All the King’s Men

 

The first modern seafarer to round the tip of Southern Africa in 1488 was the Portuguese explorer, Bartolomeu Dias. The Portuguese achieved this breakthrough in an attempt to establish trade relations with the Far East. Centuries before the Portuguese, Herodotus claimed that the Phoenicians had sailed around the Cape in ancient times. Since this particular part of the coastline was notoriously tempestuous, Dias referred to it as Cabo das Tormentas or Cape of Storms. King John II of Portugal renamed it the Cape of Good Hope as a symbol of his optimism about successful commerce in the East.The Dutch East India Company (DEIC) also known as the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) had trade interests in various parts of the world by the time the sea route around southern Africa was discovered. The Dutch and English soon took control of the commercial trade in the East and kept the Portuguese merchant fleets in their shadows.On the 16th of July 1647, three merchant ships of the Dutch fleet left Batavia (now Jakarta) on their return voyage to Europe; The Nieuw Haerlem, Olifant, and Schiedam, were laden with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, floral chintzes, handmade Chinese earthenware storage pots, exotic plants and animals, wigs, cheese, gin, wine, and a variety of other goods for the European markets. These Indiamen, as the fleet’s crew were nicknamed, knew just how treacherous the route around the Cape peninsula could be. For years, the unpredictability of these seas had led to the demise of many a Portuguese and Dutch fleet.A great storm picked up in the middle of March and the three ships became separated. Visibility was so poor that none of the captains could observe another ship on the ocean. Finally, on 25 March 1648 the Nieuw Haerlem ran aground in shallow water near Table Bay.The captain ordered a junior merchant, Leendert Janszen, to remain behind on the ship with sixty-two crewmen to keep watch over the cargo. The captain and the rest of the crew departed for the return journey to the Netherlands onboard one of the accompanying support vessels.Janszen and his men built a fort as a shelter for the crew and freight on the shore and aptly named it Zandenburch (Sandburg). While waiting for the next Dutch fleet to arrive, which would take about a year, the men planted vegetables, bartered with the local Khoikhoi people for fresh meat and fished in the ocean.Upon his final return to his homeland, a considerable time later, Leendert Janszen gave a full report to the VOC Directorate (Lords XVII, the VOC bosses) of his experiences in the new land. “Excellent soil for gardens and grazing, fertile land for crops and an abundance of fish, but most importantly a lack of animosity towards strangers by the indigenous folk” were some of his anecdotes. Leendert Janszen made the Heeren XVII sit up and smack their lips. Yes! The Cape of Good Hope had potential!The VOC established a replenishing station on 4 April 1652. Jan van Riebeeck, the administrator of this newly acquired halfway house allowed Dutch ships to “dock and stock” on the route. Fresh supplies of water and food were essential for seafarers and the Cape station became known as the Tavern of the Seas. During the 1600s, the Dutch East India Company vastly expanded its interests in trade with the East thus turning Table Bay into an indispensable port.The Strandlopers (Beach Walkers) or Khoikhoi, were most probably the first local peoples encountered by any explorer or settler at the Cape of Good Hope. The Strandlopers, a people descended from the indigenous Khoikhoi was a coastal, hunter-gatherer community, who scoured the southwestern coast for food and useful items. A number of the Strandlopers owned Vetstert (Fat-tailed) sheep and cattle, they trekked from pasture to pasture with their stock close to their kraals.When Jan van Riebeeck arrived as the Cape of Good Hope on April 4, 1652, the possibility of mutual trade excited the local population. Autshumao, who was a chieftain of a group of about forty members of the Goringhaicona (Khoikhoi) tribe of Strandlopers, rather quickly became fluent in Dutch. The Dutch renamed Autshumao, Harry the Strandloper. This was an annoying habit these folks had. Every indigenous, French, Malaysian and Scandinavian name was changed into a throat-scraping Hollandaise mixture. Harry became invaluable as an interpreter and business associate.Krotoa, Autshumao’s niece, who was living in his household, was born in 1643. According to oral history, Krotoa was a difficult child who felt disdain towards her own clan and in particular towards her mother, who was intolerant and insistent about conventional customs. It was decided by the family that she should reside with her uncle who was less strict in his traditional beliefs. Krotoa’s older