!Goroǀgôas of the ǁAmmaqua (c1642, Cape - 29 July 1674 Robben Island)

Krotoa (called 'Eva' by V Riebeeck) of the ǁAmmaqua (Watermans) referred to disparagingly by some Peninsula Khoe as Goringhaicona (Deserters, Drifters, Outcasts) and initially confused with those the Dutch called 'Strandloopers' (Sonqua line-fishermen). The term migrated from being used to describe the //Ammaqua traders to later describe a group who split from the Cochoqua. There was never a community who called themselves 'Goringhaicona'. (JvR notes that Autshumao's people preferred to call themselves Watermans. All social group names end with 'qua' or 'koa'.

x 26 April 1664 Pieter V Meerhof

• Jacobus van Meerhof (c1661-1687)
• Pieternella Meerhof (c1663 -1713)
• Salomon Meerhof (<12 Sep 1666 -) xx NN
• Jéronimus van de Caep (< 23 Nov 1670-)
• Anthoniij Meerhof1 (<6 Aug 1673 ->1712)

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• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krotoa
• http://www.e-family.co.za/ffy/g8/p8000.htm

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27 NOV 2023

Krotoa to be awarded Civic Honours by the City of Cape Town

https://web.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=739484718218812&id=10...

Born at the Cape in 1643 – nine years before the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck – Krotoa was taken from the care of her uncle, Autshumato, and placed into the Van Riebeeck household as a servant at the age of only 11. Her remarkable language skills soon saw her take up the role of translator and negotiator between the Dutch and the Khoi.
Thrust into the world of dishonourable men when she was only a child, and given the impossible burden of negotiating the chasm between two cultures, she played a significant role in shaping our country and our city more than 350 years ago.
We are proud to confer Civic Honours on Krotoa.
In 2023, Civic Honours will be awarded to several individuals for their significant contribution to society – in Cape Town and throughout the world, see: bit.ly/3QdsWnr [https://www.capetown.gov.za/Family%20and%20home/Meet-the-City/Our-m...]

1. CivicHonoursCT

Civic Honours

The City awards Civic Honours to outstanding individuals, organisations or military units.

What are Civic Honours?
Civic Honours recognise extraordinary contributions or acts of service to our city and its residents. These include upholding the rights of others, serving their community above themselves, and contributing to nation building through outstanding service and achievements.

A Civic Honour may be bestowed upon a living person or in memory of someone who has passed away. The awards are presented in terms of the City’s Conferment of Civic Honours Policy, which was adopted by Council on 3 December 2008.

Our awards are given in the following categories:
Freedom of the City
Signing of the Civic Honours Book
The Mayor's Medal
Alderman
Freedom of Entry into the City

Signing of the Civic Honours Book
The Signing of the Civic Honours Book is an honour awarded to a living citizen of Cape Town (or in the memory of a deceased person) who deserves recognition for his or her lengthy and purposeful public service to the city in any field of social, community or civic interest.

The honouree is invited to sign or inscribe their name in the Civic Honours Book against a citation of their achievements. The book is compiled and maintained by the Office of the Executive Mayor.

2023 Civic Honours
In 2023, Civic Honours will be awarded to several individuals for their significant contribution to society – in Cape Town and throughout the world.

The individuals who will be recorded in the Civic Honours Book are:
Albie Sachs - lawyer, activist and former Constitutional Court Justice
Athol Fugard - legendary SA playwright
Basil D’Oliveira - the greatest SA test cricketer to have never played for SA
Bennie Rabinowitz - social justice advocate and philanthropist,
Brenda Fassie - queen of African pop, and Ma Brrr to her many fans
Breyten Breytenbach - afrikaans poet, painter and former political prisoner
Desiree Ellis - former SA soccer star, captain and current national team coach
AG “Sailor” Malan - WWII fighter pilot hero and anti-apartheid activist
Dr Imtiaz Sooliman - humanitarian and founder of Gift of the Givers
Jonathan Butler - acclaimed singer-songwriter, guitarist and global music star
Pieter-Dirk Uys - political satirist, playwright and HIV/AIDS educator
Krotoa - teenage interpreter and peace broker between the Khoi and the Dutch in the 17th Century,
Dr Thabo Makgoba - social, education and climate justice activist, and Archbishop of Cape Town,

Krotoa is the 10th great grandmother of Y. DROST

(Bygevoeg deur Y. DROST op 27 NOV 2023)

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• Add yourself to the list of Krotoa's Grandchildren on Geni

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• Please see Timeline Tab for a breakdown of her Life Events Feel free to add information or other interpretations as well. [Sharon Apr 2013]

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• Excellent Biography at the Cape Slave and Indigene People's Site by Patric Tariq Mellet

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• Short SABC movie - 'Krotoa' - by Penguin Films

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An opposing and less symphathetic view of Krotoa, especially relating to the film KROTOA can be viewed in https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000064377192913&

A critical analysis of the film on her life, by Patric Tariq Mellet: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154908780607507&set=a.614...

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https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/krotoa-eva

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The name "Krotoa" was most likely not a name but rather a Dutch approximated spelling of the Khoe designation !Oroǀõas (or, in Khoekhoegowab spelling: !Goroǀgôas), referring to the fact that she was put under guardianship of her uncle Ari whose praise name was Autshumato (properly spelled Kx'aothumathub) of the //Ammaqua, also referred to be the derogatory name !Uriǁ’aeǀ’ona people (Goringhaikona/Strandlopers). We do not know her name or that of her birth parents. It seems she was born at what became Cape Town, indigenously known as: ǁHui !gaeb.

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KROTOA

Krotoa, (Eva genoem deur Kommandeur Jan VAN RIEBEECK aan wie se huis sy opgevoed is), is ongeveer 1642 in die Kaap gebore. Sy was lid van die Goringhaicona (Strandlopers). Later is sy Hottentot vrouetolk. Sy trou met Pieter VAN MEERHOF (Nederlands vir Peter HAVGARD) burgerlik op 26 APR 1664. Sy sterf in die Kaap op 29 JUL 1674.

Bron: Die Geslagsregister van die familie PELSER, PELSTER, PELSZER, PELTSER, PELTZER en PELZER in Suid-Afrika sedert 1708 deur R. DE V. PIENAAR, Stellenbosch, 2004. bl. 8. Met verwysing na "SA Biografiese Woordeboek deel II, bl. 227-8; Ockert MALAN se 'Die Van Schalkwyks v.d. Nieuweveld', bl. 7-8; lees ook Dalene MATTHEE se boek 'Pieternella van die Kaap', en D. SLEIGH se boek 'Eilande'"

Bygevoeg deur Y. DROST, 23 NOV 2009

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_________

Krotoa (whom the Dutch called Eva) was apparently Autshumato's niece, the daughter of his sister, but it is hard to be sure of the nature of the blood relationship between them as Khoikhoi family terms did not always match those of the Dutch commentators.

Her first contact with the Dutch was, however, as a domestic servant. She was about ten when she was brought into the Van Riebeeck household, soon after their arrival, and here she began to learn Dutch. Her skill in this language soon impressed the family; by 1657 she was being used as an interpreter. By 1660, Krotoa had edged out her uncle as the principal interpreter for the Dutch settlement at the Cape. In 1660 Krotoa was described as fluent in Dutch and reasonably competent in Portuguese. The Dutch used her not only as interpreter, but also as envoy, trader, guide, cultural broker, mediator, agent, & informant. She was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church two years later and by 1664 she had married a prominent member of the Dutch colony, the junior surgeon Pieter van Meerhoff, who was also delegated to undertake diplomatic encounters and negotiations with Khoe groups at the Cape. Apart from various periods of absence to stay with her family members, she remained at the Castle until her husband became superintendent of the Robben Island prison in 1665.

Van Meerhoff's job at Robben Island was, as the historian Candy Malherbe says, not a plum post. He had a number of time-consuming and difficult tasks, including the monitoring of ships entering the bay, the supervision of convicts who collected shells for lime and stone for the building of the Castle, the control of a small garrison and the tending of a flock of sheep. For Krotoa, isolated from her family, the sojourn on the Island could NOT have been a particularly happy one. A doctor was called to her aid in 1667 for a condition that seems to have been related to over-consumption of alcohol.

After her husband was killed on a slaving and trading expedition to Mauritius and Madagascar, Krotoa was allowed to return to the mainland in September 1668. Soon afterwards, reports were made by the Dutch of her allegedly drunken and adulterous behaviour, and she left the Castle and her two children for the more friendly Khoikhoi kraals. In February 1669, however, she was imprisoned at the Castle and banished to Robben Island, this time as a prisoner. She died in 1674. The Dutch described her on her death as 'this brutal aboriginal, [who] was always still hovering between' the Dutch and Khoikhoi cultures, yet she was given a Christian burial in the Castle.

-=-=-=-=

Krotoa, called Eva by the Dutch, is the first Khoikhoi woman to appear in the

European records of the early settlement at the Cape as an individual

personality and active participant in cultural and economic exchange. Eva

joined Commander Jan van Riebeeck’s household at the Dutch fort at around age

12. She was closely related to Oedasoa, chief of the Cochoqua Khoikhoi, but it

is unclear whether her family sent her to the Dutch to work and learn the

language or whether she made this decision on her own. She learned to speak

fluent Dutch and Portuguese, and acted as an interpreter for the Dutch for

most of her life. She converted to Christianity and in 1664 married a Danish

surgeon, Pieter van Meerhoff, who was rising in the service of the Dutch East

India Company. Together they had three children. After his death on an

expedition to Madagascar, Eva became an alcoholic and was eventually sent to

the prison colony on Robben Island for disorderly conduct. She died in 1674

and was given a Christian burial.

Zie over haar Theal, Hist. of S. Afr. I, blz. 29, 72, 156, 218.

Na den dood van haar man leidde zij een ontuchtig leven. De Kaapsche Stukken

uit de jaren 1664 en vlg. zijn vol klachten over ‘die leelijke prije, dat

Hottentoose swijn.’ Zij wordt bij haar dood genoemd ‘een manifest exempel

verthoonende dat de natuer, hoe naeuw en vast deselve ook door ingeprente

reden werd gemuylbant, nochtans tsijner tijt boven alle leeringen

seegenpralende tot haer aengeboren eigenschappen wederom uytspat.’ (Kaapsche

St. 1675, f. 1402). Ze werd echter op christelijke wijze in de kerk begraven.

