Approximately 70,000 years ago, a small fragile group of humans in Africa embarked on a fantastic voyage. They left their mother continent and began a migration to every corner of the planet. As far as we know, they had no map, no compass, and no plan – just perhaps, a deep inner conviction that their [...]
Category Archives: History
The San People
THE SAN are the aboriginal people of Southern Africa. their distinct hunter-gatherer culture stretches back over 20 000 years, and their enetic origins reach back over one million years. Recent research indicates that the San are the oldest genetic stock of contemporary humanity. TEN thousand years ago their exclussive domain stretched from the Zambezi to [...]
Biko’s message of consciousness goes beyond race
In 10 days time, it will be the 30th anniversary of Steve Biko‘s death. What is remarkable when one reads his writings and trial testimony is the lucidity of his thoughts. He uttered these thoughts with such courage and fearlessness it is no wonder the apartheid government felt intense twinges of fear when dealing with him. [...]
The black woman – with white parents
Sandra Laing was born black, but to white parents. It would have been strange anywhere – but in apartheid South Africa it was disastrous. Long before science learned to meddle with genes, there was Sandra Laing. She entered the world in 1955, a beautiful baby by all accounts, who could be expected to grow up [...]
Also posted in Identity, Inspiration, Naissance Tagged Heritage, History, Identity, Sandra Laing, Skin 1 Comment
The Color of Man
Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the [...]
“Let them Speak” Slave Stamouers of South Africa
The early Cape was settled not only by ex-VOC workers who became free burghers and the Huguenots but also by slaves who lost their freedom and was brought to the Cape. To fix a date for the arrival of slaves at the Cape is a variable since we know that slaves were ship wrecked and [...]
Abbreviated Coloured History
Saddled with the burden of apartheid and colonial-slanted textbooks, South Africans have tended to take their identities from their political leanings. But “mixed marriages” are as old as South Africa itself. As the meaning of democracy dawns, more people are finding family tree research the key to understanding their own heritages. The first written records of [...]
Also posted in Identity Tagged Ancestral Mothers, Dutch, FW de Klerk, Heritage, History, Jan Smuts, Jan van Riebeeck, khoi, Krotoa, mixed marriages, Paul Kruger, Pieter Meerhof, Robben Island, Zaaiman Leave a comment
History: Indian slaves in South Africa
Soon after Jan van Riebeeck set up a Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, to supply provisions to Dutch ships plying to and from India and the East Indies, people from India were taken to the Cape and sold into slavery to do domestic work for the settlers, as well the [...]
All human beings belong to the same race
ALTHOUGH segregation had been part of the South African social and political landscape since European colonisers arrived in the 17th century, it was only in 1950, with the introduction of the Population Registration Act, that the state attempted to classify the entire population into fixed groups based on the false notion of race. Scientifically, there is [...]
Also posted in Identity Tagged Cape Coloured, Cape Malay, colinisers, Griqua, Group Areas Act, Population Registration Act, race, segregation, voting 1 Comment
The Purity of the Afrikaners
Arthur Kemp is a South African white supremacist. His fellow white countrymen, called Afrikaners (also known as Boers or The White Tribe), are descendants of South Africa’s earliest European immigrants, including mainly the Dutch, but also French, Germans, and Scottish. What is not so much acknowledged, is that up to 7% (and no less than [...]