Now watch me soon; one of these days I am going to publish a Post in the language of Afrikaans, which is derived from Dutch, or Netherlands as it is more often referred to by one Geert Wilders [a fiery politician as never before he arrived in that Old Land] from where we hail from and occupied the land that is now called South Africa.
When we arrived here England wanted to grab it too, and soon did but the Dutch fought back like tigers in a cage; some Frenchies arrived, some Germans too and soon after a fair bunch of Portuguese; for some or other reason Spain stayed out of here, or perhaps they were already to busy in the New America, and that gave you guys out there your Mexico, and of course, your Cuba. Portugal invaded South America and gave you Brasilia.
It is one helluva story.
Eventually the Brits prevailed after some crazy fellow discovered diamonds in a place called Kimberly and soon another crazy buggar picked up a rock in a place that is now called Johannesburg and found the darn rock was solid gold. Of course he then started digging into the ground and realised that the entire reef he was walking on was almost solid gold.
That was too much for the Brits; they had established their ruling in the Cape and later on in Natal [where they had first shot the hell out of the Zulu Nation] and now descended on the remaining porion of the land called South Africa and took it by brutal force. Some idiot remembered William Tecumseh Sherman and his march to the sea in America and did same out here; following Sherman’s rule of leaving “a scorched earth” policy’ women and children were put behind barbed wire fences to care for themselves with whatever they had; all able bodied men were rounded up and those who did not want to stop fighting were packed off and shipped out to a place Brittain called Ceylon [where they had previously done the same, and where all the “prisoners” from South Africa were dumped to care for themselves. Oh yes, almost forgot, Ceylon was the name the Brits gave to what is today Sri Lanka during the time they invaded India.
Our Dad [see my Post about my Brother Dirkie] was 5 years old at the time of the annexation of the gold reef up in the Transvaal Province of South Africa but he was living the life of a young boy, the son of an itinerant farm hand and general labourer on dry land some awesome 140 miles north of Cape Town
That is not the lowest point of Africa BTW.
The lowest point on the African continent is at L’Ugulhas:
Latitude/longitude:34°49′20″S20°01′02″E
Decimal coordinates:-34.8223 20.0173
As a bit of mirth for those who understand Dutch, the name of L’Agulhas is a difficult word for us and we just call it Ugallas because at low tide the water on the beach comes up to your ankles before it goes higher up as the tide come in but you retreat before it reaches above the knees and you will be washed out to the seas when it reaches your ……where the sharks will eat and feast of your …….
Anyway, of those who came most merged with others except for the British; they, the British, came to conquer and grab the land. The Dutch merely wanted to use what is now Cape Town [then called The Tavern of the Seas] as a half way station to take in fresh food, water and repair damages to the leaking wooden tubs that they called ships in those days; the French came to plant grapes to make some good wines; some Germans came as artisans and stayed behind.
It is a long story with many versions of truth and lies nut one fact stands out. The Englishman came to conquer and to rule whereas the others just stayed because there was space and good land.
You must remember that England was England at the time. Scotland ad Ireland were independent monarchies and both would not have felt sorry for England if old Guy Fawkes had succeeded to blow up the England parliament in 1606. Some McGregor’s and MacDonald’s made good husbands and wives for the Dutch [at that time called Netherlanders or Hollanders] in need of spouses. They were more amicable than the English and with Dutch majority [apart from the English majority of the Ruling class who would remain England pretty soon started an Africanised version of Dutch with their exposure to the African Sun and the original tribal groups of the Aboriginals of the regions north of the Tavern and eventually east in what is today called Kwa-Zulu Natal, but that name came much later.
England was pretty much dominant in the now called Cape Town area and finally ended all Dutch dreams of resurrection of some Dutch influence early in the 1800 hundreds.
Shucks Folks, I have just realized the Ole Jan van Riebeeck stepped ashore in Table Bay on this day in 1652 and he story is much too long to complete in one Post.
See you all soon with Part Two.
Ike Jakson
In Americus GA saka Americoon
Jaksonian Philosophy 