Episodes van dronkenskap en prostitusie, na haar man se vroeë dood, lei tot

haar vlug terug na die Khoikhoi, onmiddellike arrestasie, en veroordeling tot

vyf jaar lange ballingskap op Robbeneiland, waar sy in 1674 sterf.

zie ook: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/1266/genetic-eva.htm

zie ook: Journal of Jan van Riebeeck. Volume I, 1649-1655

zie ook: Journal of Jan van Riebeeck. Volume II, III,

1656-1662.

Birth Notes

gedoopt in het Fort

Death Notes

' This day departed this life, a certain female Hottentoo, named Eva, ' wrote

the Dutch diarist on 29 July 1674, ' long ago taken from the African brood in

her tender childhood by the Hon Van Riebeeck and educated in his house as well

as brought to the knowlegde of the Christian faith, and being thus transformed

from a female Hottentoo almost into a Netherland woman...'

bron: Every step of the way, The journey to freedom in South

Africa

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Her khoi name was Krotoa.

She was named Eva by Commandant Johan Anthoniszoon 'Jan' van Riebeeck (Culemborg 21 APR 1619 - Batavia 18 JAN 1677) and his wife who arrived at the Cape on 6 APR 1652 to set up a Refreshment station for VOC ships. The first fort was called Duijnhoop.

She was raised by Commandant Jan van Riebeeck and lived with him and his wife Maria DE LA QUELIENE whom he married on 28 MAR 1649. Maria died in Malacca on 11 FEB 1665. Eva was playmate and childminder to their children.

Member of the Goringhaicona tribe, a Khoi (Hottentot) tribe indigenous to the area and niece of the leader, Herrie (Autshumato), of the Strandlopers (Autohoemao), outcasts of the Hottentot tribes that lived on the beach.

She later became a Hottentot interpreter for Jan van Riebeeck as she learnt Dutch and Portuguese.

Jan van Riebeeck and his wife and son left the Cape on 7 MAY 1662 for Batavia. Zacharias WAGENAAR takes over as Commandant of the Cape of Good Hope.

She married at the age of 21 years.

Became an outcast of the Cape community after her husband was murdered on Madagaskar and was later banished to the Island.

Children placed with Jan Reyniersz and his wife in FEB 1669.

Children placed with Barbara Geems, who apparently ran a brothel on 1 MAR 1669.

Source: Wikipedia

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Eva (Krotoa) van die Kaap <http://ancestry24.com/eva-krotoa-van-die-kaap/>

You are here: Home <http://ancestry24.com> » Articles <http://ancestry24.com/category/articles/> » People <http://ancestry24.com/category/articles/people/> » Eva (Krotoa) van die Kaap

Born at the Cape, circa 1642 – died Cape Town, 29.7.1674A female Hottentot interpreter, Eva was a member of the Goringhaikona (Strandlopers or Beach-combers), a Hottentot tribe which lived in the vicinity of Table Bay. The captain of this tribe, Herry, was her uncle, and her sister was the wife of Oedasoa, captain of the Cochoqua (Saldanhars).

Shortly after their arrival at the Cape, Jan van Riebeeck and his wife took Eva into their home. They gave her a Western education and instructed her in the Christian religion. She soon learnt to speak Dutch fluently, and, later on, was able to make herself understood in Portuguese. Although she did not receive official payment for this, she was used as an interpreter, especially between V.O.C. officials and Oedasoa, with whom she sometimes went to stay.

Van Riebeeck had a high opinion of her ability as an interpreter, although later he warned his successor not to accept everything she said without reservations.

On the 3rd May 1662, Eva was baptized in the church inside the Fort of Good Hope by a visiting minister, the Rev. Petrus Sibelius, with the secunde, Roelof de Man and the sick comforter, Pieter van der Stael, as witnesses. She was also the first Hottentot to marry according to Western customs.

On the 26th April 1664, and with the permission of the Council of Policy, she was married in a civil ceremony to the explorer, Pieter van Meerhoff, and she received a dowry of fifty rix-dollars from the V.O.C. On the 2nd June 1664 the marriage was also solemnized in church. Of the children born from this marriage three survived.

In May 1665 Van Meerhoff and his family left the Cape when he was sent to Robben Island as commander. In 1667 he was murdered during an expedition to Madagascar and on 30 September 1668 Eva returned to the Cape with her children, where the V.O.C. gave them the old pottery workshop as a home.

She lapsed into such a dissolute and immoral life, however, that the V.O.C. again sent her to Robben Island on 26th March 1669, and placed the three children in the care of the free burgher, Jan Reyniersz. Eva returned to the mainland on various occasions, but was always banished to the island.

In May 1673 she was allowed to have a child baptized on the mainland and, in spite of her outrageous way of living, was buried in the church inside the Castle on the day after her death.

In 1677 the free burgher, Bartholomeus Borns recieved permission from the Council of Policy to take two of Eva's children, Pieternella (Petronella) and Salamon van Meerhoff, with him to Mauritius. There Pieternella van Meerhoff married Daniel Zaayman (from Vlissingen), and, on 26th January 1709, arrived with her husband at the Cape, where she became an ancestor of the Zaayman family in South Africa. There were eight children born of this marriage, four sons and four daughters, of whom most (or all) were probably born on Mauritius.

The family has descended in the male line from the eldest son, Pieter Zaayman; two sons were baptized in Cape Town on 17 February 1709; two daughters were apparently married at the Cape (to Diodati and Bockelberg). A third daughter, Maria Zaayman, had already arrived at the Cape from Mauritius in 1708 with her husband, Hendrik Abraham de Vries, of Amsterdam (one of the four De Vries ancestors in South Africa) there being with her four children, of whom three boys were baptized simultaneously in Cape Town on 4 November 1708.

A fourth daughter, Eva Zaayman, date of birth unrecorded, was married (apparently at the Cape) first to Hubert Jansz van der Meyden, and later (20 September 1711) at Stellenbosch, to Johannes Smit of Delft. As far as is known no children resulted from these marriages.

Eva (Krotoa) van die Kaap

Source: SESA (Standard Encyclopedia of Southern Africa)

Scridb filter

http://ancestry24.com/eva-krotoa-van-die-kaap/

===============================================================

As you have indicated on her Geni profile that she could speak Dutch and Khoikoi, you will be interested in the following excerpt from page 124 of the book "The Castle Of Good Hope From 1666", ISBN 0-620-31938-0, which is available from the Castle Museum at the Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town:

Jan Peitersz Cortemünde, born in Amsterdam, but raised in Denmark, described Krotoa in 1672 when he met her on Robben Island as ".... a masterpiece of nature. She had embraced Christianity, spoke fluent English, Dutch, French and Portuguese and was conversant with the Holy Scriptures.... in short, she was most commendable, being trained in all womanly crafts and married to one of the physicians serving the company."

The source of the above excerpt quoted in the above-mentioned book is J.P. Cortemünde: An Adventure at the Cape in 1672, p.4.

Sincerely
Fanus van der Merwe

23 APR 2012

Biography of Krotoa of the //Ammaqua by Patric Tariq Mellet ( https://camissapeople.wordpress.com/profiles/ )

NOTE: The term GORINGHAICONA is a derogatory reference and does not identify a social group. It should not be used to identify Krotoa. It means "Deserter, Outcast, Drifter. Her social group were the ǁAmmaqua (Watermans or Water People) and Jan van Riebeeck notes that Autshumao preferred that they were called Watermans. All social group names end with "qua" or "koa". This immediately indicates the incorrect usage of goringhaicona or !Uriǁ'aeǀona

 Krotoa of the ǁAmmaqua (Watermans or Water People)

(1642 – 1674)

Much that is written about Krotoa (!goa/gõas) unfairly anchors her biography with that of Jan van Riebeeck's arrival in Table Bay. She was already 12 years old by this time. Her name actually describes her situation in life. She was a child abandoned into the care or wardship of her Uncle Autshumao and the ǁAmmaqua (Watermans) community, sometimes derogatorily referred to by other Khoe as 'Goringhaicona' (deserters, outcasts, drifters)

In the Khoekhoegowab language !goa/gõas means a child who is a ward, and in many ways this name was actually an apt description of the three decades which translated into three phases of her life and in the final phase her struggle to shake off the wardship that blighted her life. She was the ward of Autshumao, the ward of Jan van Riebeeck, the ward of Pieter van Meerhof, the briefly freed of wardship but quickly once again became the ward of Commander Wagenaar and the Dutch Reformed Church Council. With wardship there is a great degree of control, and in a male world that control was in the hands of men. But here's a thing that is also a product of wardship as a child.

Let me be subjective for a moment and explain what I mean, using my own experience. In my own childhood I was ward four times over by the age of 10, and by the age of 16 when I when I went out to work and became independent 2 more wardships. As a child one of the by-products of being a ward is that the usual cloning effect that parents have over the child is not there, and to a degree the child develops much more control of his or her thoughts and behaviours. The first 10 years are the child's formative years and if one studies children who grow up in nuclear families and compare them to children who are wards either of other individuals or institutions you will find a lot more independence of thought. Society often condemns this to be lack off discipline or waywardness.

Krotoa as a ward is likely to have had wisdom beyond her years, a bit of a dreamer, a keen observer of life around her, and indeed would have been more of her own independent person. These are all characteristics which history showed Krotoa to have as she struggle with the controlling side of wardship and male dominance of her independent spirit and independent mind. This was perhaps her greatest struggle in life. Her children were also wrested away from her too and became the wards of various strangers.

Krotoa of the ǁAmmaqua (Watermans or Water People) was born around 1642 at the emerging Khoena settlement on the banks of the Camissa River which flowed from the great Hoerikwaggo Mountain to the sea. This village at the Camissa River which initially was established a decade earlier in the same place, for a few years moved to Robben Island with the assistance of the British at the request of Autshumao. At the time of her birth the village had just been re-established on the mainland Cape Peninsular (//Hui !Gaeb) for two years.

The ǁAmmaqua community into which she was born had non of the usual hallmarks of being a tribe and its culture was going through continuous changes as they engaged the peoples of many other worldwide societies. It was a free un-colonised growing port run by Indigenes. Ever since the turn of the century European shipping increased to the East and stopped of in Table Bay; there were 1071 ships with over 200 000 travelers since 1600. The Indigenes at Camissa had left other tribes and began a new economy of trading, facilitating, running a communications service, helping to gather wood for ship repairs, mining for and selling salt, being interlocutors for meat supplies and so on. With up to three outward bound ships and 2 homeward bound ships per month this was a busy port serving the Netherlands, France, England, Portugal and Denmark. It was hardly the barren place with primitive communities who had never previously engaged with Europeans projected in Dutch colonial history books.