sister was still responsible for teaching the ten-year-old girl the Khoikhoi customs. Krotoa was getting ready to depart for her sister’s house to be prepared for puberty. Even though Krotoa was living in her uncle’s village, she was promised as a bride to the son of the Chianoqua chief, but Krotoa protested vehemently. The young girl didn’t feel ready to be a wife. She felt tricked.Respite came for Krotoa when her uncle, Autshumao announced that she will be living with the new Dutch governor and his family.At the age of twelve, Krotoa became a companion and chambermaid for the lady of the house, Maria. and her young children. Soon after her arrival Governor Van Riebeeck noticed Krotoa’s bright intellect and by the time she was in her teens he trained her to function as his assistant. Like her uncle, Krotoa spoke prefect Dutch and was an exceptional businessperson, who conducted trade negotiations while interpreting Khoi and Dutch. She was optimistic about the Dutch presence in the Cape and believed that commerce between the two groups would benefit all. Krotoa was highly regarded by the Dutch as well as by her own people. Some historians are convinced that the relationship between the governor and Krotoa had a sexual undertone, because of the affection he expressed towards her in his journals. Analysis of my ancestry leaves little doubt that unsolicited hanky-panky had been going on since the arrival of the Europeans.Krotoa proved highly adaptable. She changed garments, customs and religious rituals easily depending on the occasion. When serving tea, she would be dressed in a housemaid’s outfit, when in a business meeting with Dutch officials, Krotoa was smart and ladylike. In her clan’s kraal (tribal village) she donned animal skins, venerating the god, Heitsi-Eibib.The Khoikhoi were introduced to wine and brandy by the Europeans. Honey mead was an alcoholic drink the Khoi consumed occasionally, containing a much lower alcohol content than the Dutch liquor. It didn’t take long before many local inhabitants imbibed the foreign beverages. Although they were familiar with cannabis sativa, tobacco was a novel product that they soon embraced.Krotoa was baptized on May 3, 1662, by minister Petrus Sibelius in the little church of the Fort de Goede Hoop. She was described as a beautiful young lady; both pleasing to the eye and displaying refined manners. The Dutch promptly changed Krotoa’s name to Eva. Krotoa didn’t exist anymore. The name Eva, a biblical reference to the first woman in Genesis, was perhaps chosen since Krotoa represented the first Khoikhoi woman encountered by Van Riebeeck. To be respectful of her heritage I will call her Krotoa.During her time in the van Riebeeck home, Krotoa went back and forth between the Dutch and the Goringhaicona Khoikhoi. She took gifts from the Dutch settlement to her people and returned to the fort with skins, cattle, and sheep, often riding on the back of a bull. She lived in two worlds: one Christian and Dutch and the other ruled by Tsui-Goab, creator-god of the Khoikhoi.By the age of twenty, Krotoa had been living with her European lover, Peter Havgard, at the fort for some time. She married the Danish surgeon, with whom she had two children, in the same little church where she was baptized two years before. Peter Havgard soon changed his name to sound more Dutch: Pieter van Meerhof. Van Meerhof was a brilliant doctor and explorer. Years before meeting Krotoa van Meerhof had gone on an expedition in search of the elusive Monomotapa, the Great Zimbabwe City of Gold. The bible refers to the place as King Solomon’s mines.Krotoa had broken ground. She was the first Khoikhoi to have been baptized as well as having the first interracial Christian wedding. The local Dutch settlers even held a reception for the couple after the ceremony at the home of Zacharias Wagenaar who assumed Van Riebeeck’s position as governor. Wagenaar was of German descent and was stationed in Dutch Brazil before his appointment to the Cape. While in Recife he kept a nature journal containing over a hundred watercolors of interesting animals, crustaceans, people, fruit, and landscapes. Robben Island, (Seal Island) off the coast of the mainland was a penal colony for thieves, murderers, rapists, drunkards who got into knife fights, and incorrigibles of all sorts. Pieter van Meerhof was appointed superintendent of the Island in May 1665. Krotoa and the children settled with Pieter on the prison property. She was used to an active social life at the fort at the Cape. On Robben Island she was isolated from other women and felt lonely. The island was a place for men. Alcohol became her constant companion, once even leading to medical treatment for falling off a stool while intoxicated. Pieter and Krotoa made only brief visits to the Cape, mainly for baptisms and funerals.Van