My Blood on Robben Island

Tags

Cape of Good Hope, Dutch East India Company, Nelson Mandela

—Given the seven years of hard work that went into the subject of genealogy in order to write the book AmaBhulu, I felt as author that I owed it to readers to share the Booyens genealogy in more detail. After all, they had spent good money to purchase the book and it relies on that genealogy. That genealogy now exists on its own website, as reported by an earlier post on this blog.

Last night I discovered, to my horror, that the Dutch Nationaal Archief has changed the website of the “VOCopvarenden” database so that all the Cape arrival links I have so carefully provided on the Booyens Genealogy website for the Stamvader are now defunct. I shall have to redo them all. However, I also discovered that the good folks of the archive have scanned the original documents so that we can see what the Dutch East India Company wrote about these men back in 1710-1715. And it is interesting indeed.

Conundrum

Ever since realizing in 2013 that Joen Peter Booyens did not remain at the Cape of Good Hope, and that he was almost certainly the father of Pieter Booyens who was born in the Netherlands and DID remain, I have wondered why it is that both men stayed with the Erasmus family of Drakenstein, but that Pieter was absent in December 1713. See the table below, in which the information comes with the courtesy of Richard Ball.  Since the muster rolls pretty studiously recorded all the non-company folks at the Cape, this was a bit of a conundrum. Why would the son, if he were really the son, appear and disappear?

I may have found out, and it is intriguing.

Date	Parish	Person	Where listed and/or with whom
31.12.1712	Stellenbosch	Joen Pieter Booijns	p.247
31.12.1712	Drakenstein	Pieter Boeijens	NOTE: Both men listed as Freemen at the Cape in December of 1712
31.12.1713	Drakenstein	Joan Booijen	p.266 Pieter Erasmus & Maria Lijsebeth
31.12.1714	Drakenstein	Pieter Booijs	p.297 Pieter Erasmus & Maria Elisabeth
30.04.1716	Drakenstein	Pieter Boijens	p.333 Pieter Erasmus & Maria Elisabeth Jooste
30.04.1717	Drakenstein	Pieter Booijens	p.361 Pieter Erasmus & Maria Elisabeth Joosten
30.04.1718	Drakenstein	Pieter Booijens &Geertruij Blom	pp.387 Pieter Erasmus &Maria Elisabeth Taken from 30 April to 2 May 1718

Clarity

The newly scanned documents at the Dutch Nationaal Archief show an entry in 1714 stating that Pieter Boijs, the putative son, is sentenced to six months on Robben Island (below), future home of Nelson Mandela, somewhere between August 1713 and August 1714. There is also an earlier 1713 entry recording him as being present at the Cape. This checks with an arrival of 29 November 1712 on the Huis te Hemert.

In 1717 Pieter Boeiens marries Geertruijd Blom, and the church book reads:

“den 30ste Maij -Pieter Boeiens van Blokzeijl jonghman met Geetruijdt Blom jonge Doghter van Cabo”

That just so happens to be the daughter of Pieter Erasmus’ neighbour. Given that Pieter’s putative father, Joen Peter Booyens, is a Dane, it is also significant that Pieter Erasmus is also known as Pieter den Deen, “Pieter the Dane”. Other research has shown that Pieter den Deen’s wife is related directly to Pieter Booyens’ mother-in-law, and both ladies are of mixed descent. So, we have here a little ex-Dutch East India Company Danish community at the Cape of Good Hope.

When his fourth child is baptised in 1723, the entry in the church book reads,

“Den 21ste Maart – Catharina, doghter van Pieter Bois en Geertruijda Blom. Getuijgen Lucas Mijer en Agata Blom.”

The surname in this case is written almost identically (minus the “j”)to the Pieter Boijs that is used on the Dutch East India company documents for the man arriving on the Huis te Hemert. It is exactly the same as the surname used for Joen Pieter’s son baptised in Blokzijl in 1695. On those company documents, however, they say he joined the Company from the Bishopric of Bremen. But, that may merely have been the first place he went to look for work, given that the major harbour of Bremen is close to his father’s origins in Nord Friesland.

Dutch experts have confirmed the fact that whoever Pieter Boijs was who arrived on the Huis te Hemert, he definitely served his sentence on Robben Island between August 1713 and August 1714. They are not yet convinced he was the same man as the Pieter Boeijens/Boijens/Bois/Booijs/Booijens (Booyens) who is the confirmed progenitor of the Booyens family and son of Joen. However, there were awfully few men of that name who served the Dutch East India Company, and only three men of that surname show up at the Cape in VOC shipping registers. The third is Jan Boijens of Blokzijl, who was most likely Pieter’s younger brother. He shows up after 1716. There was no other Boijens family in Blokzijl…. pretty much ever.