Ever since Chief Xhore of the Goringhaiqua was taken to London for a year in 1613, and returned, life had not quite been the same. More people including Autshumao travelled abroad and each different country's shipping wanted their own port man. And thus a new economy and way of life began. Other Khoena also became independent of tribes each developing their own approach to the visiting ships. Most prominent was the independent cattle man, Aikinsoa. Like in any port when travelers were too sick to carry on, they stayed behind. Travelers on average were staying from a few weeks to a few months. Some left behind by their ships to be picked up by another vessel. Others were shipwrecked like those on the Nieuwe Harlem where 60 persons stayed over for almost one year. In this scenario it would have been the norm for various types of relationships to have developed between local people and travelers. This was a non-colonial development and it would be the first casualty of VOC colonization at the Cape. It also explains more objectively the clash between Autshumao and van Riebeeck instead of the lies about Autshumao being a thief and vagabond. Van Riebeeck destroyed the business that Autshumao and his people had built over two decades on the foundations of Xhore's equally long business.

Krotoa may well have been born of one of those relationships or a violation and her mother left her in the wardship of Autshumao. Both Autshumao and the woman that Kratoa called a sister may not have been uncle or sister in the western sense of familial relationships in a scenario where the community was family. Krotoa would have grown up in this exciting world taking opportunities to explore and learn. She also had the mentorship of her Uncle and the care of the community. She will certainly have been familiar with the European ways and languages long before van Riebeeck's arrival.

This village life provides a very different curtain-raiser to the second decade of Krotoa's life. She was certainly no empty vessel waiting for her head to be find with knowledge by Maria and Jan van Riebeeck.

The VOC Commander Jan van Riebeeck into whose wardship she passed, named her Eva and after her marriage to a Danish barber-surgeon (Pieter van Meerhof aka Havgardtt) she was known as Eva van Meerhof getting yet another name as wardship passed to another man. Maria van Riebeeck too was hardly in a position to be teaching and mentoring Krotoa. Maria was a relatively young woman aged 22 who arrived with one child of her own and two orphaned nieces. Maria was sickly and was pregnant almost every year while at the Cape, often miscarrying. She died two years after leaving the Cape.

During the period that she served as an interpreter, Commander van Riebeeck often accused Krotoa of "Drawing the Longbow". Read on to see why?

The European travelers called Hoerikwaggo Bay, Table Bay, and the mountain was called Table Mountain. The Camissa settlement became known as the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Town.

Krotoa who was well connected to the leading family of the Khoena Cochoqua tribe through her sister's marriage to the Chief (Kai Bi'a) Oedasoa, lived a most extraordinary but short life, spanning only three decades. She died in 1674. (The Khoena is the plural for Khoe, also referred to as Khoi peoples who consisted of many tribes, clans as well as independent family groups, with a range of wonderful names. The word simply means ‘people’ and in its singular form – ‘person/people’. Similarly the Cape San or /Xam also means 'person/people', and again likewise the term 'Bantu' denoting those of predominantly Sub-Saharan roots also means 'person/people. These are all terms created by academia using linguistic study rather than the many different peoples self identifying with these terms.)

The ǁAmmaqua (Water People) were a relatively settled offshoot clan mainly made up of extended family of Ari or Autshumao (praise name) known to the Europeans as Herri or Harry, who had familial ties to the Cochoqua people of the West Coast. Richard Elphick, a specialist in Khoena history, describes to derogatory name "Goringhaicona" as deserter runaways, outcasts, refugees, orphans and other persons ‘whose parents and husbands were dead’. Krotoa, the girl called a 'ward', locates in an emergent trader community. Autshumao or Ari, her uncle, was seen as the trading agent of the British at the Cape and was referred to as the Governor of Cape of Good Hope.

Few acknowledge this reality of her being a 'ward' when making an assessment of her life. Her life was dominated after Jan van Riebeeck's arrival by an identity of being caught between her indigene African community on the one hand and the VOC community on the other. Krotoa from her birth was caught in the vortex of social and economic change because of the development of a port and proto-urbanization. It would seem that she was handling this very well, until van Riebeeck thrust her into a political world. A yet again it would seem that she did exceptionally well under the circumstances and never really broke her relationship with her uncle and mentor. Van Riebeeck and his successor and their relationship to her and her feisty independent persona was what was at the root of her downfall. It is largely a European narrative that suggests and embellishes a breakdown between herself and her people. The Europeans actually were afraid of Krotoa finding a firm home among the Khoena after they had bust up Autshumao's proto-port settlement. (JvR put a bounty on the heads of all in the ǁAmmaqua, tried force them to assimilate into the other Peninsula Koena social groups, and the finally drove them out into the West Coast) . As Authshumao's trader project floundered and was destroyed, the Dutch did not want Krotoa finding an alternative community with her sister's then still powerful people, the Cochoqua. She knew too much and had a powerful set of skills.

The Camissa people were the root people for what can be called the ‘Camissa footprint’ which spread across South Africa over time. With European settlement and the arrival of slaves from other parts of Africa, Madagascar, India, China and Indonesia, who worked and lived alongside the Goringhaicona, further relations between slaves and the Khoena also produced offspring in the Camissa community. By the mid 19th century when the Camissa roots were much layered and the ǁAmmaqua forgotten, the colonial authorities in an act of de-indigenisation labeled the Camissa descendants as ‘Coloured’ people.

During her years with Jan van Riebeeck as an interpreter, emissary and negotiator, Krotoa increasingly adopted the Cochoqua as her people and by all accounts they adopted her. This clearly worried van Riebeeck especially when he began suspecting that she was playing games with him and distorting information. Krotoa’s sister was the wife of Chief Oedasoa of the Cochoqua. Krotoa it was said also had a second ‘mother’ among the Cochoqua. She further had kinship ties with the Goringhaiqua and the Chainoqua. Leadership families had a network across the tribes, clans and independent families. Simultaneously Kratoa maintained her ties with the ǁAmmaqua headed by her uncle Autshumao until its demise in the first Indigene-Dutch War and Autshumao's death. After all, the ǁAmmaqua were mainly made up of her uncle's children, their wives, and their children - her family.

One of the greatest misrepresentations in South African colonial history narratives is that of the status of relations with the indigenes of Table Bay particularly in the 50 years prior to, and at the time of the landing of Commander Jan van Riebeeck in 1652. The inaccurate depiction of Chief Autshumao of the ǁAmmaqua (Water People) traders as an ignorant vagabond leader of a bunch of beachcombers (Strandloopers - the derogatory Dutch term) runs counter to much reliable historical information that has always been available but most often ignored or even suppressed. It is only in understanding Krotoa in the context of the first two decades of European settlement and with the background of the previous fifty years events at Camissa that her legacy can fully be appreciated. (Read my account in "The Lie of 1652" a decolonised history of land"; Tafelberg NB Publishers 2020)

Krotoa’s community context

According to European history, the Europeans had been passing through Table Bay since 1488 and, according to the Chinese accounts the Chinese passed through Table Bay in 1421.   From the time of that Chinese voyage around the Cape by Admiral Zheng He, until 1652 when the first Dutch settlement occurred, there had been two centuries of interaction by the indigene Khoena people with a wide range of foreign visitors.

An in-depth look at the history of the Cape Khoena and their migration into the Western Cape, through the Eastern Cape, from the Gariep occurred over 1300 years. Prior to their settlement in the Gariep they had another 1200 years of history going back to about 500BC to Limpopo and the periphery of the Kalahari where their ancestors were the Kalahari /Xam who had engaged with northwestern and eastern migratory movements of both Bantu and Hadza/Sandawe people, with roots going even further back to Niolitic peoples. Along these migratory routes sheep and cattle were introduced to the Kalahai /Xam. The San and Khoena presided over a very mixed Kingdom of Mapangubwe around 900 AD in Limpopo. The links through Mapangubwe to East Africa, West Africa, North Africa, India and China was not lost on the Khoena who migrated south to the Western Cape. A number of Cape Khoena social groups emerged like a human settlement chain across South Africa linking its people to the world by overland routes.

The only people prior to the Cape Khoena, in the Eastern, Central and Western Cape were the /Xam whose roots go back to the earliest Homo Sapiens 70 000 to 90 000 years ago and are the only "First People" of the region. The /Xam were first displaced by the Khoena and their early Xhosa cousins, and then by the Nguni in their gradual migratory drift down the Eastern Seaboard. But this simply resulted in the /Xam consolidating themselves in the Central Karoo and what became known as Bushmenland all the way up to the Gariep and along the Gariep. With European Colonialism the European and Khoena Commandos from the mid 18th century wreaked waves of genocidal attacks on the /Xam with very few surviving. The Baster, Orlams and Griqua Khoena refugee and revivalist groups also unleashed a wave of terror and genocide on the /Xam 'Foundation People' destroying both the tribal infrastructure and the people. Today their linage only survives in tiny communities and none of these are wholly /Xam. It is the greatest man made tragedy of South Africa in which both Indigenous peoples and Europeans played a grotesque role.

An introduction on the trading links, the communication and the cooperative relations of the Gorachoqua, Goringhaiqua and then the ǁAmmaqua with the passing Europeans was first provided to a mass readership in some detail by historian Richard Elphick in his book ‘The KhoiKhoi and the Founding of White South Africa (1975). Much of the source material is to be found in the journals of Commander Jan van Riebeeck and he in turn was able to record this largely from the stories of Krotoa and other interpreters.

The initial informal though brisk trading relationships that took root between passing ships and the Khoena people in the latter 1500s began to take a more formal form under Gaob Xhore of the Goringhaiqua after he was kidnapped to England in 1613 and returned a year later. Gaob Xhore had later led the resistance to the English attempt to settle Newgate convicts at Camissa in 1615 under Captain Crosse, but nonetheless maintained relations as a trader with the Europeans until his death. (Gaob is the title of leadership among the Khoe)

After Xhore’s death (at the hands of the Dutch) Elphick notes that trade relations with the Khoena took a nose-dive.   But a short while later this gap was filled after Gaob Autshumao, the uncle of Krotoa, was taken on a visit to Java in 1631. 

A new and intricate relationship was developed with Autshumao’s village of Goringhaicona, involving a range of services including a postal service to passing ships. This first involved establishing a service station for ships on Robben Island served by more than 30 Khoena under Autshumao and later by 1638 this service-community relocated back to the mainland where they continued to provide services and numbered around 60 people. Under the entrepreneurial Autshumao an interlocutor bartering service relationship developed which slowly resulted in rebuilding the supply lines for the European travelers for the acquisition of meat and fresh water in exchange for a commission on transactions.