Meerhof was summoned by the Colony’s administration to join an exploratory excursion to Madagascar, while Krotoa stayed home in The Cape of Good Hope. The expedition the Dutch undertook was likely slave related. Van Riebeeck had difficulty developing a new Dutch colony with only a few burghers (citizens) and a few reluctant Khoikhoi to work the land. Over the next decades slaves were brought in from Mozambique, Southeast Asia, Angola and as far afield as West Africa.Tragically, Pieter was murdered by the locals on the island in 1668. Krotoa and her children were visiting the fort in Table Bay when the Dutch fleet returned from Madagascar with the news of her husband’s death of eight months before. Besides inheriting van Meerhof’s assets Krotoa also became the owner of a slave, whom she subsequently relinquished to the Dutch Reformed Church.One would imagine that Krotoa, the widow and her young children would have been placed under the guardianship of the new governor. It was not to be. Wagenaar no longer had the need for Krotoa/Eva as an interpreter since trade relations were stable and secure. Krotoa and her three children remained at the fort on the mainland where she attempted to pick up her life after the stint on Robben Island, but the demon of alcoholism had her in its powerful grip. She turned to prostitution for money. Her alcoholism caused frequent incidences of public drunkenness and acts of indecency which led to Krotoa leaving the Cape settlement to return to the Goringhaicona. Not long after her arrival at the Khoikhoi kraal she became restless and returned to the fort. She continued her old ways of drinking, brawling, and soliciting patrons.Although prostitution was commonly accepted in the settlement, it was confined to the “pleasure garden” where services could be bought or bartered for. The Europeans tolerated the practice despite their Christian norms. Men outnumbered women by far in the early days of the Dutch colony. It seems clear that race was unimportant. Free slaves were regarded as equals by the whites and interracial relationships were standard in the seventeenth century in this new society.Krotoa’s behavior could not be tolerated in the bay any longer and she was finally arrested in 1669 for immoral behavior. The church authorities removed the van Meerhof children from Krotoa’s care due to severe neglect. Krotoa was combative and attempted to abduct her children two days after her arrest. For this transgression she was thrown into the donkergat (dark hole) which served as the jail at the fort.The judiciary decided that Eva van Meerhof must be banished to Robben Island indefinitely.Krotoa’s children were adopted by Jan van Riebeeck’s niece, Elizabeth van Opdorp and her husband Jan Reiniersz. Krotoa was allowed leave from detention to visit her children in the Cape from time to time, only to be sent back to the prison on Robben Island for drunkenness and threatening behavior. The cycle continued for a number of years. Krotoa eventually gave birth to five children while on the island. Her last child was baptized at the mainland castle in May 1673.Krotoa’s life consisted of one loss after another. Her early days in her uncle Autshumao’s kraal were probably happy, despite her parents living in another village. She experienced a new world with van Riebeeck and his family but lost her traditional Khoikhoi name and identity. Krotoa was valued and even regarded as one of the Dutch as soon as she converted to Christianity. When the Van Riebeecks left the Cape, Krotoa must have felt abandoned. The death of her husband and the loss of her children must have been profoundly traumatic and led to her downward spiral with alcohol and ultimately into an early grave.Krotoa was only thirty-two when she died on July 29, 1674, in the Cape of Good Hope and was buried in the castle. Today, a monument erected in her memory reminds us of the little Khoikhoi girl who picked up shells on the beach and slept safely in a sheepskin by the fire, before those three Dutch jachts (three-masted lightly armed, speed vessels) entered the cove of her home.Two of Krotoa’s children, Petronella, and Salomon, moved to Mauritius with the Reiniersz family. Years later, Petronella married Daniel Zaayman in Mauritius before eventually returning to the Cape in 1709. It is unclear what happened to Krotoa’s other children.Eva and Pieter van Meerhof were the forbearers of millions of whites and people of color in modern day South Africa.Holier than ThouI will briefly – or not so briefly for those who aren’t interested in yet more history - revisit Europe in the period known as the Renaissance, which represented many of the white ancestry in South Africa. If not for the enormous impact of the Protestant Reformation throughout Europe my ancestors would not have seen the southern shores of Africa.The conflict