A bit more about Eva Krotoa .
Krotoa, or Eva, born circa 1642, was the niece of Autshumato, a Khoi leader and trader. When she was young, she worked in the household of Jan van Riebeeck, the first governor of the Cape colony. As a teenager, she learned Dutch and Portuguese and like her uncle, worked as an interpreter for the Dutch who wanted to trade goods for cattle.
On 3 May 1662 she was baptised by a visiting parson, minister Petrus Sibelius, in the church inside the Fort de Goede Hoop. The witnesses were Roelof de Man and Pieter van der Stael. On 26 April 1664 she married Pieter van Meerhoff, a Danish surgeon. She was the first Khoikoi to marry according to Christian customs. There was a little party in the house of Zacharias Wagenaer. In May 1665 they left the Cape and went to Robben Island. Van Meerhoff died on 27 February 1668 on an expedition.
Eva returned to the mainland on 30 September 1668 with her children. 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 returned to the mainland on many occasions just to find herself once more banished to Robben Island. In May 1673 she was allowed to baptise a child on the mainland. Three of her children survived infancy.
She died on 29 July 1674 in the Cape and was buried on 30 September 1674 in the church in the Fort.
There is evidence that many prominent White South Africans descended from Krotoa, despite being legally whites. These included Transvaal President Paul Kruger, Prime Minister Jan Smuts andPresident F.W. de Klerk. Public figures seldom revealed their Khoi ancestry, either as a result of ignorance or out of legal necessity.[1]
'Eilande', by Dan Sleigh (1938), recently translated from Afrikaans by Andre Brink (in Dutch: 'Stemmen uit zee'/in English: 'Islands'), describes the lives of Krotoa and her daughter Pieternella from the viewpoints of seven men who knew them.
See also Pocahontas
Similar . The luck of the draw . The husband of Pocahontas survived , but Krotoa's Swedish doctor husband died .
Pocahontas (born Matoaka, and later known as Rebecca Rolfe, c. 1595 – March 1617) was a Virginia Indian[1][2][3] notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief[1] of a network of tributary tribal nations in the Tidewater region of Virginia. In a well-known historical anecdote, she is said to have saved the life of an Indian captive, Englishman John Smith, in 1607 by placing her head upon his own when her father raised his war club to execute him.
Pocahontas was captured by the English during Anglo-Indian hostilities in 1613, and held for ransom. During her captivity, she converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca. When the opportunity arose for her to return to her people, she chose to remain with the English. In April 1614, she married tobacco planter John Rolfe, and in January 1615, bore him a son, Thomas Rolfe. Pocahontas's marriage to Rolfe was the first recorded interracial marriage in American history.[4]
In 1616, the Rolfes traveled to London. Pocahontas was presented to English society as an example of the civilized "savage" in hopes of stimulating investment in the Jamestown settlement. She became something of a celebrity, was elegantly fêted, and attended a masque at Whitehall Palace. In 1617, the Rolfes set sail for home, but Pocahontas died at Gravesend of unknown causes. She was buried in a church in Gravesend, but the exact location of her grave is unknown.
Sisters under the skin
Worthy ancestors , both .
Eva was a political prisoner . The Dutch at that time were not racists , But she championed the the Khoi cause , which was antithetical to the Dutch interests .
Hence her periodic bannings to Robben Island .
Dis nie Eva van die Kaap . Dis Prinses Eva Krotoa en sy besit die meeste van die eiendom in die Kaap .
With amusement .
Andre
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