Tomorrow we begin the final unit of the course: Colonial Encounters.
This section continues to probe the contours of coastal interactions between Africans and European merchants, sailors, and soldiers. We shift our attention to Southern Africa. Here, European adventurers and profit seekers encountered nomadic groups of hunters (San/Bushmen) and herders (Khoekhoe/”Hottentots”), rather than the organized states with formidable military power of the kingdoms of Kongo and Angola.
The permanent presence of a powerful, hierarchical merchant company (the Dutch East India Company, or VOC) at the Cape of Good Hope after 1652 left us with a rich set of historical records. These archives focus on the activities of European and European-descended settlers, but in the process also capture information about the Africans whose lives were forever disrupted by colonization.
In tomorrow’s class I’ll provide some historical background and context for discussing both a primary source (an excerpt from the governor’s official journal) and historian Julia Wells‘ use of that source to construct an argument about the ways in which gendered expectations shaped specific colonial interactions.
Unit IV study questions will help you navigate course material for the next two weeks. One particular skills focus in this unit is historiography, the study of changing historical interpretations. Julia Wells gives us a clear example of historiography in this brief catalog of the various ways scholars have portrayed Eva/Krotoa:
“As Christina Landman put it, ‘Krotoa is a story-generator. To conservative historians, Eva’s life offers living proof that the Khoena were irredeemable savages. To black nationalist writers, such as Khoena historian, Yvette Abrahams, she personifies the widespread rape and abuse of black women by the invaders. Eva’s chief biographer, V. C. Malherbe, forms a more neutral judgment by describing Eva as primarily ‘a woman in between’. Landman views her as an early synthesizer of African and Christian religious traditions. Carli Coetzee demonstrates how recent Afrikaans-speaking artists, poets and actors have constructed an image of Eva as the mother of the Afrikaner nation, a tamed African who acquiesced to Europeanness. She is often portrayed as yearning to return to her African roots, but without success.” (Wells 417-18—citations omitted)
What does Wells add to this discussion?
I vaguely recall the class discussing how Eva did not seem to fit into either the Dutch nor her African culture. I feel as if many people with immigrant parents can relate because although they are born here, they are stuck in limbo between the two different cultures they have grown up around. At often times, they begin the loose their roots. For example, a person who has immigrant parents from Egypt and was born here, in the US, might feel as if they cannot fully connect themselves to their Egyptian roots because their whole life, they have grown up around Western culture.
In her catalog of the various ways scholars have portrayed Eva/Krotoa, Wells includes the way in which the indigenous Khoena people viewed the idea of Eva living/serving in a high class Dutch household. She writes, “From the Khoena point of view, the presence of a young girl in the home of a neighbouring ‘chief’ might be seen not only as an honour, but as a token of friendship and a useful way to gather intelligence.”
The women’s studies class I am taking focuses on the embodiment of individuals and feminist approaches to the body. We discussed the 19th century British colonial era in India and how the native Indian people strongly opposed the idea of their young girls used as working and serving bodies in upper class British households. Their view was the complete opposite of that of the Khoena people because they believed that a woman’s labor for the conqueror degraded their honor.
I thought this contrast was very interesting and it provoked the following question: Were there individuals in the Khoena community that ultimately opposed the idea of one of their young girls working in the upper class Dutch household, regardless of the initial peace created between the colonizer and the native community? Did they not care for creating friendly relations with the Dutch because they feared the possibility of betrayal? Were they opposed to the phenomenon of two completely different cultures clashing?
Are there any other detailed examples of woman such as Eva that we can compare to? The story of Eva is definitely not unique, however how many other stories have been documented?
I believe historical stories like the one of Eva do not exist or were rather silenced within the realm of historiography in South Africa because perhaps they were not recorded. Wells mentions in her essay, “[Eva] is the most written about African woman in South African historiography.”
However, I did compare the story of Eva and her role in the colonized Khoena society to the concubines who served in the households of upper class British colonizers in India, during the Imperialist era of the 19th century. There are several records of Indian concubines who were courageous and assertive like Eva. There are a number of films that depict such courageous concubines, but of course the stories are sugar coated with fantasy factors that come into play within the realm of colonization, such as love and other emotional and psychological factors.