between Catholics and Protestants had repercussions not only on religion, but also on politics, philosophy, and culture. This movement became the catalyst for thousands of Protestants migrating to South Africa, Canada, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, South America and elsewhere.Since the middle ages, the Catholic Church had existed as an analogous state to European countries. The Pope was its absolute leader. The institution was a rich landlord, tax collector with its own courts and retainers throughout the continent. The Church was naturally in control of politics and the economy. Decisions considered by kings had to be supported by the Pope. To have contemplated a different religion in Europe at the time would have been equal to changing society at its core. Unthinkable. But it happened. The Catholic Church was challenged in a big way.The Protestant movement began in Germany during the 1500s when a separation from the all-powerful Catholic church took place, slowly but surely.Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, was selected to travel to the Eternal City for assisting in a dispute the Pope was dealing with. Observing the depravities and disinterest of priests and monks who were lax in their duties, disappointed Luther. He began to question the Church. After returning from his journey, he wrote: “I had gone with onions and returned with garlic.”Martin Luther, a university instructor living in Wittenberg published his work, Ninety-five Theses, also known as Disputation on the Power of Indulgences, in 1517, encouraging others to debate his ideas of Christianity. In this document Luther questioned the Catholic Church as the vehicle to forgiveness. Luther believed that forgiveness was a gift from God, granted through grace to those who believe. Forgiveness came from within. Only God can see remorse. No priest was necessary.He bemoaned the practice of indulgences, whereby the Church sold certificates to sinners as a symbol of pardon from penance and to ensure a shortened time in purgatory.When Pope Leo X started a huge fundraising campaign driven by indulgences, for the construction of the St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, Luther lost patience with the Church.“The revenues of all Christendom being sucked into this insatiable basilica.” What irked Luther was that the Church did not put its money to better use.The pope even commissioned a Dominican vendor as a sort of rep to sell indulgences for deceased family members who were unable to confess their sins. Tetzel, who was the pope’s marketing manager, travelled among towns, launching into a sales pitch with a familiar jingle:“As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, The soul from purgatory springs.”This practice angered Luther and in response he wrote a placard made up of ninety-five propositions, also known as The Ninety-Five Theses, which was nailed to the church door at Wittenburg castle. The text was mostly aimed at exposing the practice of indulgences as a farce; merely a means to extort money. Luther’s concept of the faithful having a personal relationship with God didn’t strike the Church as part of its doctrine. He indicated that the Bible was the only document needed from which to receive guidance and wisdom and that believers should be less reliant on priests and the pope for spiritual insight. The Church took exception and Luther was summoned to a hearing before the Diet of Worms, the assembly of the Roman Holy Empire. Luther defended his attacks on the Church and refused to retract any of his statements. He was subsequently excommunicated, his books burned and all his possessions were confiscated. When word came of his imminent arrest, he was aided to escape on horseback in the middle of the night. He was restricted to the small town of Wartburg and had to rely on the prince, Frederick the Wise of Saxony, to protect him until it was safe for him to emerge.John Calvin was one of Luther’s greatest followers in France and was active in the Protestant Reformation. Intellectuals and the nobility began to support Calvin’s group of objectors against absolute papal authority.Calvin was born on July 10, 1509, in Picardy, France. He was a law student at the University of Orléans when he joined the Reformation’s cause. In 1536 Calvin published a pamphlet titled Institutes of the Christian Religion, as an early attempt to standardize the theories of Protestantism. Herein he stated that the scriptures were the only truth. The ultramontane Catholic tenets most opposed by the Protestants, were firstly the certainty that Christ was present during the eucharist or communion and second, the practice of paying the church for plenary indulgences to earn salvation. “Pay up and your sins will be forgiven!” Calvin and his followers were of the opinion that the