The Khoena name of the fresh water river running down from the sacred mountain known as Hoerikwaggo (TableMountain) was ‘Camissa’ or the ‘Sweet Water for all’ (soetwater).  The Dutch referred to the ǁAmmaqua as the ‘Watermen’ because this was Autshumao said was the preferable term to use for them, clearly because of their association with the Camissa River and the seashore. It was from Camissa that foreign ships were supplied with the vital commodity - fresh water, by the //Ammaqua. All the hallmarks were in place to regard this as the first proto-refreshment station at the Cape and thus the true foundation of Cape Town.

The settlement of his people around Camissa was a strategic move on the part of Gaob Autshumao. When there were no ships in the Bay his people lived off fish and other seafood. By camping at the Camissa, Autshumao controlled a constant fresh-water supply, giving him a strategic advantage right on the beach. By all accounts the  were typical ǁAmmaqua ‘survivors’ and highly entrepreneurial.  Although a much smaller group, (minuscule in comparison) than the other Khoena groups they initially dominated relations between the Khoena livestock herders and the Dutch by setting themselves up as the negotiators at a lucrative commission. It was because of this, as can be seen in the Dutch Commander’s journal that Jan van Riebeeck was so antagonistic to Autshumao as Commander van Riebeeck believed that he was being over-charged for the services. From Autshumao's point of view the Dutch Commander had just come along and taken over his trading settlement and business. This essentially was at the heart of the conflict.

Autshumao and another of the Camissa people, Isaac (of whom little is known), had through their travels to Batavia (Jakarta) returned with much linguistic and other knowledge about the Europeans and this was used to their own advantage. Twenty years later, after much interaction with the Portuguese, Dutch, French and British, the Camissa community – the Goringhaicona as a group, would have been well acquainted with European languages enough to get by with general communication and behaviours.

Autshumao, with his niece Krotoa at his side, stands out as playing a major role in all of the initial interactions with the Dutch Commander of the Cape – Jan van Riebeeck, due to his reliance on their linguistic skills. Even when van Riebeeck moved from the tent camp into the north wing of the partially built Fort five months after his arrival, he noted that Autshumao remained camped on the opposite bank of the Camissa River running below the north wing.

Although van Riebeeck is recognised as the colonial ‘founding father’ of Cape Town (and South Africa), he only actually resided in South Africa for 10 years and none of his immediate family remained in South Africa. Krotoa’s descendants however are today to be found among thousands of South Africans of all national groups. One entry in Van Riebeeck’s journal makes it very clear that both van Riebeeck and Autshumao were highly conscious of Autshumao’s proud role as a trading entrepreneur; van Riebeeck states – “Herrie in the meanwhile, priding himself on having originated the incipient trade…”.

Historians have grossly violated Autshumao's role in laying the foundations of the Port of Cape Town.

Commander van Riebeeck first provides a note on Krotoa in his journal in 1654 by referring to  – ‘a girl living with us’ who was taken away by her uncle Autshumao and his group of followers after he had made off with a large number of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) cattle herd.'

From this first mention in the record, the Commander went on to mention her name over 200 times in 65 entries in the journal. Kratoa was a dominant factor in Jan van Riebeeck’s entire time at the Cape of Good Hope.

Further light is shed on her status in the household when the Commander notes that she was "taken into the service of my wife" from the beginning (1652). We know why she needed Krotoa too. She needed a servant to help her with her son and two nieces. With the soft young 22 year old Maria frequently being pregnant and sickly, Krotoa would have had her work cut out for her. From being a free ranger independent girl under her uncle's wardship, Krotoa now was forced to live a much more controlled life as a servant alongside slaves.

Van Riebeeck also notes that Krotoa perfected the Dutch language and came to a full understanding of religion and Dutch culture under the tutorship of his wife. This I believe to be boasting a bit because Krotoa was already a child who had developed skills including linguistic skills. Certainly Maria would have helped finesse the skills but Maria could not have had much time on her hands in those cramped rough quarters with her condition and all of the children. Krotoa and the three children was soon joined by three more slave children too. Two of these were the Arabus girls of the same age as Krotoa. From the age of 15 years, Krotoa’s service to the VOC transformed to become that of interpreter, emissary and negotiator. This was likely to have started slowly and then increased in frequency and type of tasks. We don't know how she was paid.

The Commander studied Krotoa like a hawk as she was manipulated to provide the VOC with intelligence and as much strategic advantage as possible. He also cultivated back up interpreters as distrust later set in. He used these to try and catch her out. Interpreting became a terrain of struggle and Krotoa turned diplomacy into an art. From the pages of the van Riebeeck journal one gets the impression that she played a chess game with van Riebeeck and his journal shows that he suspected her of this as he does not camouflage his feelings. It is van Riebeeck who was also guilty of playing Krotoa in hiring the services of Doman to try and catch her out. He stoked antagonism between his two highly competitive interpreters. Their positions also allowed them in on livestock trade for their own benefit and this fueled antagonism too. Krotoa is likely to have passed her cattle onto Autshumao for tending as right up until his death Autshumao had a reasonable amount of cattle. He in turn as the Goringhaicona were destroyed as a grouping would have aligned himself with the other independent trader Ainkinsoa.

Commander van Riebeeck started with some muted paternalistic statements about Krotoa in the beginning of his journal and proceeded to describe the advantages and pitfalls of her contribution. As time marches on he exposes distrust and sounds warnings about Krotoa. He uses a phrase many times – Krotoa is accused of ‘drawing the long bow’ – meaning exaggerating or embellishing, lying or deliberately misleading them. He also suggests that she is playing him at his own game. He says “she knows well by now how to introduce a little flattery and say the sort of thing she imagines you want to hear”.

By the third part of his journal, Eva, as she is referred to, pre-occupies van Riebeeck and dominates the journal as much as the struggle between the Khoena and the Dutch intensified. Different patterns of struggle with the colonists emerged and these were not in sync with each other. Indeed they were competitive and conflictual. Krotoa clearly came down on the side of the Cochoqua, her sister’s people and perhaps her adopted people. In his journal van Riebeeck identified a strong sense of loyalty in her for her own kin.

Krotoa’s role as interpreter, emissary and negotiator continued over seven years. It is remarkable that this crucial role was carried out by a teenager and a woman who not only rose to the challenge, but was also able to subtly turn the tables on her master so as to advantage her own people. She comes across as having grown into her own person rather than anyone else's go between - whether among the Dutch or the Khoena.

Krotoa in the service of the Dutch

Who was this extraordinary young woman who lived for only just over three decades? Why was the 10 year old Krotoa chosen by Jan van Riebeeck out of all the other children of the Camissa settlement which hosted the early Dutch fort?

The Europeans literally established their tent camp right in the midst of the existing Camissa settlement for convenience and protection. The Camissa River itself was diverted to form a moat around the Fort when it was constructed. The Cape was still a place teaming with wildlife. It was an inhospitable place in winter and winter was fast approaching. For the first five months in the heart of a terrible Cape winter, the Europeans and the Goringhaicona lived cheek by jowl on the banks of the Camissa River while the Fort was being built. Krotoa was a curious twelve year old who along with her peers would have been running around inquisitively among the Europeans and the Ambonyese soldiers as they busied themselves fortifying their beachhead at Camissa. When she was not running around with the other children she would be at her uncle Autshumao’s side. In the early years prior to 1652 Krotoa was probably a lookout for the sails of incoming ships and aiding her uncle in this regard.  Her linguistic skills would have been gleaned running errands and taking messages. When van Riebeeck arrived with his dependent young wife and the three children he would have quickly noticed this child who stood out.

As a twelve year old she was at the age that girls even in the lower European classes began working. I do not think that there is too much mystery about how she went from being at Autshumaos side and wardship into the wardship of van Riebeeck. The van Riebeecks probably offered an education as payment and this would have been attractive to Autshumao who knew the benefits thereof from his experience in Java. He also needed someone at the side of van Riebeeck to provide inside information. Krotoa I would think would not have seen this as being a bad offer. Later though when finding herself slaving away and caught up in the ugly world of a crowded fort full of roughneck men, she probably wanted out and that's why she attempted to run away with her uncle.

Maintaining a good relationship with the Khoena at Camissa was the key to the survival of this Dutch settlement project. The local people of the Camissa settlement right down to the children, already had enough understanding of various European languages through years of interaction by passing ships with which they traded. Krotoa clearly stood out as her ‘uncle’s child’ who probably was more conversant with rudimentary Dutch, English, French and Portuguese than the others. She was a prime candidate for further instruction.

By the written accounts of her appearance, she further stood out as having both Khoena and some European features and was of fair complexion.  Krotoa had no father and one picks up that she had a strained relationship with her mother. Her appearance suggested that somewhere down the line it was likely that there was some European ancestry. Her family connections with the inland Cochoqua and the fact that she was related to the leading families that inter-connected some of the Khoena societies and clans was a strategic issue for Jan van Riebeeck. Control of such a young person who could walk into the kraals of leaders, gave van Riebeeck a strategic advantage. She could carry information back and forth and positively influence key role-players if she could be trained and molded.

Historian Richard Elphick makes the point that we should be careful not to overlay the traditional European concept of kinship or nuclear family on the Khoena people. Words such as ‘uncle’ or ‘mother’ or ‘sister’ and ‘niece,’ ill-fit the Khoena kinship connections. Likewise there were no rigid kinship walls standing between ǁAmmaqua, Goringhaiqua, Cochoqua and the Gorachoqua, even although with the arrival of the Europeans, tensions and conflicts evolved between these groups and also with others such as the Chainouqua. Elphick shows us that Krotoa had a complex set of family relationships across these clans, and that these included persons of influence and power.  (Pg 107, KhoiKhoi and the founding of White South Africa by Richard Elphick) Pioneer researcher and micro-historian Mansell Upham also sounds a loud alarm bell that when exploring perspectives on the life of Krotoa we should be careful about coating her with our own subjective overlays and angst to the point that we imprison her memory and abuse her to gain ground seized for temporal gains and political kudos.