Closure

Having struggled several years to figure out the comings and goings of the first Booyens in South Africa, I go to sleep tonight realising the route likely runs through Robben Island. And what was a problem, has become in part an apparent vindication of a set of conclusions I made several years ago.  That is, the Pieter Boijs who arrived on the Huis te Hemert in 1712 was likely the son born to Joen Peter Boijens in Blokzijl, The Netherlands,  in 1695. And they ended up together in the home of Pieter the Dane at the Cape, where young Pieter remained until after his marriage. His father left the Cape in 1714 and his trips on VOC ships are well-recorded.

The above, if correct, would make him the second of my family to be consigned to the island. The first was Autshumao, better known as Harry the Strandloper, Khoekhoe clan chief at the Cape. He escaped. He was the uncle of Krotoa, my Hottentot forebear who turned interpreter for the first Dutch commander at the Cape, and who married another Dane, the doctor/explorer Pieter van Meerhof. She also spent time on that island, but as wife of Meerhof, who was the head there.

Is it not ironic that I apparently got my family name from a man condemned to Robben Island and my natural licence to be in South Africa from another party who was a forced resident on that island, only to be denied that licence by the followers of a  third person who was also forced to spend time on that barren piece of rock: Nelson Mandela.

My blood seems to be on that island.

Tell me that bit again about genealogy being boring.

— Harry Booyens

The Suidlanders aim at the USA

Tags

African National Congress (ANC), Genocide, South Africa, United States

—The Suidlander civil defence organization of South Africa is quite wisely preparing for a nightmare in South Africa. I do not share their deep belief in the prophecies of Siener van Rensburg, their parochial use of the word “Boer”, or their idea that the “Boerevolk” was born at Blood River in the few days leading up to 16 December 1838. Given that I am in fact a Geloftebaba (Child of the Vow, born on 16 December), I take some interest in such matters. However, I have considered their anticipated nightmare inevitable ever since Thabo Mbeki took over the reins of the country from Nelson Mandela around 1997, three years before his actual inauguration as president. In the environment in which I found myself in South Africa the threats were rather vivid. One had to be deaf, dumb and blind not to be able to predict what would happen.

A mere three years later, overt threats were made to me face to face in the workplace by ANC Political Officers. These creatures clearly held sway over the top management of the organization, although they “moved in the shadows”. For clarity on this, read AmaBhulu. If you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, you are sadly in need of education on the subject of Communist practice and doctrine.

I would like to make it clear that I believe these folks are correct to prepare for the worst, because much of urban White South Africa appears to living in some sort of state of denial. I do not think focusing on rugby and braaivleis (barbecue) is going to make the problems go away. I believe some of them to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

So, SOMEONE, has to be planning for the worst, and, beyond Solidariteit (a trade union body) and Afriforum (a farmers’ union), the Suidlanders are the onlyorganized group at all that I see out there actually doing something. Most seem to just curse at the ANC and then have a beer or go have a break from the stress in the Kruger National Park. Others just descend into the oblivion of the white squatter camps. Looking at all of this from faraway Canada, is like watching a flock of lamb walk itself to the slaughter.

In 2015, Alex Newman, a freelance reporter for the New American, wrote a glowing review of my book AmaBhulu. He has now addressed the efforts of the Suidlanders quite sympathetically. In the process, he has also contacted this author for comment and to introduce the Suidlanders to me and vice versa. His latest article, published today, is all about the Suidlander effort and their proposed visit to the United States to seek support. It also covers the views of this present author on the subject.

I shall summarize my standard advice here for South Africans:

1. Move west or emigrate;
2. Those who move west should join forces politically with the Coloured population of the West Cape who share their language and basic values; and
3. Understand that indigenous Black people have no historic, political, or cultural claim to the West of South Africa. Their history lies north and east of the border that Governor van Plettenberg drew in 1778, and they never had a presence in the south or west of the Free State, nor west of the Korannaberg outside Kruruman. Even the Ba’Rolong of Thaba’nchu are 1800s Ba’Tswana immigrants from the old West Transvaal.