church invented certain rules to fit their own agenda.A Protestant argument was that religious and political power should be separated between the Church and monarchies. Calvin argued that the ordinary citizen had direct contact with God through prayer and didn’t need an intermediary.By 1572 it is believed that around 10% of the French population consisted of Huguenots. It is unclear where the title of Huguenot came from. Germans referred to these Protestants as Eidgenossen; those who are bound by an edict. The Dutch word Eedgenoten has the same meaning – edict society.The French Wars of Religion resulted in eight major civil clashes between 1562 and 1598. The first of these was the Massacre of Vassy in March 1562 when protestant worshippers were attacked by the town’s gendarme while singing psalms in their church. Up to a thousand Huguenots were killed as the violence spread to nearby villages.Brief periods of relative peace were interrupted by more hostility and ongoing distrust between the two camps. The number of Huguenot supporters grew steadily, much to the chagrin of the Catholic leaders.King Henry IV of France’s road to the crown was filled with thorns. The king was a Protestant who later converted to Catholicism when it became clear that his reign was in jeopardy.King Henry IV de Bourbon also known as Henry of Navarre was baptized in the Catholic church but his mother brought him up as a Protestant. His mother was Queen Jeanne d’Albret of Navarre, Spain, who spent a number of years in a loveless marriage which was annulled in 1545. She married in 1548 for a second time. Her groom was Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme. Besides Henry, he couple had a daughter, Catherine.Queen Jeanne declared Calvinism the official religion of the Kingdom of Navarre. Jeanne d’Albret ardently believed in the French Huguenot cause but remained relatively neutral during the first two uprisings. By the time the French War of Religion broke out, Queen Jeanne fled to La Rochelle in southwestern France which had become a safe haven for the Huguenots. She was effectively regarded as the superior commander of the city of La Rochelle to which thousands of Huguenots had been fleeing over time. During Jeanne’s reign in La Rochelle, she negotiated peace with Catherine de Medici. The de Medici family had produced four popes during their heydays. Queen Jeanne was undeterred by the family’s accomplishments and even managed to arrange a marriage between her son, Henry of Navarre, and Marguerite, the daughter of Catherine de Medici.The arranged marriage between Henry and Marguerite (Marie) of Valois took place in the Notre Dame Cathedral Paris on August 18, 1572. Marguerite’s parents were Henry II of France and Catherine de Medici. Catherine de Medici came from an Italian banking family and was a staunch Catholic who married into the French royal house.Thousands of elite Huguenots arrived from across France for the wedding of Henry and Marguerite. Many high-heeled Protestants were invited to the wedding, but Paris was not a safe place for Huguenots. Parisians were radical Catholics and influenced by priests and preachers to reject the marriage of a French princess to a blasphemous Protestant. Among them were some Huguenot leaders, such as Admiral Gaspard II de Coligny, and intellectuals, artists, writers, and philosophers. Catherine de Medici and her allies saw the week of the nuptials as the ideal time for the assassination of de Coligny. Four days after the wedding, de Coligny was wounded in an attack that was expected to claim his life. The Huguenot nobility would not stand for this and told the king they wanted answers. Catherine de’ Medici had to work quickly to erase any signs of her involvement. Her secret meeting at Tuileries Palace would lead to a bloodbath in Paris. Catherine and her fellow conspirators were determined to completely eliminate the entire Huguenot leadership in one fell swoop. Whispers in King Charles’ ear spoke of the Huguenots plotting large scale uprisings against the French sovereign and the church. Charles was convinced that immediate action was needed. The Catholic faction felt threatened both politically and spiritually by the growing numbers of Huguenots in their midst.The Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day, Catherine de Medici’s masterplan, commenced in Paris before dawn on August 24, 1572. The lethal raid continued for two months.Catholic fanatics stormed into De Coligny’s lodgings and assaulted him severely before throwing him out of the two-story window from where his body was dragged through the streets to the river.As soon as the first Catholic nobles began killing the Huguenots a bloodthirsty frenzy exploded around Paris. Unsuspecting people were pulled out of their beds and their businesses and slaughtered. Women, children, and