Some writers have chosen to project Krotoa’s place in the van Riebeeck household as though she were a foster child taken into the bosom of the Commander’s family. There is very little facts to support such assumptions. The living arrangements too would not have allowed for Krotoa to be part of the nuclear family of the Commander. When the early rudimentary Fort was complete, the van Riebeecks only had three tiny rooms for a household of 12 persons – his immediate family, slaves and Khoena servants. Krotoa was not the only Khoe person working in the fort. This was hardly the intimate family environment where a fostered Khoe child was taken into the bosom of the Commander’s wife.  Krotoa’s world was also shared by two 'Abyssinian' slave girls of her own age from Madagascar – Lijsbeth Arabus and Cornelia Arabus, given to Maria de la Quellerie, the Commanders wife by a visiting French Admiral. (they were 11 and 12 years old and within a year at the Cape they gave birth to children - an indicator of sexual practices by the European men at the Cape)

Karel Schoeman in his chapter on Krotoa in ‘Seven Khoi Lives’ gives us a much more comprehensive picture of Krotoa’s upbringing between the ages of 12 and 17. It shows a teenager who was as much, if not more so, a part of her traditional Khoena society as she was a fringe member of the Commander’s household. For strategic reasons it was in the interest of Commander van Riebeeck to also nurture the relationship between Krotoa and the Cochoqua and thus the contact was facilitated. Schoeman refers to this as ‘promising contact’ in van Riebeeck's eyes.

Krotoa’s pre-teen and teenage years must have been very difficult. The child entering puberty was prone to abuse by any of the 140 roughneck men in the 146 strong (female depleted) European and Ambonyese community where protection was hardly able to be guaranteed. For instance, two years after entering service at the Fort, Krotoa had absconded with her uncle and had to be brought back to the Fort after Van Riebeeck had pursued them. Between the age of 12 and 15 she was further instructed in language, religion and culture of the Dutch, not for philanthropic reasons, but to act as an interpreter and diplomat. Why? She had been found to have both an aptitude and a flare for the work when the Commander tried her out in this role on a few occasions. At 15 already the Commander indicated in his journal that she was doing interpretation work. She clearly emerges from the pages of the Commander's journal as quite a character.

A clear indication that Krotoa was not fostered nor truly accepted into Dutch society in the traditional sense was that she remained un-baptised, a sign of non-integration into the European community, until the age of 22 and then the baptism was by her own request. Again this too shows how much of an independent character that she was. Baptism was the true measure of acceptance into the European community.  Her dress amongst the Europeans is also noted as not that of the European women and children, but that of the Asian slaves.  This was symbolic of her servitude status at the Fort. However as an interpreter with a strategic role she was sure to have been able to navigate her way within the fort society with some success and status. No mean feat for a youngster.

From 15 years to 22 years old Krotoa was set to work as the official interpreter, emissary and negotiator. She was initially prized by Jan Van Riebeeck and commended for her service.

Increasingly as Krotoa entered her post-teens, the tone in the Commander’s journal changed to view her more disparagingly and with suspicion.   She was suspected of aiding her people with strategic information and advice, particularly during the first Khoe-Dutch war of 1659 – 60. Krotoa was both a clever and wise young person. She too must have recognised that she was in a powerful position to carry useful information, warnings and good counsel to her people.

Commander van Riebeeck notes that the child, the teen and the young adult over a 12 year period regularly stripped off her Asian dress- kabaka sarong and kaparangs, and donned her traditional Khoena clothes (skins) and adornments to engage in rituals and communion with her people. By all accounts she took great pleasure and pride in doing so.

Krotoa clearly also experienced some tug-o-war of emotions and mental conflict, as well as conflicts of loyalty. Krotoa was to some degree torn between being Eva and Krotoa; between being penned into the European world and prevented from being part of the Khoena. She was being marshaled, briefed and de-briefed by her handler, the Commander. She was asked to go among her people and to report back, but at the same time van Riebeeck did not want her to be with them too long or unchaperoned. She would also at times be asked to go among her people and possibly mislead them even although the religion taught to her said that lying was wrong. She saw the ruthless and manipulating side of the Commander - a hard-nut VOC official protecting the interests of a powerful company one day and the gentleman singing her praises the next. Contradictions surely jumped out at her. As she matured she was clearly less able to be manipulated by van Riebeeck if you read between the lines of his journal and was split in her loyalties between the VOC and her sister’s people, the Cochoqua.

In appearance, age and personality, Jan van Riebeeck was 37 year old by the time Krotoa was doing interpreting. Van Riebeeck was a stout, balding, rough-faced, hardened VOC employee from a posting in Vietnam and highly prejudiced against indigenous people. He was a dishonest man who had been caught out cheating the VOC and enriching himself at its expense. He was put on trial in Jakarta (Batavia), found guilty and his sentence was a fine plus deportation in disgrace back to the Dutch States general (Netherlands) with a ban on him holding a similar position agai in South or Southeast Asia. (this detail is most often ommited in his biographies)

We have a good idea about JvR’s outrageous attitude when comparing his counter-report to the VOC after his 18 day visit to the Cape in 1647 to the main report of Captain Janszens who had spent a year at the Cape and recommended that the Indigenes were great people for developing a partnership with the VOC. Van Riebeeck was disparaging and as a non first-hand witness he misrepresented the situation with his disparaging view of an incident between some of Janszens men and indigenous people, challenging the (just) manner in which the Captain had dealt with the incident.

We also know through van Riebeeck's letters to the VOC asking permission to enact two draconian forced removals plans to rid the Peninsular of Indigenes, one of which was developing a concentration camp at Hout Bay into which he wanted to force all the Peninsula Indigenes to work for the VOC raising livestock.. The other was a plan to dig a huge canal separating the Peninsular by way of water running from False Bay to Table Bay, and then expelling all the Indigenes from the island. Ultimately he was allowed to create a fence of palisades, natural obstacles, towers, cavalry stations and planted wild bitter almond hedges and thorny berry bushes. While the first parts of this "First Frontier" fence was effective, the entire length of the barrier fence was not and was breached frequently at the Wynberg end. Within a decade the fence was obsolte largely due to the importation and breeding of horses to enable the creation of cavalry guards and the Dutch successes of the second Khoena-Dutch War. Jan van Riebeeck was the father of ethnic cleansing and the trajectory of "separation", "Forced Removals" and "Group Areas" in our history.

Krotoa’s entire life was filled with trauma heaped upon trauma. It was a life full of danger. She was distrusted by the Dutch and also by various persons with differing interests among her own people. At the same time she most likely would have also seen tremendous opportunities around her and surely would have big dreams of her own.

One day she was journeying in a caravan of cattle atop a prized beast - happy with her own people and treated like a princess; another day she was travelling with European men who may have plied her with alcohol and crept into her bed at night; and yet another day being waylaid and robbed by a rival Khoena band. The inner turmoil must have been great and like any person who has been in such situations she will have become resourceful and streetwise. The fact that her mates, the Arabus girls were pregnant within a year of being 11 and 12 years old, is testament to what Krotoa's situation was like.

Krotoa's skills as a diplomat and linguist also had a lot riding on it. The wrong word in the wrong company could result in reprisals and death. What a responsibility for a young girl. The lives of the people you loved would have been at stake. There were also intense periods of violent conflict and war.

Krotoa’s experience would have been one of longing for some kind of normality which she must have also seen around her with others of her age. On top of all of these experiences she was a young unmarried mother with two small children.

In her later teens Krotoa had two ‘illegitimate’ children at the Fort, indicating that she could have been abused as a female teen in this overwhelmingly male environment or alternatively had a secret love liaison. The signs are there that there was likely to have been abuse and that  would have gone hand in hand with the introduction of alcohol into her life. This latter aspect of her experience - alcohol, was to have a devastating effect on her future. Anyone who has had the life of a ward will tell you that children without parents and in the custody of others are prey to all sorts of abuse including sexual abuse. In a fort and environment mainly made up of European men a child of colour and Indigene on top everything, would have been prey to these wild roughnecks. The use of alcohol and tobacco was policy of the Commander to control the 402 West African slave children who arrived in 1658, sick and dying. Krotoa it would seem could also have been 'pacified' with alcohol and tobacco introduced to her by the colonists. This would have started her path of destruction. The sight of all of those dying West African children and the abuse of the teens that must have taken place would have been highly traumatic too.

Krotoa was able to delight in returning to her people on visits. Tell-tale signs of a yearning for love, and to be settled emerges even from the observations of the Commander in his journal.  The teenager had been thrust into a political world of intrigue, drama and tension with little chance of delighting in simple childish things. There was also little chance to follow in the path of the other women around her as she was thrust into a male world. There was little chance to enjoy love and motherhood. She was outstanding at the same time as a woman at this point in history, as no other female contemporary is to be found engaged in a role that was otherwise exclusively a male domain.

All of these factors together amounted to a cocktail of pain and joys and must have resulted in much inner conflict. It is no wonder that with all of these things piling up inside of her that in the last decade of her life, Krotoa was pushed over the edge.

Krotoa and Resistance

Krotoa frequently went off to live among her people, most particularly to her sister and brother-in-law among the Cochoqua. Van Riebeeck tolerated and even encouraged this because it opened up a rewarding trade relationship and resulted in intelligence gathering. For van Riebeeck, Krotoa was the source of a wealth of knowledge.

But it was not a one-way street. Krotoa was enterprising and was able to discharge her own loyalties to her people. She was able to provide intelligence and to position her people to gain strategic advantages. Among her people she blossomed and showed an enterprising streak. Jan van Riebeeck said of Autshumao that "he would insist that it was he who started the incipient trade". Her Uncle Autshumao’s skills for being an adept trader and entrepreneur came to the fore in her. She had experienced his mentorship too.

Krotoa particularly between 1658 and 1661 blossomed and found herself. She turned a situation of being used and manipulated into an advantage for herself and the Cochoqua people. It would seem that she made her unique position both work for her and contribute to her people. Krotoa’s chief critic was her competitor, the fellow interpreter Nommoa (Dom Man or Doman). He had sold out the Khoena to the Dutch and participated in tricking the Peninsula Khoe into signing a treaty which surrendered their rights to the Dutch. Only when he was not rewarded by the Dutch, did he then lead the for Khoena resistance war. Domon criticized Krotoa and implied that she had compromised her people. But was it she or Doman who had actually betrayed the Khoena? A careful reading of Jan van Riebeeck's journal clearly shows that Nommoa the man the Dutch called Dom Man because van Riebeeck cast him as a simpleton, was the one who started betraying his peiople by 1653 already. He would also later in 1659 assist the Dutch in laying a trap to capture Autshumao. Furthermore he literally begged the Dutch to execute Autshumao rather than incarcerate him. It's all there in detail in van Riebeekck's journal.

