Kmdt. Barend Jacobus "Swart Barend" Vorster

Vorster, Barend Jacobus (*Poortjie, Colesberg dist., 17.11.1830 - † Kalkbank, Pietersburg dist., 26.1.1898), commandant of Soutpansberg and generally known as 'Swart Barend', was the son of Barend J. Vorster and his wife, Emerentie Kotze. After his father's death in 1833 his mother remarried; the family moved to Transorangia in 1840 and to the western Transvaal in 1849. He married Alida Susanna Margaretha Botha in 1852, moved to Waterberg in 1853 and settled in the Soutpansberg in 1855, where he became a farmer and an enthusiastic big-game hunter. As a burgher, a field-cornet and, for thirty years, the commandant of Soutpansberg, he took part in various campaigns against hostile Bantu tribes. He led the Soutpansberg burghers during the First Anglo-Boer War (1880-81).

From 1888 until his death he was also the native commissioner at Kalkbank. A friend of the Rev. Stephanus Hofmeyr, he was one of the founders and for many years a leading elder of the N.G. Kerk congregation at Soutpansberg; he was prominent in church affairs when relations with the N.H. Kerk became a controversial issue. In his area he was known as a brave soldier, a patriarch of steadfast and open disposition, and a devout member of his church. There is a portrait of him in G. G. Munnik's Memoirs (Cape Town, 1934).

Reference: Source Dictionary of South African Biography

• https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS3F-D9HF-V?i=603&cc=2...
• https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS3F-D9HN-6?mode=g&i=6...
• DEPOT TAB
• SOURCE MHG
• TYPE LEER
• VOLUME_NO 0
• SYSTEM 01
• REFERENCE O/14105
• PART 1
• DESCRIPTION VORSTER, BAREND JACOBUS.
• STARTING 1898
• ENDING 1898
• REMARKS SURVIVING SPOUSE ALIDA SUSANNA MARGARETHA VORSTER (BORN BOTHA).