the elderly were murdered with equal enthusiasm. Hundreds of bodies were floating in the Seine by the time the sun came up. Undistinguished killing had taken place that day with not a soul to be spared.The French port city of La Rochelle became significant after two Calvinist heretics were burned at the stake in 1552, yet the city’s people were either fearless or unwavering in their beliefs. They continued to support the Protestant movement. Their desire for political independence, their opposition to the royals’ love of spending money and the costs incurred by the palace to fortify the coast against England, strengthened the La Rochelle citizens’ resolve to claim self-governance. Queen Jeanne d’ Albret was forceful in her tenacity to ensure a positive outcome for her townspeople.As a teenager, Henry of Navarre joined the Huguenot forces during the Wars of Religion and when his mother passed away suddenly in Paris, he inherited the position as King of Navarre at the age of nineteen. Since he was out in the world fighting for the Huguenots, he entrusted the Navarre kingdom to his sixteen-year-old sister, Catherine de Bourbon, for three decades. Unfortunately for the family, Henry’s son, Louis XIII captured Navarre for the French and that was the end of Spanish reign.The Wars of Religion began in 1562 and would last for decades. By 1568, La Rochelle was the center of the Huguenots and the city declared itself an Independent Reformed Republic. Revolts were multiple during this time, but when Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes, in 1598 granting some degree of religious freedom to the Protestant Huguenots the end of the Protestant persecution was in sight.By 1600 England, Scotland, Holland, and Scandinavia became safe havens for Protestant families.A period of religious tolerance reigned during this time in France, until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Tolerance during the time meant “to bear” not in the social sense of the modern era.Protestants were persecuted for their beliefs right through the 16th and 17th centuries as they not only defied some of the Catholic doctrines but were also viewed as a political threat by the French government. When the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes was signed by Louis XIV in 1685, the tyranny against Protestants grew to fever pitch. Dragonnades were ordered to occupy the homes of Huguenot families and to harass the inhabitants. Dragonnades plundered farms and tortured those who refused to convert to Catholicism. Stories of feet held to fires and children dismembered in homes were plenty. Three choices remained for Protestants as declared by the king: conversion, punishment, or escape. Possessions were confiscated of those who would not comply and they lost their incomes.The Huguenots did not enjoy religious freedom until 1789 when the Revolutionary Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was signed by Louis XVI. Generations were traumatized, displaced, and executed for their perception of Christianity.French protestants in Europe were given the opportunity to travel to the Cap de Bonne Espērance and establish a new life without persecution by the Catholic church. Europeans with certain skills were in demand. Many grabbed the chance for freedom. On 31 December 1687 the first new immigrants also known as French Huguenot refugees arrived in the Netherlands where they have been given safety. The VOC (Dutch East India Company) welcomed these competent French farmers who were especially skilled in wine making. My grandmother’s family who was of this stock told many a tale of grapevines being smuggled onto the ships inside coat sleeves and pant legs. The wine farmers were determined to cultivate their French grapes and not some foreign variety of unknown origin. Europe soon began to feel the void left in the economy and trade by multiple skilled craftsmen leaving the continent such as silversmiths, silk experts, plate glass artisans, watchmakers, and carpenters.The ancestors of millions of modern-day Afrikaners (people of European descent who speak Afrikaans) were of Huguenot stock.My maternal grandmother, Rachel Christina De Villiers, was descended from the French Huguenots gene pool originally from La Rochelle, southwestern France. Just like in the time Queen Jeanne De’ Albret of Navarre many decades before, the town of La Rochelle still represented a place of relative safety for the Huguenots by the late1600s. Reformists came from all over Catholic Europe to settle in this coastal fishing village. My predecessors were mostly a bunch of God-fearing protestants who were persecuted by the Church for their religion. La Rochelle was not forgotten by its sons and daughters who fled to the southernmost tip of Africa.Three De Villiers brothers, Pierre, Abraham, and Jacques, departed by