Some have only too readily jumped to a conclusion that Krotoa was a collaborator and Doman was a radical revolutionary. This is to simplistic a paradigm in which to view both of these characters. Both were competing interpreters and working for gain. Krotoa and Doman clashed around who was a more able interpreter and Doman then accused her to unseat her. They both accused each other for whatever reasons they harboured. Doman lost in the contest in which it must have been very difficult for a woman to hold her own. As a result he changed to adopt a resistance stance against the Dutch.

Krotoa certainly gave excellent interpretation and diplomatic service to the Dutch, but equally she provided the same for Oedasoa and the Cochoqua. In looking at the information available, one is indeed sometimes left wondering whether Kratoa worked for Oedasoa rather than Commander van Riebeeck. It also emerges from Van Riebeeck's journal that she could have been quietly providing intelligence to the Cochoqua in their more subtle struggles with the Dutch. Her information from Oedasoa conveyed to the Dutch during the Khoena-Dutch war was nuanced in favour of the Cochoqua’s stance.  She further showed great loyalty to her uncle Autshumao when he increasingly became persona non grata to the Dutch. All of this was noticed and commented upon by Commander van Riebeeck.

A key part of van Riebeeck's journal is his final testimony before leaving the Cape, where Commander van Riebeeck established that Krotoa mainly worked as an interpreter with the Cochoqua and other inland Khoena clans. He also states that not all of her information could be dependable as well as referring to other facts relating to her ‘dependability’ which were ‘verbally conveyed’ but ‘because of its nature must remain unknown’.  The Commander provided his successors with advice to keep her on a short leash. This bit of the journal is completely overlooked by those who assess Krotoa's role and modus operandi.

To understand Krotoa’s resistance role one needs to look at the Khoena’s overall resistance strategy – one that ultimately failed after the second Khoena-Dutch war of resistance. The Khoena strategy under Autshumao was one of containment and wearing down of the Dutch so that their mission was a failure. That is to keep the Dutch isolated from the interior by means of a blockade and, to keep them economically dependent on the Peninsula Khoena. Jan van Riebeeck's counter-strategy was to break out of any blockade and to open direct contact with the interior by means of divide and rule tactics.

The Khoena’s Achilles’ heal was their own divisions. There were three different tactical approaches to dealing with the Dutch and these were unfortunately competitive. Krotoa played her crucial part in the third approach in my opinion as an ally of Chief Oedosoa.

Autshumao’s tactic was to pressurize the Dutch to stay locked in to the Table Bay area and to remain dependent on the //Ammaqua for all trading with the interior. He went to great lengths to ensure that direct contact between the Dutch and the other Khoena clans were kept to a minimum. Autshumao also resorted to trying to play up the English threat to the Dutch which he knew to be their fear. Autshumao and his small //Ammaqua clan were however soon overwhelmed by the Dutch.

The second tactician was that of Nommoa whom the Dutch called Dom man or Doman, who had learnt much about the Dutch weaknesses after he had travelled to Batavia (Jakarta) and back to the Cape. Nommoa tried to ingratiate himself to the Dutch with the aim of making them dependent on him, which he then could use to his advantage. with the Goringhaiqua and Gorachoqua as allies. Nommoa sought to replace the Dutch dependency on Autshumao and also on Krotoa with himself. He believed that he could be an influencer. After first betraying them, he in turn, once his ingratiation exercise failed, also attempted to develop a united front between the Goringhaiqua and Gorachoqua to stand up against the Dutch and flex their muscles. Ultimately his solution was a military one in which he felt that by going to war, the Dutch would capitulate. Under Nommoa the Peninsula Khoena went to war in the first Khoena-Dutch war of resistance from 1659 – 1660. The result of the conflict was a stalemate, but Nommoa’s power and influence was reduced and effectively the Dutch made significant gains. The Khoena also by this time had seen Nommoa's duplicity and shifted allegiance to Autshumao who headed the peace negotiations.

The third tactic was employed by Chief Oedasoa of the Cochoqua and I suggest with the aid of ally Krotoa. The containment strategy took a completely different approach through what was essentially a diplomacy and brinkmanship tactic. Oedasoa had large herds of cattle outside of the immediate reach of the Dutch as well as the numerical strength to oppose the Dutch and isolate them to the Peninsula. But he needed to bring his entire operation nearer to effect both a blockade and open up direct trade. He also faced the hostility of all of the Peninsula Khoena clans. Oedasoa needed to tread carefully and played his approach very carefully. He needed to either subject the Peninsula Khoena to his rule or he needed to win them over to a united front. He thus operated in a manner which kept both options open.

Oedasoa knew that if he entered the territory being occupied by the Dutch in a piecemeal manner, and if small groups of Cochoqua were constantly attacked by Peninsula Khoena, the Dutch would eventually get the upper hand. Oedasoa utilizing the skills of his wife's sister Krotoa, attempted to present the Dutch with an offer he believed that they could not refuse. He offered to bring his cattle and people into the Peninsula where he would keep order among all of the Khoena as long as the Dutch assisted him in such a move and extended a sole and direct trading relationship with the Cochoqua. Effectively this would have made the Cochoqua the sole Khoena authority in the region and a large and economically powerful  Khoena presence surrounding the Dutch would in his belief have effectively contained them.

Krotoa played a crucial part to realize this strategy. She first did her rounds raising enough cattle to provide van Riebeeck with a taster for the economic gains that he could make. She then set up meetings at the highest levels between Jan van Riebeeck and the Cochoqua. And finally as interpreter she passionately argued the case for the Cochoqua.

But van Riebeeck smelt a rat. He began to distrust where Krotoa’s loyalties lay. He refused to go along with Oedosoa and first wanted the Cochoqua to demonstrate loyalty to the Dutch by allying with the Dutch against the Peninsula Khoena. This would have amounted to removing the thorn in the side of the Dutch without any immediate gain for Oedosoa. The Gaob was no fool and decided to walk away, telling van Riebeeck that he would have no part in his war against his fellow Khoena.

The diplomatic brinkmanship of the Cochoqua through Krotoa did not win the day and Oedosoa’s struggle would continue for another decade. Krotoa I believe had however exposed herself and her loyalties to her people and she was to pay a heavy price for this. Her role as interpreter and emissary came to an abrupt end and her relationship with her protector, Jan van Riebeeck, soured and this threatened her place in Dutch society at the Fort.

I put forward that an assessment such as I have made here though with a bit of speculative license offers the only possible answer to the clear and rapid breakdown in Krotoa's relationship with the Commander. It also explains his reference to that which can only be ‘verbally conveyed’ and that ‘because of its nature must remain unknown’, in a final reference to Krotoa before he left the colony. The only other alternative would be something of a scandalous personal nature between her and someone very high up among the officials, possibly the Commander himself.

There were few entries about Krotoa in the Commander’s journal from this point onwards and the last entry showing Krotoa as interpreter was in 1661.  By 1662 the Commander and his family were also about to leave the Cape. Over the next decade after the Peninsula Khoena had been subdued, the Dutch and the Cochoqua were on a collision path that ultimately resulted in the second Khoena-Dutch war of resistance leading to the defeat of the Cochoqua and the Khoena strategy of containment. The importation of horses (cavalry), more soldiers and guns gave the Dutch the strategic advantage in war. Mobility and fire-power was his key to success as was his divide and rule strategy.

The last tragic decade of Kratoa’s life

Kratoa’s life underwent a new dramatic change in 1662 when Commander van Riebeeck left the Cape. It coincided with the death of her uncle Autshumao, her mother’s death and the death of her sister, the wife of Gaob Oedasoa.

Faced with her uncle, mother and sister’s deaths, and with the growing distrust in her by the Dutch, the deaths of the few Dutch friends that she still had and, the fact that her main patrons the van Riebeeck’s were about to leave the Cape, Krotoa needed to find some security. She had to use all that she had learnt to make her next moves.

She found her tenuous security in requesting to be baptized as a Christian and by entering a marriage which could be characterized as one of convenience with a VOC official. While some Europeans opposed this marriage as scandalous it was a convenience not only for Krotoa but also for the VOC as it provided a means to spirit Kratoa away from the public gaze without too much ado. The VOC could manipulate its official's lives in whichever way they desired.

The man that she married was a Danish man, Peter Havgardt who by a custom enforced by the VOC adopted the Dutch persona of Pieter van Meerhof. Known as the VOC surgeon, he worked as a barber, responsible too for amputations. The marriage effectively was another wardship and allowed the company to quickly dispatch Krotoa and van Meerhof to company duties on Robben Island – a kind of exile. This did two things – it cut off Krotoa from supplying information to her people and it took her out of circulation among the emerging gentry where the presence of the young Khoena woman was an embarrassment, particularly because of the prior dalliances of their husbands during the time when women were in short supply. It would also seem that according to Sylvia Vollenhoven who read further texts in the Netherlands archive to inform her stage play on Krotoa, that she was subject of assaults by van Meerhof, and encouraged by VoC officials to 'pacify' her. while on Robben Island.

Krotoa would also have to get use to being a more stereotypical woman by making home, being a good wife and making babies without any distractions. On Robben island she gave birth to another child. From all accounts the confined and boring life after her interesting and active life at the fort and across the Cape drove her to a mental breakdown.

The years of sexual dalliances between Khoena and slaves with the VOC officials, which Van Riebeeck referred as 'fructification', to which Krotoa seemed to have been exposed, now needed to be forgotten as the Company men and their new European wives wished to look respectable. 'Carnal conversation" the formal term of those times referring to sex was now to be well and truly tucked away from view especially in the confines of the fort which was rapidly beicoming obsolete as the new 'Castle' emerged as the seat of governance. The van Riebeeck project and experiment with her life which had offered her so much dreams had by now deeply traumatised Krotoa, who in the last decade of her life stepped over the edge.

Pieter van Meerhof grew tired of Robben Island, even although unlike Krotoa he was away from the island periodically on expeditions. After having another child with Krotoa, he seized an opportunity to go on a slaving operation to Madagascar and in the course of the expedition he lost his life. His role of 'taming' Krotoa as new custodian of the "ward", had lost steam and, there is evidence that the VOC had plans to establish him in a senior position in Mauritius. The marriage between Pieter and Krotoa had come apart at the seams within three short years. Much too much is made of her awful marriage to the European.

Their marriage had only lasted three years. After her husband was killed, Krotoa was temporarily allowed back on the mainland and she tried to fit into the very different European world to that of her teens. She was for the first time no longer a "ward". But the terrain around her had changed and required a new set of skills and a power based that was not there for her. Krotoa had two more surviving children viewed as ‘illegitimate’. She was rejected by the new gentry and forced to ‘know her place’ amongst the 'Free Blacks" and transient lower classes, mainly men, who only wanted her as a drinking companion and to satisfy their sexual urges.

