Krotoa

By Prince t.
© God’s Business Mag, 2008
All rights Reserved. To use this article contact: Prince on 0721290602/ 011 211 3651
Or email: monnapt@gmail.com
Offenders will be prosecuted.

To me this woman was either one of these two things. Either she was a complete sell-out (pimp) or a complete genius.
But, who was this woman and why is it important this morning that I write about her?
I just read a very interesting article about her in the Times Newspaper (Tues, July 28, 2008). The author, a certain Nica Cornell, entitled her piece: Eva opened my eyes and I must admit mine were opend too. I am not meeting the legendary of Krotoa for the first time though. The first time I did was in my Media class at Rhodes University. I did a bit of study about the women but then I was fully laden with prejudice myself because I had just read along with that article for my course another author who writes without mincing his words about “Blackness”. For anyone who knows him Franz Fanon is a dynamite in these matters, and his expositions on the topic will truly mess you up (in a good sense though). I recommend his book: BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASKS to anyone who wants to know what I am talking about.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Krotoa, or Eva, was the niece of Autshumato, a Khoi leader and trader. While she was young, she worked in the household of Jan van Riebeeck, the first governor of the Cape colony. While still a teenager, she learned Dutch and Portuguese and like her uncle, worked as an interpreter.
By 1664 she had married a prominent member of the Dutch colony, junior surgeon Pieter van Meerhoff, who was then assigned to be superintendent of the prison on Robben Island.
Eva returned to the mainland in September 1668 after her husband was killed on an expedition and returned for a time with her children to the mainland.
Suffering from alcoholism, she left the Castle in the settlement to be with her family in the kraals. In February 1669, she was imprisoned at the Castle and then banished to Robben Island.
She died in 1674.
Know you history, South Africa and you will see that prejudice has no place within your boarders. The discourse of Rainbowism perfectly discribes what kind of people you are. You are neither black nor wahite, you are simple the shade that lies between. But have you ever seen that shade? I havent, which tells me that shade doesn’t exist and if it doesn’t then what? Read through the following and may be it will help dispel the indentity confusion and crisis you are facing right now that is if you still think you are white therefore privileged or Black therefore underprivileged. That’s nothing but nonsense. Grow up!
Diary, Jan van Riebeeck Krotoa, called Eva by the Dutch, is the...
http://chnm.gmu.edu
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.

21 June 1658:
“Fine weather with N.W. breeze. The freeman Jan Reijnierssen came to complain early in the morning that during the night all his male and female slaves had run away, taking with them 3 or 4 blankets, clothing, rice, tobacco, etc. We thereupon called the new interpreter Doman, now called Anthony, who had returned from Batavia with the Hon. Cuneus, and asked him why the Hottentots would not search for the runaway slaves, to which he coolly replied that he did not know. [Little is known about Doman, though he was one of the important interpreters between the Dutch and the Khoikhoi in the early years.

He was taken to Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia) to learn Dutch, and there he seems to have noticed the threat that the Dutch posed to indigenous ways of life. When he returned to the Cape, he consistently advocated Khoikhoi interests, especially of the Peninsular tribes, over those of the Dutch in trade negotiations.] The Commander, not trusting him, then called the interpreter Eva alone into his office and privately asked her whether our blacks were not being harboured by the Hottentots.

On this she asked whether such was the Commander’s opinion, and being answered in the affirmative, she (speaking good Dutch) said these words, namely: “I tell you straight out, Mijnheer Van Riebeeck, Doman is no good. He told the Hottentots everything that was said in Mijnheer’s room the day before yesterday.

When I told him that it was wrong to do so, he replied: ‘I am a Hottentot and not a Dutchman, but you, Eva, try to curry favour with the Commander, etc.’” She added: “Mijnheer, I also believe that the Fat Captain of the Kaapmans harbours the slaves.” On being asked what the chief would do with the slaves,
Eva replied: “He will present them to the Cochoquas to retain their friendship, and they in turn will deliver the slaves to the Hancumquas living far from here and cultivating the soil in which they grow daccha [also dagga, of the cannabis family], a dry herb which the Hottentots chew, which makes them drunk and which they highly esteem.”

23 September 1658:
“The interpreters Doman, or Anthonij, and Eva wished to visit their friends and asked for some copper, iron, beads, tobacco, bread, and brandy as a reward for their services as interpreters, and presents for her mother and their friends and all the natives whom they, especially Eva, would visit, to induce them to bring a larger number of cattle, as well as young horses, tusks, civet, amber, seed pearls (of which they were shown and given samples) and hides to the eland, hart, steenbuck, etc. They promised to do their best and hoped that we would soon see the fruits of their efforts; toward evening they thanked us politely and gratefully in good Dutch words for the presents they had received. They then left.

When Eva reached the matted hut of Doman, also known as Anthonij, outside the fort, she at once dressed herself in the hides again and sent her clothes home. She intended to put them on again when she returned to the Commander’s wife, promising, however, that she would in the meantime not forget the Lord God, Whom she had learnt to know in the Commander’s house; she would always think of Him and endeavour to learn, etc.”

26 January 1661:
“The interpreter Eva has remained behind to live in the Commander’s house again, laying aside her skins and adopting once more the Indian way of dressing. She will resume her services as an interpreter. She seems to have grown tired of her own people again; in these vacillations we let her follow her own will so that we may get the better service from her. But she appears to have become already so accustomed to the Dutch diet and way of life that she will never be able to give it up completely.”

This lady, whoever she was did one thing right, and that is: break the barier of animosity that existed between the white and the Black race. And lets use her as a point of reference to understanding who we are, where we come from and where we must go as a nation.