ship, the Schieland a brand-new two-decked war ship from Texel, South Holland. They packed lightly. Each had a Bible and a few items of clothing for the voyage. The Schieland arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on May 6, 1689. The brothers soon put down roots near Franschhoek (French corner). They were granted a tract of land in 1694 where they cultivated grapes for winemaking. Between the three brothers they owned one horse which they shared as needed. Their farm was named after their hometown in France: La Rochelle. Pierre married Marie Elizabeth Taillefer in 1694 and the other brothers married two sisters, Suzanne, and Marguerite Gardiol. They all lived in the same district and spoke French for a few more years. Between 1689 and 1694 an estimated three hundred and twenty French refugees settled at the Cape.The French settlers in the Cape Colony rapidly assimilated into the Dutch culture and eventually lost their native language and French lifestyle. The best known De Villiers wine farm, Vrede en Lust (Peace and Pleasure) bought by Jacques De Villiers in October 1728 is still a superlative vineyard to this day. It has undergone numerous changes of ownership through the ages. Jacques junior, who became the owner of Vrede en Lust was the sixth of twenty children. He was a true viticulturist and a prolific wine master.My mother told a woeful tale of how her family lost the prize wine farm through stupidity on the part of her great-grandfather who tried to help out a farmer friend who needed money for implements and couldn’t afford a bank loan. The story goes that old Mr. De Villiers took it upon himself to sort out the man’s problem by putting up his own land as surety at his bank. The loaner got his bucks, but it soon became clear that he wasn’t going to hold his end of the deal and soon enough the farm was sold on bank auction. The moral lesson of the pitiful history of Vrede en Lust was that our ancestors were good people who wanted to help those in need but had no significant business acumen. Whenever we heard of a failed commercial endeavor, my mother would say: “There goes another old De Villiers who lost the farm!”I found the true tale of the wine farm many years later and surprised my mother by revealing the actual story. It was not a romantic ode to a godly man who lost everything by being a good Samaritan, but rather of a family that was breeding too prolifically. First cousins married one another and together with the Taillefer and Gardiol families they expanded into a formidable clan. Pierre and his wife had twenty-five children and he was still around to meet his hundredth grandson! When Jean. Pierre’s brother died his 35-year-old widow, Maria Elizabeth de Villiers had three children and was now the owner of Vrede en Lust. She was the first woman to own this formidable farm. The farm needed a man, she decided, and married Jacobus Marais in May1789. Marais was 11 years younger than her and the couple had four children in quick succession. Maria left the farm to the oldest son she had with Marais and that’s how Vrede en Lust fell out of de Villiers hands. The new owner was now a Marais. The dozens of offspring also claimed their own piece of the farm. The lust for procreation was the de Villiers’ demise, not their concern for their fellow man with money issues.Then there were the Swanepoels and Pretoriuses of Belgium, the Krugers of Germany who were all supporters of the same Protestant luminaries, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and their successors. These families too received passage to the Cape of Good Hope where they were guaranteed freedom of religion and would be able to apply their various skills of industry under the Dutch regime.Petrus Jansz Swaenepoel, my maternal grandfather’s ancestor who landed in South Africa was born in West Flanders, Belgium on January 26, 1678. He was from a family of wheat millers and later became a wine farmer in the Cape. Petrus enlisted as an infantryman before he made his passage to The Cape of Good Hope at the age of around twenty-one in 1699. He married a German lady, Maria Sibella Sachs in Stellenbosch, Cape of Good Hope and by the mid-1720s they had over 60,000 units of grape vines which represented the largest vineyard outside of Belgium. The couple had six children. Petrus died at the age of ninety-four in Robertson in 1772 and Maria lived to the ripe age of ninety. More than one hundred years later, Rachel Christina De Villiers married Aleit Petrus Swanepoel on 6 July 1889 to become my grandparents in 1961.Over the next 150 years, the Dutch colony grew and flourished; expanding north for hundreds of miles. During the Napoleonic Wars, Holland was occupied by the French in 1795 and all the Dutch territories were in danger of falling into Napoleon’s hands. The Cape Colony thus became a