The statue of Johan Van Riebeeck on Heerengracht Street in Cape Town, South Africa. It was donated by Cecil John Rhodes at the location where Van Riebeek came to shore at the Cape. His back is to the Atlantic Ocean, and he is facing Table Mountain, and the land which would soon become his colony.
One thing which I noticed - it would have been hard to ignore - ever since I studied South Africa, and which was still in evidence during my recent visit to the country, was how Johan van Riebeeck is still prominently on display. I had read about him quite a bit during the days when I first got acclimated with the country, back in the days when apartheid policies still defined the law of the land under a white minority government. I saw him in my stamp collection, saw images and read stories about him in books about South Africa, and knew that he was widely celebrated (at least by whites) in the country. So much was this the case, that he even had his own holiday, "Van Riebeeck's Day," which was also known as "Founder's Day," and had been celebrated on April 6th in South Africa, at least until the end of apartheid in 1994.
Jan van Riebeeck is often considered the forefather of the Afrikaner people, which came to identify itself collectively as the "white tribe" of Africa. They are a people who generally identify their roots in South Africa to the first Dutch settlers to the Cape region back in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Van Riebeeck was the leader of those earliest Dutch settlers. He did not stay particularly long, and left the Cape after nine years. Yet his arrival at the Cape, and the years which he then spent as the governor there, are really what he is remembered for. Not for leading an army to great conquests, or staunchly defending land against the threat of some invading force while facing impossible odds. Not for being a great thinker or a visionary, or for writing words that have been immortalized since.
Most of the surviving documents associated with him were functional, dealing with every day realities during his time governing over the Cape. They are not historically monumental documents. No massive blueprints of some grand design of the Cape, much less what would come to be known as South Africa. No words to compare to, say, Thomas Jefferson, another historical figure with a troubling, polarizing past regarding racism.
Perhaps the legacy of van Riebeeck in South Africa can be likened somewhat to Christopher Columbus, although even, then, this is not adequate. It can and should be argued that Columbus can hardly have been said to have "discovered" America, since there were already millions of people living in the Americas when he came. He was not even the first European to find the Americas (that being Leif Erikson). However, one thing which was beyond debate was that the arrival of Columbus in the Americas in 1492 (never mind that his initial discovery was really on islands off of the Americas, which is to say in the Western Hemisphere, but not in either North or South America proper) signified an enormous change in the fates of both Europe and the Americas, as well as millions of people who would be imported as slaves from Africa. For when Columbus "discovered" America, the age of colonialism (and the associated exploitation which has come to define this period) had begun.
Likewise, van Riebeeck cannot be credited with "discovering" the Cape. In fact, he was not the first European to have found it, with the first definitive time being Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias back in 1487. Later, fellow Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama made clear that rounding the Cape was the best way for ships from Europe to reach Asia and the Spice Islands. Yet, neither man actually thought to colonize the land, although Portugal would establish colonies in both western Africa (Angola) and eastern Africa (Mozambique).
However, van Riebeeck was the leader of relatively small band of Dutch colonists who first came to the Cape to establish a refreshment station. He was appointed by the Dutch East India Company as the Commander of the Cape from 1652 until 1662. During that time, he built a fort, improved the port in the rough waters at Table Bay, and planted all sorts of fruits and vegetables and cereals, again fulfilling the Cape's role as a refreshment station.
And that's about it. Thus, van Riebeeck was neither the Columbus or the Washington of the Cape Colony, much less South Africa. His tenure did not last much more than ten years, and I remember reading somewhere that he was actually rather happy to leave. Whether or not that last part is true, I cannot precisely say.
Yet, that was enough to establish the Dutch presence in the Cape, which ultimately proved to be the toehold, if you will, necessary for them to spread across much of the rest of what would become South Africa, and even beyond. The Dutch came to be known as the Boers (a Dutch word for farmers), and they came to grow quite attached to the land, which was obviously radically different from the Netherlands. They spread out gradually, and they were productive farmers, although they relied heavily on African slave labor. The Boers would eventually come to be known as Afrikaners, and they in fact had their own language, known Afrikaans, which is heavily derived from Dutch. In fact, I met one Afrikaner here in the United States, and he described it as "bastardized Dutch." I met a Dutch tourist during my recent trip and asked him about it. He said that yes, he could understand Afrikaans, although he felt that Afrikaners would have a difficult time understanding Dutch as spoken in Netherlands. He suggested that it was very simplified, "more direct" (those were his words) Dutch.
