erasing the violence, dispossession and exclusion that the building embodies. Far from being a neutral architectural monument, the site must be recognised as a product of colonial power, constructed through the labour of enslaved people and maintained as a symbol of settler permanence. I approach this space through the work of counter-narration, driven by my interest in critical heritage and its possibilities for restitutional justice and reparations. For me, the most meaningful form of reparation is truth-telling. The best way to honour our history is not by preserving myths of grandeur, but by naming the realities of colonialism, slavery and apartheid and by refusing the silences that have long concealed them. Counter-narration enables the foregrounding of the lives, struggles and erasures of those systematically denied recognition. In this way, the building can be read not merely as a heritage site, but as a contested space of law, violence and colonial domination whose legacies persist into the present.
Conventional history
Official texts from Stellenbosch University, along with its websites and academic literature, often present the former Drostdy – the current Faculty of Theology building – in celebratory terms, emphasising its architectural style and institutional importance. The following paragraphs illustrate how this framing shapes the portrayal of the building.
The building at 171 Dorp Street, now home to Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Theology, has a layered history, having served as the Drostdy, the seat of local governance, from 1687 to 1827. During this period, it housed the landdrost and heemraden, the magistrate and local council responsible for judicial, administrative and civic matters in Stellenbosch. Stellenbosch was proclaimed a district on 31 August 1682, following Governor Simon van der Stel’s recommendation to establish local governance structures to manage land disputes and the needs of a growing settlement. A Court of Heemraad was created, and in 1685 a landdrost was appointed, holding wide-ranging authority over land allocation, taxation, agriculture, education, religion, policing, prisons and the oversight of marginalised groups, including enslaved people and the Khoikhoi.
The first Drostdy, completed in 1687, was a U-shaped thatched structure on an island in the Eerste River and was Stellenbosch’s first public building besides the church, symbolising civic and judicial authority. The building fell into disrepair, prompting reconstructions: a second Drostdy in 1709, destroyed by fire in 1710; a third in 1718 with a symmetrical Cape Dutch facade, destroyed by fire in 1762; and a fourth in 1767, designed in an H-shape with Rococo gables and balustrades, reflecting the Cape Dutch farmhouse style still present today. The Drostdy served as the judicial and administrative hub of the district, though its authority was challenged under British colonial rule, especially over disputes concerning slave legislation and the introduction of English in official proceedings. The landdrost and heemraden system was abolished on 31 December 1827, replaced by magistrates and civil commissioners aligned with British governance.
After this, the building became a private residence before its transformation into the Dutch Reformed Church’s Theological Seminary in the mid-nineteenth century. The Drostdy phase remains foundational in the building’s history, marking it as the centre of early Stellenbosch governance for one and a half centuries.
Critical reappraisal of the conventional history
The so-called “Cape Dutch facade”
Describing the building as having a “Cape Dutch facade” may suggest aesthetic admiration, but the style carried social and political weight. Its gables, whitewashed walls and symmetry symbolised settler wealth, permanence and dominance over colonised land, with the erasing of indigenous spatial practices. Construction and maintenance relied heavily on enslaved artisans and labourers. The facade should therefore be understood not simply as an architectural style, but as a material expression of racial hierarchy and colonial power.
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The facade should therefore be understood not simply as an architectural style, but as a material expression of racial hierarchy and colonial power.
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Language that normalises violence
Terms like “juridical authority”, “civil administration” and “seat of governance” create an impression of neutral bureaucracy. These institutions were instruments of dispossession and control. The landdrost’s oversight of enslaved people and indigenous communities involved flogging, executions and raids.
Architectural “progress” and reconstruction
Accounts of successive Drostdy reconstructions as “evolving architectural style” risk normalising settler permanence. Each rebuilding was a deliberate assertion of colonial authority, not merely an aesthetic development. Fires, decay and conflict were opportunities to reassert settler dominance in the landscape.
Such language must be critically interrogated, recognising whose voices and bodies were systematically denied or violated. It requires uncovering the silences embedded in the celebratory narratives and making visible the violence that underpinned the building’s very construction and function. By doing so, I am challenging the authority of official heritage discourse and creating space for counter-narratives that centre the experiences of the enslaved, the dispossessed and the excluded.