In portraying Eva’s downfall as coming from an increased understanding between two societies, Eva might be characterized (somewhat ironically) as a victim of her own success. Her willful and open performance as “middleman” is indicative of a drive to create exactly the kind of understanding that made her irrelevant.
i agree with you here Adam, it seems to me as though her final relationship with her dutch counterpart who was ultimately killed revealed that her position or authority was determined by the link she had to the Dutch. Without it, she was simply just an African woman without any real clout.
I agree with the both of you! The rapid change of the nature of early colonial contacts was mirrored in Eva’s rapidly changing role as the intermediary between the Dutch and the Khoena community, as it diminished in importance. Exactly like John mentioned, without Pieter, Eva failed to maintain her pivotal place in Dutch society. What made her successful, ironically, also led to her fall.
Near the end of the Wells article, she states the following:
“What killed Eva off was not simply her inability to adapt to Dutch society, as some believe, but rather the dynamic within colonialism which so soon made bridging, trans-cultural people like her and Pieter redundant. ”
I think Eva’s story exemplifies how transitioning and blending into a new culture can be both beneficial yet have negative repercussions later on. It also implies the power that women had, yet how easily it could be taken away. In a way, this reminds me of the Broadhead article because initially women in the Congo lived in matrilineal societies, but this was later diminished as the encounter with colonialism became more prominent. My question is, could Eva have maintained her influence as an intermediary in some other way? Or was the rapidly changing nature of colonial encounters destined to doom her?
Melissa, I think this is an excellent point to bring up as I was also very intrigued by the line from the Wells article. Throughout most of her life, Eva appeared to exemplify an admirable balance in the state, peacefully interacting with Danish colonists buy also holding fast to her Khoi countrymen. Her apparent “downfall”, described by Dutch commanders as evident by “abandoning her children, of rowdy drunken behaviour, of promiscuity and producing several more children.” Whether or not these accusations are true, the willingness of the Dutch to betray her so heavily after the loss of her husband shows an overall lack of respect for Eva and her previously peaceful interactions. I think you pose great questions, and I would like to expand further on those. Did the absence of men (predominately Dutch superiors) later in Eva’s life make her existence and talents no longer valuable? Is there any concrete evidence of “wild” behavior on the part of Eva during this time, or were the accusations by Dutch colonists merely talk to bring her down? Did her increasing power as an influential translator scare men, regardless of race, into diminishing her to nothing?
*Dutch colonists, not Danish!
I do agree with Annie’s assessment in that the Dutch saw Eva as having abandoned her Khoi society by leaving her family and engaging in various activities with the colonists, but also her own people seemed to see her as a sort of traitor by merely fraternizing with the Dutch; a sort of “you’re either with us or against us” mentality on both sides. Therefore, I’m not sure that there could have been a better way for Eva to play the role of intermediary. If her own people disapproved of her actions, how could they fully re-accept her into their society unless, perhaps, she gave up her relationship with the Dutch? Then the connection between the two groups would cease to exist. However poor an example, a comparison can be drawn to Pocahontas because she tried to be a part of two societies simultaneously and it didn’t work out so well either. Similarly Eva tried to please everyone, which is an impossible task, and ended up alienating herself from the only groups she had ever known. Lastly, I’m not convinced the Dutch ever did or would have seen her as a part of their society. It seemed that they always treated her as a lesser member of a subordinate community, so why would they give her much power?
Eva seems like a very courageous person. Not only does she have the courage to take on this “middleman” role, but she wants to do it. She also has the courage to go see her family and take off her Christian clothes although she was a converted Christian. She was very unique in comparison to the other natives in more ways than just having courage. She was trusted by her own people and the Dutch, which was not common. The fact she was well-connected in both societies made her perfect for her intermediary role.
Ryan, I like what you said here. Her courage to be the middleman has been documented in history probably because it was so uncommon for a woman on the Khoena culture at the time. Because she was so unique, it makes me wonder what her personal motives were. For example, was she actually trying to have the two groups of people co-exist? Was she trying to get into the good graces of the Dutch since she may have been viewed as an outsider by some? Her personal motives we will never know, but I agree with you when you say she is courageous because not many outsiders would put themselves in such a position.