While van Riebeeck left, the Boers (who no are generally known as Afrikaners) stayed. Clearly, they felt an attachment to the land. So much so that they came to consider themselves the "white tribe of Africa." This was part of their justification for staying and ruling, as they continually claimed that southern Africa had seen many migrations by conquering people, and that they were just another group of migrants who made this land their home. However, they never viewed blacks as equals, but rather, only either as obstacles to their own survival, or as inferiors worthy only of being their servants. So much was this ingrained in them that when the British, who had taken over the Cape during the Napoleonic wars, outlawed slavery after ruling for nearly half a century, the Boers left the Cape, and the "Great Trek" into the interior eventually led to the establishment of two Boer Republics (the Oange Free State and Transvaal). There were hostilities and battles with some tribes at times (particularly when they defeated an enormous Zulu force at the Battle of Blood River. But the Boers viewed all of this as proof that they had a sacred covenant to rule over the land. Eventually, however, the Boers had to deal with the British, who suddenly took an interest in the Boer Republics after gold was discovered there. Eventually, the Boers, of all people, became the first "native" African group to fight the British in a war for independence. The British won the war, and the Union of South Africa was established (which included the two former Boer Republics).
The hard feelings and distrust that the Boers felt towards the British following the Anglo-Boer Wars (there were two of them) was not entirely unfounded. After all, the term "concentration camps" came from there. It was supposed to be a humanitarian effort to take care of Boer women and children, but the conditions there were truly appalling. Some 26,000 women and children died while under British "protection," and the Afrikaners came to view this as almost an attempted genocide. They disliked and distrusted the British almost as much as they disliked the native Africans. Collectively, they made it their mission to rule over what they felt was their country. In 1948, in what was then a shocking election result, the National Party, which largely consisted of Afrikaners and championed their cause of wanting to rule over the country) won. The Afrikaners took over the country, but they still viewed almost everyone else either with contempt and/or suspicion. At a time when colonialism was on it's way out in most of the rest of the world, colonialist attitudes prevailed in South Africa, and the Afrikaners cemented their new status as rulers of South Africa by setting up a strictly segregated society under a set of policies and laws that were called "apartheid." This racial policy persisted long after most of the rest of the colonized world had gained independence, and it lasted after the United States saw an end to it's official Jim Crow racial segregation system had ended. In time, these racist policies by the white minority government in South Africa made it stand out and seem at odds with modern values, and the country endured increased isolation and economic sanctions and boycotts.
It came to be obvious that apartheid could not last forever in South Africa. The economy took some serious hits in the 1980's, and some whites began to leave the country. Violence escalated, as did pressure from the rest of the world. Yet, the Afrikaners continued to support the Nationalist Party which, under President P.W. Botha, seemed to be dragging it's feet in reforming, and half-hearted at best in ending apartheid. That eventually changed when F.W. DeKlerk replaced him, and then set about to truly open meaningful negotiations with Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) to end apartheid and convert South Africa into a multiracial democracy.
Still, the efforts to end racist attitudes and policies was not an overnight success. The Truth and Reconciliation Act went a long way towards allowing the country to come to terms with a painful past. Some cities were renamed, and statues of figures with polarizing and troubling pasts were often taken down.
However, some remain. That includes the statue of Jan van Riebeeck, which remains in Cape Town on Heerengracht Street. It is not historically accurate, and it has also since been joined (somewhat fittingly) with a statue of Maria de la Queillerie (also known as Maria van Riebeeck), who was van Riebeeck's wife. There is also a street in Cape Town named after him. So even now, in a sense, van Riebeeck's presence is still felt, even though a part of his legacy is leading the original Dutch settlers, who's initial attitudes of racism and supremacy kind of set the tone for the troubled history of South Africa to come.
Personally, I find this interesting, and feel that it was one of the numerous paradoxes still to be found in South Africa. Perhaps these are parts of the overall legacy of apartheid, which officially ended decades ago, but still may exist in some forms. In fact, I once heard Indian author Arundhati Roy describing modern day South Africa as having something which she described as "apartheid with a clear conscience." When I first heard that, it felt like it might be an exaggeration, although after finally visitng the country, I could no longer be sure. It certainly felt that way when I saw some wealthy neighborhoods in relatively close proximity to some shanty towns. There remains enormous economic disparity, and one would have to be willfully blind to see that race remains one of the biggest factor in this divide. Also, that haunted past clearly seems to still stand (literally and figuratively) with statues and street names honoring historically polarizing figures like Jan Van Riebeeck.
Below are some of the pictures which I took of statues of van Riebeeck and his wife Maria de la Queillerie (also known as Maria van Riebeeck) in Cape Town, as well as a picture of a street sign (taken from a tour bus, admittedly) named after him:
Riebeek Street still exists in Cape Town, and has not been renamed. At least not yet. We'll see if that does not change in the coming years.
I had a difficult time reading what this placard said, based on this photo. Ultimately, I was able to take the time and get the full English part (top, with the Afrikaans on the bottom). Here is what it says in English:
This statue was presented to the City of Cape Town by Cecil John Rhodes and unveiled by the then Mayor Mr. Thomas Ball, on the 18th May 1899.
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