The real history: Law, violence and exclusion
Although the landdrost and heemraden presented themselves as guardians of “law and order”, the system they oversaw was a tool of settler power rather than a framework of justice. It was openly racialised and hierarchical, granting protection to a small settler elite while denying indigenous peoples and the enslaved any meaningful rights. Khoikhoi, San and enslaved communities were barred from testifying against settlers, leaving them exposed to exploitation and dispossession. Claims to land, water and resources were routinely dismissed or reshaped to entrench settler authority and erase indigenous sovereignty.
The landdrost and heemraden wielded authority far beyond judicial duties, controlling land, water, taxation, labour, religion and social conduct. Their rule entrenched settler privilege, securing of land and extracting of resources while denying power to others. Resistance was criminalised; enslaved people who fled or defied authority met with brutal reprisals, execution, flogging, imprisonment or branding.
Injustice toward enslaved and indigenous people
Heemraad courts upheld settler supremacy, treating the enslaved, Khoikhoi and San as legally invisible. Settler violence was routinely dismissed or lightly punished, framing non-Europeans as property rather than people. The courts’ supposed impartiality masked oppression, embedding systemic injustice into governance.
Racialised administration of law
The law enforced racial hierarchies. Indigenous customs, like grazing ancestral lands, were criminalised, while settlers received legal protection and title deeds. Enslaved people faced brutal punishments for theft (of their own cattle), desertion and defiance, reinforcing European authority and delegitimising indigenous autonomy.
Violence and coercion
Landdrosts wielded both judicial and military power, deploying commandos to suppress resistance. Indigenous communities faced massacres, forced displacement and the capture of women and children. Violence was central to colonial governance, instilling fear and ensuring compliance.
Protection of settler interests
Heemraad membership was limited to wealthy settlers, whose decisions favoured European interests. These institutions consolidated land, wealth and power, while denying rights and justice to the colonised majority. The Drostdy system shows how law, governance and architecture enforced exclusion, exploitation and colonial violence.
The way forward
The former Drostdy, now housing Stellenbosch University’s Faculty of Theology, is not merely an architectural monument or institutional landmark. While the building remains the property of the Dutch Reformed Church, I approach it as a site of colonial memory and of the politics of ongoing forgetting, where walls and facades encode histories of violence, domination and exclusion too often ignored. Writing its true history is crucial, and the university has a significant role to play in this work of challenging narratives that celebrate prestige while silencing the enslaved, Khoikhoi and San. The building stands as a tangible instrument of dispossession and racialised authority – the shadows of its past reaching into the present – and confronting them exposes the human cost embedded in its material and symbolic structures.
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By foregrounding these lives, I aim to disrupt neutral portrayals, reveal how law and architecture entrenched inequality, and foster a historical consciousness that acknowledges suffering, insists on truth and refuses to perpetuate the hierarchies the Drostdy once enforced.
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By foregrounding these lives, I aim to disrupt neutral portrayals, reveal how law and architecture entrenched inequality, and foster a historical consciousness that acknowledges suffering, insists on truth and refuses to perpetuate the hierarchies the Drostdy once enforced.
References
Hall, S and Tayob, H (eds) (2020). Race, space & architecture: Towards an open-access curriculum. London: London School of Economics. Available at: https://www.racespacearchitecture.org (Accessed: 26 August 2025).
Ross, R (2008). Status and respectability in the Cape colony, 1750-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tayob, H (2021). Unconfessed architectures: Survivance; e-flux Architecture: Survivance. Available at: https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/survivance/386349/unconfessed-architectures (Accessed: 26 August 2025).
Tayob, H (ed) (2023). Archive of forgetfulness. Johannesburg: Archive of Forgetfulness Collective. Available at: https://reviewsindh.pubpub.org/pub/archive-of-forgetfulness (Accessed: 26 August 2025).
Stellenbosch University Website. https://www.sun.ac.za/english/faculty/theology/Pages/About.
Van Rooi, V and Solomons, A (2024). Unveiling the silent narratives: A multidimensional analysis of the Stellenbosch University Faculty of Theology building and its impact on teaching church history. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 50(2):1-16. https://doi.org/10.25159/2142-4265/16089.
Viljoen, R (2018). Indentured labour and Khoikhoi “equality” before the law in Cape colonial society: The case of Jan Paerl, c 1796. Itinerario, 42(2):155-178. Available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/itinerario/article/indentured-labour-and-khoikhoi-equality-before-the-law-in-cape-colonial-society-south-africa-the-case-of-jan-paerl-c-17961/694C1E7AE67E37D70B0CB1B3C10C02D8 (Accessed: 26 August 2025).
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Insightful and even proactive.