— Harry Booyens

The Real Face of South Africa

Tags

African National Congress (ANC), Afrikaners, Democracy, Donald Trump, Nelson Mandela, South Africa

Take a good look

– Folks in North America seem to think that South Africa is some sort of miracle of democracy and brotherly love, a symbol of the power of democracy. Being generally ill-informed about the planet outside their countries, they have tended to believe the media when it comes to events in such other countries. More recently, they have started to realize that they have been extensively lied to and misled about matters in their own countries. President Trump is doing an excellent job of keeping pressure on the media for its actions. But he is up against 50 years of entrenched abuse. It will take a while for Americans in general to realize that they have been just as much lied to about other countries.

One mental picture they possess almost to a man, is that South Africa is this wonderful place with serene scenes of animals and a “rainbow nation” basking in the “Glory of Democracy”. They have been led to believe that they have played a major role in establishing this “Heaven on Earth” that is South Africa.

Well, the time has come to show folks in North America what it really looks like and what has really been done in their name. So I invite all Americans and Canadians to take a good look at the accompanying photo, because it is the true face of South Africa today. The country has now been essentially as long under the rule of Mandela’s ANC Party as what he sat in jail on Robben Island and in Pollsmoor Prison, and this is what they have done with it. We now have a situation where the 4.5 million White South Africans have sat in the jail that is South Africa for as long as that one single black terrorist, founder and leader of the military wing of his party, sat in a proper jail for being properly convicted. This was never done to him while in jail. In fact, he was treated in Tygerberg Hospital, the best the country has. When he was moved  from Pollsmoor, the prison authorities gave him a house with a swimming pool and a white male Afrikaner cook, and he was welcomed with a case of wine.

An Orgy of Bloodlust

The picture above shows the Wiggill family of Haenertsburg after they were attacked by black men on their farm. This story is repeating itself all over the country. In the last few weeks, all in February, there were 30 attacks on farms. In one case a white lady was raped and then her eyes were gouged out.  The savagery has assumed the proportions of an orgy of animal bloodlust by creatures that have become utterly subhuman.

Just for the record, the Wiggill family has been in South Africa since at least the 1820s, when the nearest Black people lived east of the Great Fish River in the Eastern Cape. That is longer than most Americans can trace their own ancestors in the USA. Julius Malema, a political leader who shares the tribal ethnicity of the killer, threatens violence on White South Africans. He cannot even prove his ancestors were ever south of Pretoria. Apparently, having a black skin is a licence to violence in his mind.

A Month of Slaughter

This month of February 2017 has been one of abject slaughter of white people in that country and I defy anyone to point to an article in the formal North American media about it. They are too busy printing and broadcasting their hatred of Donald Trump to care about actual news— the infamous Liberal Mental Meltdown. They never were good at the truth, because this picture shows what it actually looks like. Their usual reaction is to ignore news that does not fit their script.

Some further example attacks from February:

The Howarths of Dullstroom

Tanya Wiers of Polokwane

The Solik Family of Nottingham Road

The Smuts family of Balfour

Trevor Rees of Underberg, 

Gavin Carter (Australian) of Underberg

The Great Mandela Lie

At his Presidential Inauguration in 1994, Nelson Mandela spoke the Great Mandela Lie :

Never….NEVER! … and NEVER AGAIN….shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience oppression of one by another….

He is is dead and mouldering in his grave, and life in the country has turned to Black Racist terror at the hands of his followers. There are now more racist laws aimed against White people than there ever were addressing Black people before 1994. We always knew this would happen and that is why White South Africans  resisted to the best of their ability, but the battle was lost when the United States turned on them in the mid 1980s under a Democrat dominated Congress trying to win Black American votes. Most White South Africans, like the present author at the time, did their best to make the New South Africa work, but a mere three years after Mandela’s assumption of power the endgame was clear. This author reluctantly packed his bags and left with his family within another three. And this picture shows readers exactly why – and I am certainly sparing you the worst.

North American Cognitive Dissonance

But American Democrats prefer to talk about special immigration rights for Syrians, whose very own people are in fact in command of their own country. South Africa is a racist bloodbath in the making, and the Left utters not a word. Of course, the White South Africans are largely Protestant Christians, so they get no consideration. They must just wait to die. But Syrian Muslims? Oh no, that is somehow a moral argument and the Left takes to the streets and the ACLU to the courts in support.