Certainly, the interpretation imposed by outside observers would be that she would want the two cultures to coexist, but part of me wonders if that interpretation isn’t too idealistic an expectation. Instead of desiring something so lofty, perhaps she was just curious and eager to engage new information, or perhaps she saw an opportunity to make herself indispensable.
I think Eva’s history deserves a lot of praise as well. Wells describes how Eva’s story represents the presence of gender roles and of a woman who was not confined to just one gender role throughout the span of her life. Instead, she embodied different roles, from being an intermediary to ultimately losing this power and “dying a miserable death.” Although the end of her life was tragic, she was able to gain more authority than another indigenous person might have as two cultures began to clash. I think that there were probably a lot of other cases such as Eva’s whenever two cultures clashed.
yes i agree with you here melissa, i think that the story of Eva is one of rather interest particularly regarding an African woman and her relationship with Europeans during this time period. I think one lesson we can take away from the story of Eva is the power or role that African women played during this time period as intermediaries between differing cultures. It illustrates that African women were not only desired, but had the ability to persuade both Europeans or Africans in whichever direction they pleased.
I to agree that what she did was courageous, but I do have to say I believe it is too much to say that she was trying to unify a group of people. In my opinion that is a very fairy tale esque way of looking at Eva’s life and what she did. She was blessed to be able to fit into the roll of the middleman, but I think it might have just been more of a blessing that an objective strategy for her to use in order to unify the two groups. I think she benefited from understanding both cultures and by serving as an interpreter as she did, but that is all. I think we are lucky to be able to hear her story, but I’m sure she was not the only one of her kind, in my mind there must have been more.
Ryan, I also found Eva incredibly courageous. She took the risk of being an interpreter and dealt with the consequences of being scrutinized by both the Dutch and Khoi. I enjoyed the way that Wells explored Eva’s close connection to the Dutch and why she tried to please them at the risk of destroying her own kinship ties. With Wells, we are able to see Eva as courageous instead of the typical tragic interpretation.
Eva’s role makes me think of Sacagawea in that they served as interpreters and used their networking to assist the “explorers”
“Middlemen” of these types are common throughout history. We mentioned the Luso-Africans in class a couple of weeks ago and they played a somewhat similar role.
Nina, I completely agree with you. I think there are many connections to be made between Sacagawea and Eva, many of which involve a peaceful interaction between two groups because of these instrumental women. It is interesting to note that women made this “middleman” tie between men, perhaps imposing a less violent course of action. I also find it interesting that Sacagawea was betrothed to a French-Canadian explorer that was a part of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and similarly Eva was married to a Danish surgeon. Because of their constant interactions, it isn’t surprising that they wed the exploring colonists. This interracial marriage shows a willingness to help settlers and bring peace to an otherwise imposing situation. As Ryan brought up, this “middlemen” idea isn’t exactly uncommon throughout history, suggesting a strong correlation in women and their actions in helping bring harmony to a colonization.
I really like this comparison that you made between Eva and Sacajawea. I also agree with Ryan when he claims that the role of the ‘middleman’ is a common role throughout history. I feel as though ‘middlemen’ often get the short of the stick when it comes down to it. Why do you think these women chose to become the middleman. And relating to Annie’s comment, why do you think these women ended up with partners of their colonizer’s background as opposed to their own indigenous community? Do you think they had any choice? Relating to this, do you think if every trans-national encounter had a middleman that things would be different?
It is troublesome to impose any assumption on why she would marry outside her culture, but the possibilities should be weighed. I see several:
1.) Obligation (as you hypothesized, she had “no choice.”)
2.) Curiousity (a desire to engage another culture.)
3.) Opportunity (a desire to gain a certain kind of social capital).
I to agree that what she did was courageous, but I do have to say I believe it is too much to say that she was trying to unify a group of people. In my opinion that is a very fairy tale esque way of looking at Eva’s life and what she did. She was blessed to be able to fit into the roll of the middleman, but I think it might have just been more of a blessing that an objective strategy for her to use in order to unify the two groups. I think she benefited from understanding both cultures and by serving as an interpreter as she did, but that is all. I think we are lucky to be able to hear her story, but I’m sure she was not the only one of her kind, in my mind there must have been more.