French feudal state and in essence an enemy of the British crown. England immediately conquered the Cape Colony. A few back-and-forth battles for the territory were worthless over the next few years with the Dutch ceding control by signing the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814.By the 1830s the descendants of the Dutch, who had started to develop their own language, Afrikaans, became increasingly fed-up with the British government in Cape Town and gathered their ox wagons, belongings, horses, guns, and bibles and decided to trek up north in a desperate search a better life. They wanted to be free to make their own decisions, like true rebels. These hard-nosed objectors became known as the Boers – from the Dutch name for farmers. By 1835 The Great Trek had begun, and trains of Voortrekker (pioneers) ox wagons dotted the veld from the foot of the Drakensberg to greener pastures. Considerable strife and pain were suffered by many along the way. As children, we were reminded repeatedly of how our volksmoeders (mothers of the nation) walked barefoot over the mountains. Wagon wheels broke trying to negotiate rocks and ditches, oxen had to endure long hours and heavy loads. Women gave birth along the way, old people died and animals got sick. It took more than 3 years for 12,000 Boers to eventually find what they regarded as their own piece of earth not controlled by British rule. The Great Trek led to the establishment of a number of 3 Boer republics namely The Transvaal Republic also known as The Transvaal, The Republic of the Orange Free State, and Natalia. Peace did not hang around for a prolonged period.The Cape Colony was administered directly by Britain until the Union of South Africa was declared in 1910 with Boer war veteran General Louis Botha as Prime Minister. When Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, the colonies were automatically involved. My father’s mother was a direct descendant of Jacob Krüger, born in Berlin, who arrived at the Cape in 1713 as a seventeen-year-old soldier in the service of the Dutch East India Company. After two generations in southern Africa, they dropped the umlaut from the name. The Boer leader and Transvaal Republic president, Paul Kruger, affectionately known as Oom Paul was a cousin of Johanna, my grandmother.Wessel Schulte was the first forebear of the Pretorius family in South Africa of whom records still exist. Wessel was born in 1596 in Schüttorf, Germany. He married Aaltje Jansdochter in Leyden, Netherlands when they were both 16 years old. Two years later their son, Berend Wesselszoon Schulte was born. Wessel Schulte excelled at his trade as a shoemaker in Leyden. As was customary, he later changed their surname to the Dutch Schout. Both Schulte and Schout have the same meaning: guard, a practitioner of law, and scout. One’s surname was related to one’s profession.Young Berend enrolled for theological studies in Leyden and decided to Latinize his name as many students did at the time: Wesselius Praetorius. Praetorius referred to the Roman Praetorian Guard. Putting on airs!After completing his studies, Wesselius was appointed as a Reformed church minister on the island of Goeree. In 1641 Wesselius and Josina Claesdochter van Egmond were married in Haarlem, Holland, and became parents to seven children. Joannes was the oldest and was baptized by his minister father at Ouddorp. Wesselius passed away while his son, Joannes was a theology student. Joannes dropped out of university and joined the Dutch East India Company. He held the position of Sekunde (Second in Command) of Mauritius by the age of 23 in 1666. When he was offered the new position as Orphan Master he accepted and settled in the Cape. His name was changed to “Dutchify” him and he became Johannes Pretorius. His Latinized father would have shuddered at the thought! Johannes married Johanna Victor and the couple had five children.Like most immigrants from Europe to the New World, the South African settlers in the 17th century changed their names to correspond with the language of the government, thus almost all French, Belgian, and Scandinavian names were altered. It seems that those from Britain remained original.Dutch was the official language of the day, but because new colonists, as well as slaves from Africa, Southeast Asia, and Madagascar, spoke a variety of tongues, therefore a new language emerged called Afrikaans: a simplified form of Dutch mixed with other languages. The British who controlled the colony during the 1800s, pejoratively referred to Afrikaans as “kitchen Dutch.”Afrikaans was born out of necessity. And it’s still standing strong after four hundred years.“Die Kaap is weer Hollands.” This Afrikaans idiom directly translated, “The Cape is Dutch again” is still used to this day. When everything’s well, the Cape is Dutch again.