Are decent Americans and Canadians, both of them nations who helped directly to engineer this situation with great pride, really going to attempt to plead ignorance? Seriously? Are you kidding me? Pierre Trudeau backed the Cubans in invading Africa to keep South Africans from helping black people oppose the USSR in the mid-1970s. The Democrat US Congress overturned a very well-informed veto by President Reagan against the Sanctions they insisted on slamming on South Africa in the mid-1980s. Both were key events in creating the above image. The first killed South Africa’s successful outreach in Africa and the second killed its economy.

My apologies to North American liberals who experience Cognitive Dissonance—discomfort when confronted with new information that contradicts existing beliefs, ideas, and values—when faced with this reality. I trust they will not choke on their lattes. The South African ones have fled or are living in secure communities, anywhere far enough from a farm.

Biblical

The reader needs to understand that I am holding back the truly extreme pictures. The degree of torture that accompanies these farms attacks is extreme beyond what can really be shown to “civilized” media people. And so they look away and wash their hands, but they do send the Afrikaner into oblivion. But we’ve seen this before, have we not? At least the character in the centre of the picture lobbied for the Prisoner to be spared before washing his hands. [Click the cross at the top right of the picture page in this link to see the article].

The time has come

The time has come for decent and  honourable Christian people with a sense of justice and human compassion in the United States and Canada to do the right thing. They need to demand that their Congressmen take a hand in addressing the situation in South Africa. Could these farmers be at least shown the compassion the Syrians have experienced? This hell has been brought upon the ordinary folks in South Africa by the specific actions of past liberal Canadian and US governments. And the American Pottery Barn rule says, “If you break it, you own it!“. Both President Reagan and George HW Bush knew the true situation. But Reagan’s veto was overturned by Congress and George HW Bush’s own listing of the ANC as a terrorist organization in 1988 was overturned some 20 years later by none other than his own son.

White South African farmers are strategically in no position to defend themselves; certainly not while the the US and Canadian media laud the monsters that really lurk behind what one can see and read above. It is amazing that anyone should be surprised at this situation. I warned about all this as best I could in the book AmaBhulu, which took me seven years to put together in order to ensure that every statement is backed up by evidence. All is now much worse.

The West ought to be ashamed of itself.

The South African Family Booyens

Tags

Cape of Good Hope, Dutch East India Company, Genealogy

The writing of AmaBhulu required a massive amount of genealogical investigation. Since the publication of the book, the author has been working away at compiling the Booyens genealogy. The building of the family tree is largely complete, filled in up to the early 20th century. This is often enough for interested descendants to recognize where they fit. Work is continuing to add “flesh” to the bare bones of the tree itself. A new dedicated website has been created to serve as online home of this effort. More detail will be added over time. Visit  the Blog Page of this work and follow its links to the genealogy.

—  Harry Booyens

Sometimes golf helps

Tags

Donald Trump, Japan, North Korea, South Africa, United States

Golf, Trade and Ballistic Missiles—

Folks would be surprised at how helpful a game of golf is in sizing up a negotiation partner before an actual negotiation. It is also good at building a relationship.

President Donald Trump had four hours of golf with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South African champion golfer Ernie Els. I’m sure it helped in the negotiations with Prime Minister Abe. The question is whether Els had anything to say about South Africa, but we do know Els high fived the President after he teed off (right).

At least, now we know the President has contact with South Africans Sol Kerzner and Ernie Els. Will the truth about South Africa be forthcoming from those two? Who knows?

Els is the second champion golfer to have a few rounds with the President since his inauguration. The President’s own Facebook page gives some information.

Of course, Kim Jong-un of North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile in the direction of Japan over the same weekend. This is a clear test of the new US President. It does NOT look like their longest range system to me. It looks more like a “Yoohoo! Over here!” call for attention by a warped and infantile creature who threatens the planet while his people starve. Over the same weekend he appears to have had his half-brother murdered.

This is serious stuff, though. It forced Trump to state his military support for Japan.

Calling Darkest Africa

Tags

African National Congress (ANC), Donald Trump, Jacob Zuma, South Africa, United States

This morning, around 8:30, Pacific Time, President Trump of the United States thought it wise to tarnish himself by communicating with one of the worst leaders this planet has in power at this time. His name is Jacob Zuma and he is an animist bigamist tribal creature who lords it over South Africa without the vaguest kernel of insight, morality, or ability. There is an Afrikaans proverb that translates as “If you consort with the bran, the swine will eat you.” It represents a well founded principle which I am sure the President’s own mother explained to him before he went to high school (secondary school).