With van Meerhof’s death, Krotoa’s only security was gone and the full weight of the years of trauma and displacement weighed heavily on her. Her ever deepening dependency on alcohol, probably first introduced to her in her childhood, took her right over the edge. Her children were removed from her, she was hunted down, thrown into the dungeon and then she was banished to Robben Island. She again was made a "ward" of the VOC and the Dutch Reformed Church. Her children were made wards of the church which then parceled the older children off to a brothel keeper and the younger given over to the "Free Black" Everts family (from Benin)

During this time on Robben island, in 1673, a certain Willem ten Rhijne, a Dutch visitor to the Cape, described Krotoa as:

".... a masterpiece of nature. She had embraced Christianity, spoke fluent English, Dutch, French and Portuguese and was conversant with the Holy Scriptures.... in short, she was most commendable, being trained in all womanly crafts and married to one of the surgeons serving the company."

This description contrasts sharply with the figure painted by the Church Council and the VOC authorities at the time. 

Historian Karel Schoeman points out how this version by Willem ten Rhijne and another positive note in 1672 by JP Cortemunde contrasts sharply with the accounts in Commander Wagenaer’s Journal for 1671 - 74 wherein he refers to Krotoa as ‘drinking herself to death’ and to her ‘vile unchastity’.

Krotoa had walked a thin line that determined her relations with her own people and the Dutch. When it mattered most, in the time of war and she truly found herself caught in the middle.

I believe that she played an important role in choosing to provide her people with strategic information and navigating a place for herself. Had she succeeded she may well have become as wealthy and as leading a personality as the later Free Black entrepreneur Swart Maria Evert had become. She also became the advocate for the Cochoqua strategy to isolate the Dutch settlement and develop an equitable trading relationship. Had the Khoena succeeded under the Cochoqua, Cape Town and indeed South Africa may have had a different history. For her asserted independence and experimental approaches she was scorned by the Dutch, rejected and treated as one who had betrayed them. She also did not deliver to her people and her time had come and gone.

As she found herself more and more of an outcast, she turned to alcohol and it took her closer towards her tragic end. She was called a deceitful whore and a vixen by the people who once embraced her. Karel Schoeman says that on her death the Commander’s Journal talks of her ‘irregular life’ and says that ‘she finally quenched the fire of her lust by the passive acceptance of death’. It would seem that the Journal tells us more about the writer than about Krotoa.

The last decade of her life when she was clearly suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome after a decade of upheavals, disappointments and abuses often is projected in an amplified and judgmental manner without due analysis of the other two decades and its impacts.

Krotoa who was a carefree child in the exciting world of the Khoena Camissa trader-settlement at Table Bay experienced the whirlwind of changes brought about by the Dutch settlement on the doorstep of her village. Like the destruction of the Camissa port community and its replacement with a VoC run port, Krotoa got swept up by the forces and experiences of the time but began to get an understanding of her times and had developed her own form of resistance to colonialism after having found herself in the extraordinary circumstances of her teenage years. She sought out and followed the potential opportunities that beckoned. She was no ordinary lass. I believe that she followed her dreams which unfortunately became dreams deferred and that exploded in the latter years of her life. Right up to her death she refused to be down at heal and cursed the society in which she had felt used and abused.

It was only in death that Krotoa found a place of her own in being buried first in the grounds of the Fort of Good Hope. Her descendants crossed every group, ethnic and class boundary, but they were largely oblivious to her and her story. Perhaps it was only much later that her spirit found peace when her remains were moved to a plot at the Groote Kerk built alongside the then still visible Camissa stream. Camissa received back her own. Krotoa truly can be regarded as the founding mother of many. I believe we owe it to her to restore her dignity and give her the pride of place in a different narrative of what happened in the past. It is unfortunate that in the 21st century, misinformed government officials took her resting place away from the Groote Kerk alongside the Camissa to the Castle of Good Hope.

What was Krotoa’s Legacy?

The first thing that must be acknowledged is that without Krotoa and the information she provided, Jan Van Riebeeck would never have been able to pass on such a rich wealth of information on the local indigene people to us as recorded in his journal. Nobody else dominates its pages as does Krotoa. Krotoa provided the information even although she was not the writer. Van Riebeeck, in a sense, was the scribe. In his journal, regardless of the flaws and bias, there is a result available for posterity of the peculiar teamwork which paints a picture of all of the Khoena clans named and describes details which may never have been conveyed for the future. It also tells us about so many Khoena characters who may otherwise have been lost in the sands of time. This is a great legacy which makes Krotoa much more than an interpreter and diplomat. She was also a chronicle.

Krotoa’s life is bound up with the hidden story of the people and events on the banks of the Camissa River of the  1640s,and 1650s and 1660s. By looking at the life and times of Krotoa and her other indigene and slave contemporaries we are able to discover something of ourselves that has been lost in time. Like the Camissa River which still flows hidden beneath the City of Cape Town, so is it with the descendants of the Camissa people. Connecting with Krotoa is one of the keys to unlocking the heritage of many South Africans and rediscovering the strength symbolised by this great ancestor.

By understanding Krotoa, what she was up against and how she handled herself regardless of what was thrown at her we can have a better sense of who we are as a people, not so much in narrow terms of ethnicity and so-called race or 'nation' but as people who can rise up above adversity. Krotoa was a linguist, a diplomat and emissary and a powerful woman in her own right. Faced with incredibly difficult circumstances, she walked among the landmines of her day and found her own way to make her mark for her people. While adversity dragged her down she refused to live her life down at heal. Adversity took its toll and took her to an early grave but she remained unbroken into the social conformity that had been thrust upon her.

Linguistically Krotoa was a pioneer of the Afrikaans language. Afrikaans is a Creole language with strong Seaman’s Dutch at its roots. But it also has German, Portuguese and French roots too. However, Afrikaans itself largely emerged among two streams of people who had European languages as their 2nd or 3rd languages – the Khoena and the slaves of the Cape. The impact of the enslaved and Khoena on the language was so profound that when the emergent white-Afrikaner movement began, many Boers complained saying "dit is 'n Hotnot's taal" Today there are still more people of colour across many ethnic groups in South Africa who speak Afrikaans often as their first language; more so that white speakers of the language. Krotoa offers the hope that the narrow and race besotted definition of Afrikaans and Afrikaner can give way to something more universally embraced.

The Khoena of the Camissa Settlement and the slaves of the Camissa Settlement were exposed to all of the European languages and likewise had their own Khoena and Melayu dialects which were also introduced into daily discourse. Thus the languages of the Khoena and slaves influenced the emergence of Afrikaans in an indelible manner. The first people to call themselves AFRIKANERS long before European Boers did so, were the mixed Khoena and enslaved peoples and Free Blacks of the Cape.

Importantly Xhore, Autshumao, Krotoa and Doman as interpreters were the earliest midwives in the birthing of Afrikaans as a language. They were the first to cross the borderline of suiwer-Nederlands into the world of the patois Cape low-Dutch or the Creole Afrikaans language. The first 12 enslaved mainly from India, and the new waves of enslaved from West Africa and Southeast Asia and Madagascar all also contributed to the emergence of this new language. It was vital for communication that boundaries in language needed to be crossed.

Krotoa was the first indigene African to convert to Christianity in South Africa and she was the first indigene African to formally marry a European.

It is with Xhore, Krotoa, Austhumao, and Nommoa and the Camissa settlement that the people today labeled as ‘Coloured’ have their roots. The indigenes of Camissa and the enslaved who were forcibly brought to Camissa from other parts of Africa, Madagascar, India, Southeast Asia and China, gave birth to the many people throughout South Africa today who can share a pride in being the children of Camissa (with over 195 roots of origin)...... and this too can be embraced beyond the confines of the label 'Coloured'.

What happened to Krotoa's children?

If it was not for the tenacious and passionate work of historian Mansell Upham we would still be labouring under a very distorted picture of the last days of Krotoa and about what happened to her children. South Africa owes a great debt to this micro-historian.

Mansell Upham briefly touches on the last years of Krotoa’s life in a work on her slave contemporaries. He elaborates on the fate of Krotoa’s children and explains how Krotoa was accused by the Dutch Reformed Church Council of being a drunk and “playing the beast at night” and reverting to her ‘native habits’.

His research tells us that on the 8 February 1669 a new Church Council of the Dutch Reformed Church was elected consisting of Adriaan de Voogd, Johannes Coon, Adriaan Wils and Gerrit van der Bijl. At the first sitting of this Church Council a decision was taken to remove Krotoa’s three children from her care. The church councilors having taken this decision pulled the wool over the eyes of Krotoa to lull her into a sense of false security. They simply conveyed a reprimand and suggested that only if she did not mend her ways that her children might be removed from her care. The decision to remove the children had however already been taken and they were about to execute their decision.

Krotoa, then known as the widow van Meerhof lived in the old pottery, then a make-shift abode. Krotoa got wind that all was not right and feared for what may be done to herself. She fled when her children were seized and her house was sealed up to keep her away. The children were put into the temporary care of the outgoing Church Deacon Jan Reijniers and his wife in February 1669. They passed the responsibility on to associate Barbara Geems. The Reijniers were considered to be ‘honest and godly people’ and had already been made the adopted parents of another infant Khoe child by the name of Florida. This child died a short while later.

In reality Jan Reijneiers was a notorious cattle rustler and sheep thief who had been caught at it by Gaob Gogosoa. The Gaob had kept van Reijniers as hostage and strung him up after he was caught stealing some years previously in 1661. In 1666 Reijniers was also convicted of theft by the authorities. Barbara Geems ran a brothel. The three children of Krotoa were formally committed to the care of Jan Reijniers and his wife on 1 March 1669.

An order was given by the Fiscal, Cornelius de Cretzir that Krotoa be found, removed from wherever she had found sanctuary and arrested. On 10 February 1669 Krotoa was apprehended and arrested. She was taken and thrown into the donker-gat dungeon (black-hole) at the Castle of Good Hope. On 26 March 1669 Krotoa was banished without trial to Robben Island where she was to remain until her death on 29 July 1674.

Krotoa’s children Pieternella van Meerhof and Salomon van Meerhof were shipped off to Mauritius in 1677 as wards of Theuntje Bartholomeus van der Linde and her husband Bartholomeus Borns on the ship ‘De Boode’.

Jacobus van Meerhof, the eldest of the children was later also sent off to Mauritius to join them. He would later be sent back to the Cape but died mysteriously on the return voyage.

