Cornelis Frederik Bezuidenhout (24 August 1760 – 10 August 1815) as a frontier farmer in the eastern Cape Colony whose death in a skirmish with Khoi soldiers, who had been sent to arrest him, was the origin of the Slagtersnek Rebellion which reached its dramatic finale on 9 March 1816 under the gallows at Van Aardspos, twelve miles south of Slagtersnek.
Freek was descendant of Wynand Leendertsz Bezuidenhout, of the Netherlands, master gardener at the Cape, and his wife, Jannetje Gerrits, of Amsterdam.
While Bezuidenhout was preparing to resist his arrest by force, Lieutenant F Rousseau accompanied the Deputy-Messenger with a patrol of twelve Khoikhoi soldiers.
With his mixed race[citation needed] son and a casual visitor, Jacob Erasmus, he sought refuge amongst the tumbled rocks of the nearby valley.
[2] The cave in which Bezuidenhout died, and also his grave, are at Silverbrook farm, the present Glen Lynden in the Eastern Cape.
The Dutch Reformed Church and the local Reddingsdaadbond [1] erected an obelisk of red dolerite at the cave and a granite rock at the grave.