Newsletter| First published in 2005, an epic book by Botlhale Tema has been republished to highlight the burning issue of land and dispossession. Tema’s research also unearths the largely untold story of black South Africans enslaved by the Boers
Tema’s research into her family roots at Welgeval in the Pilanesberg also unearths the largely untold story of black South Africans enslaved by the Boers.Growing up on Welgeval, we all knew we were different. Firstly, there was no chief living in our community.
The women looked after children, prepared food, kept homes clean – typical “women’s work” – but they also kept pigs, which were slaughtered mainly in winter, and from the fat they collected, they produced “boereseep” to wash their clothing. Welgeval was our home, with a support system for all circumstances and a regular life rhythm in all seasons. This regularity defined people’s roles and lent a sense of belonging.
My father set a non-negotiable rule that we should get a profession before we got married. Parents sometimes sold cattle to pay for their children’s education.In 1980, it was incorporated into the Pilanesberg National Park, and our people were moved away and resettled elsewhere. We lost a place that had nurtured our family for generations.
Later, after I told a historian friend about this, she handed me a book, Slavery in South Africa, to show me that slavery was not confined to the Cape. At Welgeval, where Gonin opened his first station, his first enquirers were Dutch-speaking Africans who had grown up in Boer farms and homes. I couldn’t put down the book that night as I uncovered the most unexpected information about my people.
Along the moving horizon of the Great Trek, peoples living in the eastern and northern Cape, Orange Free State and Natal were attacked and seized.
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