Krotoa also had two other children which officialdom called ‘illegitimate’. These were Jeronimus and Anthonij. It is not known into whose care they had been placed nor whether either the Church Council or the authorities at the Castle officially even concerned themselves with these children. The records are silent. The only records on Anthonij is that he was alone, unmarried and without children when he died during the smallpox epidemic in 1713. One clue that exists is that Anthonij had the surname Everts suggesting that he was brought up in the care of Anne and Evert of Guinea, two freed African slaves.

Pieternella was to return to the Cape with her husband Daniel Saayman after the Dutch East India Company (VOC) abandoned Mauritius. She died aged 50 in Stellenbosch in that fateful year of the smallpox epidemic in 1713. Daniel died the following year. Krotoa’s descendants can be traced through four of Petronella’s 8 children, through the Diodata girls in Indonesia, and the Bockelenberg, de Vries and the Zaaiman (Zaayman or Saayman) lines in the Cape.

Catharina Zaaiman who was born in 1678 in Mauritius. She married Roelof Diodata and had two children, Elizabeth and Agnita. The family moved from Mauritius to settle in Batavia (Jakarta).
Magdalena Zaayman who was born in 1682 in Mauritius and married Johannes Bockelenberg and they had four children – Petronella, Johannes, Anna Elizabeth and Susanna Bocklenberg.
Maria Martha Maryke Zaaiman who was born in 1683 in Mauritius and married Hendrik Abraham de Vries who had 4 children Daniel, Jacob, and Izak de Vries.
Pieter Zaaiman who was born in 1686 in Mauritius and married Anna Koopman who had 8 children – Pieternella, Daniel, Bartholomeus, Engela, Francina, Barend, Cornelis, and Christiaan Zaaiman

These descendants in turn married into many other families in South Africa and it is through thousands of these descendants carrying many different surnames that the old ǁAmmaqua, Goringhaiqua, Gorachoqua, and Cochoqua lines of the Khoena people still live on. No children are recorded for the other four of Pieternella’s children. These were: Eva Zaaiman who was born in 1680 in Mauritius and died in the Cape.  Daniel Zaaiman who was born in 1692 in Mauritius and died in the Cape. Johannes Zaaiman who was born in 1704 in Mauritius and died aged 21 in the Cape. Christiaan Zaaiman who was born in 1708 in Mauritius and died 9 months later in Cape Town.

Krotoa was banished to Robben Island and her children tucked away in Mauritius to get rid of the embarrassment of the ǁAmmaqua who had entered into white colonial society. Leading figures in Cape Society in the early 1700s – Adam Tas and Henning Huysing scornfully referred to ‘the Black Brood among us’. An almighty attempt was made to airbrush the Krotoa legacy from the Cape Heritage. But in returning from Mauritius, Pieternella (Petronella) and her children ensured that the footprint of Krotoa proliferated throughout South Africa with descendants amog both black and white South Africans.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: HB Thom edt; Journal of Jan van Riebeeck 1652 – 1662; Van Riebeeck Society; AA Balkema, Cape Town / Amsterdam (1958) - Anna Jacoba Böeseken; Die dagregister en briewe van Zacharias Wagenaer 1662 – 1666; (1973) - Anna Jacoba Böeseken; Memoriën en instruction 1657 – 1699; (1966) - Mansell Upham; Made or Marred by Time; www.e-family.co.za/remarkablewriting/MadeorMarred.pdf - Karel Schoeman; Seven Khoi lives; - Cape biographies of the seventeenth century; Protea; Pretoria (2009) Alan Mountain; First People of the Cape; David Philip; Cape Town (2003) - Riaan Voster and Alan Hall; The Waters of Table mountain;  http://dev.webdesignbytanya.com/hike-tm/the-waters-of-table-mountain/ - Nicolaas Vergunst; Hoerikwaggo – Images of Table mountain; SA National gallery Iziko Museums; Cape town (2000) - Nigel Worden, Elizabeth van Heningen, Vivian Bickford-Smith; Cape Town Making of a City; David Philip; Cape   Town (1998) - Adrien Delmas & Nigel Penn; Written culture in a Colonial context: Africa and the Americas 1500 – 1900; Written culture and the Cape KhoiKhoi – From travel writing to ‘full description; UCT Press (2011) - William Crooke edt; Tavanier: Travels in India; transl V Ball; (1925) - Sir Richard Carnac-Temple; The travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia 1608 – 1667; (1967) - JP Cortemünde; Adventures at the Cape of Good Hope; (1962) - HCV Leibbrandt; Precis of the archives of the Cape of Good Hope; Journal 1662-70, 1671-74; WA Richards & Sons (1901, 1902) - John Cope; King of the Hottentots; Howard Timmins; Cape   Town (1967) - Richard Elphick; KhoiKhoi and the founding of White South Africa; Raven Press; Johannesburg (1985) - O Schapera edt; Dictionary of South African Biography: The Early Cape Hottentots – Willem ten Rhijne; (1933)

© Patric Tariq Mellet (https://camissapeople.wordpress.com/profiles/)

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• Interesting description of her life with van Riebeeck by Hazel Crampton:(Crampton, Hazel (2014) The Side Of The Sun At Noon. South Africa: Jacana). Very worth reading

NOTICE: FILM ON KRATOA to be aired on SABC2 at 21h00 on 9 June 2013 - Programme HIDDEN HISTORIES http://camissapeople.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=177&actio...

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Calvinism and South African women: Christina Landman 2

February 28, 2013 in Gender Violence, South Africa, uncategorized No Comments »Tags: Afrikaner Calvinism, Christina Landman, Krotoa, Moravian, South Africa

Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, October 2009, 35(2), 89-102

Calvinism and South African women: Christina Landman

a short historical overview Research Institute for Theology and Religion

University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

Calvinism and South African women: a short historical overview – page3

This article argues that “lay” Calvinism – as it was received and eventually practised locally – rested on three apparently conflicting pillars.One is the notion that sin is something that the believer must take personal responsibility for. Two is that the soul is the site of personal connection with God. And three – in apparent contradiction – is that salvation is predestined.

While the laity left the issue of predestination undisputed, they adhere specifically to the practical demands of keeping the soul unblemished which,as we all know, incorporated strict rules for women as far as status, behaviour and dress code were concerned.

Krotoa was 10 years old when the Van Riebeecks came to the Cape. Within two years she became an interpreter and cultural broker to Jan van Riebeeck, and wore Dutch clothes. Furthermore, she was prepared for baptism, which only happened a week before the Van Riebeecks left the Cape in 1662.

How did Krotoa receive the lay form of sin-soul-salvation Calvinism?

As she herself had not written down anything, we are left to speculation based on our deductions from Jan Van Riebeeck’s Journal that she led a double life which, eventually, led to her mental deterioration.

Krotoa probably would have had no problem in identifying with a fatherly, creator God, a Satan and a resurrected One, since these were present in the Khoekhoe pantheon in the forms of the great Tsui//Goab, the evil//Gaunab and Heitsi Eibib who was resurrected daily (Shapera 1930; 1960). However, for Krotoa sin was not personal guilt and responsibility, but a betrayal of the clan’s cultural wholeness. Soul was a concept foreign to the local Khoekhoe, who made no distinction between body and soul.

To be a body, for Krotoa, meant engaging in communal dancing and celebration. And salvation was not the soul predestined for eternal life, but the body as a site of initiation. When she was 14, Krotoa requested leave of absence to visit her sister’s kraal, where she underwent initiation (Landman 1998:8–14). She returned to her Dutch dress code, however, and was baptised six years later.

Jan van Riebeeck’s successor, Zacharias Wagenaer, despised Krotoa. Krotoa had now lost the confidence of the Khoekhoe because of her Christian baptism and was therefore no longer functional to the Dutch. She married a white man, the Danish surgeon Pieter van Meerhoff, in 1665. This did not please Wagenaer, who was embarrassed that a marriage between people of different classes and races took on a Christian form. He sent Van Meerhoff off to supervise Robben Island which was then already a prison. The couple stayed on Robben Island for three years with their three children, Pieternella,

Salomon and Jacobus. Physically removed from her Khoekhoe family and without Dutch employment, Krotoa started drinking heavily. When her husband died on a trip to Mauritius, she lost control of herself and was brought to the mainland where she was given a cottage. Here she started partying recklessly with some dubious characters and neglected her children.

page 4

This behaviour was an embarrassment to both her Khoekhoe heritage and her Christian faith. Her children were taken away from her and she was sent back to Robben Island as a prisoner where she died on 29 July 1674 at the age of 32. In his diary Wagenaer expressed his dissatisfaction with the fact that she was given a Christian burial.

With such an ambivalent introduction of Calvinism into female piety, one should be surprised that there was even a second generation of women converts locally. For this, however, the first missionaries should receive the credit.George Schmidt, Vehettge Tikkuie and the sin-soul-salvation model The men who came to South Africa as missionaries suffered for their faith in their home countries. George Schmidt (1709–1785) was no exception.

He was incarcerated for his faith in Moravia, found a spiritual home with the Moravian Brothers at Herrnhut in Germany, and came to South Africa as a missionary in 1737. His first convert was the Khoekhoe woman Vehettge Tikkuie.

The Moravians were not Calvinists and showed greater affinity to Lutheranism. From a missionary perspective, their teachings were similar to the sin-soul-salvation model to which the first generation converts were exposed. For George Schmidt – as can be deduced from his Tagebuch (Bredekamp & Hattingh 1981) – sin is described in terms of a strong detachment from the values expressed in the Bible. Soul is defined according to a strong fear of hell and damnation. Schmidt himself recorded his words to Vehettge Tikkuie: “I have come to save your soul from your body and from hell.” Salvation is presented in terms of a strong dependency on Christ’s salvation through prayer and a body-restrictive lifestyle. Again Schmidt recorded these words to Vehettge: “I have come to show you the way to heaven.”

How did Vehettge Tikkuie receive this sin-soul-salvation version of Christianity?

Again, deductions need to be made from Khoekhoe life at the time. Vehettge suffered in understanding dancing and drinking to be sin, since the women were responsible for brewing beer in the kraals. Also, the soul was a foreign concept to somebody who could hardly understand how covering your body in full was a prerequisite for salvation. And as far as salvation was concerned, heaven and hell were places unknown to Vehettge in whose culture men died and became ancestor spirits: pleasing them was salvation.

Like Krotoa, Vehettge experienced tension because of the clashing of cultures and religions. She often brought back her Bible to Schmidt