Wells seeks to show the complex relations between the Khoena and the Dutch settlers in the Cape as represented by Eva rather than showing her as a “helpless victim of vicious culture clashes,” (418) Wells wants to focus our attention to things that have been previously overlooked—for example, the vulnerability of the Dutch when they first arrived and the dependency that emerged (necessary interactions with the local population to obtain food) as well as the fact that Eva was able to play such an important role, and as a woman especially, between Khoena and Dutch people as an interpreter, ambassador, and peace negotiator. Most importantly, I think Wells wants to point out that “Eva’s story exposes that brief historical moment when Dutch and Khoena peacefully co-existed and strove to live in harmony,” (418). She adds more dimensions to Eva’s story by focusing on these points. The initial Khoena-Dutch relations reminded me of the way Bantu-speakers first interacted with the Batwa–they sought to establish connections with the Batwa because of their spiritual/religious powers that were necessary for Bantu survival. With the examples I’ve seen in this class so far it seems to me that new contact between people does not always need to be violent or about domination or a clash of civilizations/cultures. Another alternative is peaceful co-existence though this can be shaped by economic or other motivations.
Nina,
I completely agree and after reading what you wrote it helped me understand the piece better. This quote reminded me of what we have learned this quarter; that we have to understand all parts of a story without bias even if we are missing some parts. Whether it be through linguistics or oral histories, understanding pieces can help us understand the whole. “Today we need to salvage and maintain as much as possible of the good parts of the struggle, to transfer some of the dynamics of that situation, and to keep extending the mandate.”
In addition to what you said about the Dutch dependency on the local communities, it reminded me of when the Bantu communities originally depended on the Batwa people. It shows the interrelations among communities were necessary for the survival of these said groups. For example, your quote from 418, there was a point when peace occurred among the early comers of the Batwa and Bantu.
Nina, part of your post was cut off, but I realize you made the exact same comparison as I was trying to make. Sorry for the repeat on the initial relationships that we both talk about. 🙂
What I think is really interesting that both of you have pointed out is that the relationship between Eva and her Dutch counterparts is one that we have seen before. Nina said it brilliantly when she says “new contact between people does not always need to be violent or about domination.” But the question I am left with after reading her post is simple. Why is it that there is overwhelming literature on the side of the Dutch settlers and of the Bantu people showing a pattern of the more “advanced” people dominating the aboriginals? It is the few historians, Wells and Kleiman respectively, who go against the current and show a different side of cultures blending together and showing how the settling people are, at first, dependent on the aboriginals for food, resources, and land. Do you think it is easier for historians to focus on the domination rather than on co-existence?
This is an interesting question to pose Erin. I believe historians are used to illustrating history as one country or group of people dominating on another. There are countless accounts of this happening throughout history, in which they can refer to, and use as examples. I have noticed that we primarily always focus and learn about the violent parts of history rather than the peaceful and coexisting parts. Do we not find history of coexistence between two or more groups of people as an interesting topic? There is much to learn from the peaceful side of history, because it proposes ideas as to how two different societies coexisted and interacted with each other peacefully.
This is actually something that I too thought of when reading the article. I thought that it was the Dutch that were vulnerable when they came to the new land, they had to find ways to make the natives trust them and want to work with them in order for them to live. It benefited both at the time of settlement due to the different resources that the dutch were able to present. The peaceful coexistence of two different societies working together is often dismissed, and in my opinion its probably due to the reason that violence is more interesting then peace. People would rather study wars then harmonious times, although this should not always be the case, because their is truly a lot to learn about the peaceful times. The peaceful times show that two societies can work with one another when they both have something to gain. I do believe that the Dutch and the Khoena were a peaceful group when they started, and that Eva was not entirely a “victim of a vicious culture clash”.
Rafael, you make a very interesting point. It would seem that the Dutch should be illustrated as the vulnerable ones, however, we quite often see the Africans in this category. The omission of peaceful coexistence is failed to even be mentioned because, like you said, violence is a much more interesting topic rather than peace. Who wants to read about peace?