THEWHITEINVADERS
rely heavily on the unpaid services of prominent
trekboers known as
heemraden and veldkornets. In each district, six heemraden were appoint-
ed by the government from lists prepared by the existing holders of those
offices. Besides administering the affairs of the district, the landdrost and
the heemraden formed a court of justice with minor civil jurisdiction. In
each subdivision of a district, a veldkornet, appointed by the landdrost and
heemraden, was responsible for law and order. This meant that the most
substantial trekboers had a major say in the conduct of the local admin-
istration and the inside track in relations with the authorities in distant
Cape Town.
As the century progressed, the trekboer families spread out thinly over a
vast area. Of the 13,830 burghers in the Cape Colony in 1793, only 3,100
were in the vast eastern district of Graaff-Reinet and 1,925 in Swellendam
district. Stellenbosch district, which included much of the more densely
populated arable country, had 4,640 colonists, and the small Cape district,
including the town, had 4,155. 27
Transportation between the trekboer homesteads and between the trek-
boer country and the Cape peninsula-which
contained Cape Town, the