Six Hundred Companies-

Apparently the two men discussed the 600 American companies in South Africa. And there I was hoping Trump might ask Zuma to explain why he is dancing around singing songs about killing white people and why white “Presbyterian” Christian farmers, much like Trump himself, are being killed like flies in consequence. Perhaps Pres. Trump should check whether any of the 600 companies has bribed Zuma.

If the President of the United States wanted to know what the ordinary people on the ground in South Africa think of this man, he could simply watch the CNN article in THIS LINK. Then again, perhaps Pres. Trump does not believe CNN, with good reason. In that case he could check any number of reports from South Africa.

If that fails to correct his understanding, he might want to consult court records in that troubled country.  There have been literally hundreds of charges against that man. If THAT is too much trouble, he could watch the first few seconds of THIS clip. While the author has nothing in common with the woman in the clip, he cannot disagree on any reasonable basis with what she is saying.

The ANC Government-

Zuma and his ANC government have foisted themselves on South Africa like a tapeworm in the gut of an innocent child; like a tick on a cow; a parasite by any description of the word. At best they resemble a strangler fig.  They suck dry whatever they touch .They have made the once proud Christian country part of the Iranian family of countries. They have created a culture of total corruption.

Perhaps Trump should go and give his researchers a slap in the head and tell them to wake up and smell the roses. If Trump is so good at negotiation, why did it not occur to him to let Zuma sweat before communicating? That corrupt village tyrant is scared, and Trump just let him off the hook…….. Anyway, does he really think that the US is going to improve its economy by currying favor with the corrupt government of a country that has a GDP hardly equalling 2% of that of the USA? Wait until he realizes that the ANC tries to scam 10% off any deal that is made internationally.

In a spirit of being helpful… Mr President…. might I ask your staff to at least read THIS. As to what Chancellor House is: Here they speak for themselves; here is the Wikipedia article; and here is the respected  Martin Meredith on the subject.

Surely a man of your accomplishment must realize that something is smelling to high heaven here, Mr. President. To quote Meredith:

ANC leaders treated the public sector as a spoils system. They set up a secret network of front companies, called the Chancellor House Group, to acquire state contracts in order to channel funds back to the party. By 2007, the party’s investments had risen to 1.75 billion rands, much of it funded through such practices. The objective was to ensure that the ANC elite had the means to entrench themselves in power forever or, as Jacob Zuma put it memorably, ‘until Jesus comes back’.

 

Tread Carefully-

Tread carefully Mr. President, for the “Little Guy” and the “Middle Class” are watching. They are wondering whether “America First” means “Kill the South African Whites and screw the ordinary Blacks”

Perhaps what you should have done instead, Mr. President, is to grant preferred immigrant/refugee status to the threatened White Christians of South Africa. That would be in keeping with what you have  suggested for Christians in the Middle East….. after your much debated 90-day moratorium, that is. Oh, I forget! So Sorry! We’re White Presbyterian/Dutch Reformed Christians—your historical cousins—and therefore my family does not count; they should just wait to be murdered. How could I forget. Silly me! [end sarcasm]

— Harry Booyens

No Equality before the Law

Tags

Corruption, Justice, South Africa

In a shock announcement, the famous South African prosecutor, Advocate Gerrie Nel, has resigned his office in the formal South African Judicial system to join Afriforum in order to prosecute prominent cases more effectively.

The highly respected Advocate Nel states as reason for his shock departure that everyone is clearly not equal before the Law in South Africa. He bases his statement on the failure of the National Prosecuting Authority to pursue certain high-profile cases affecting ANC Government personae. He joins the private organization Afriforum to set up a private prosecuting office, as allowed under the Constitution of South Africa. His first order of business is to relaunch cases the government has refused to pursue on grounds generally considered to be political.

The pugnacious Nel is popularly known as “The Pitbull” for his aggressive prosecution of Olympic Medal Winner Oscar Pistorius, better known as the “Blade Runner” for killing his girlfriend by discharging his gun through a closed bathroom door.

Afriforum is an organization  created to defend the rights of White Afrikaners, a Caucasian Christian nation with the same DNA as Americans. They are deeply discriminated against in South Africa and are deemed by Genocide Watch to be approaching the final stages of genocide. On 14 August 2012 the organization raised the Genocide Threat Level to 6: Preparation. An informal roadside memorial (left) to the thousands of white farmers killed in South Africa since Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994 may be seen on the national road north of Pretoria. Internationally, White South African farmers are the single most threatened group of people not formally at war.

International readers may find it interesting that South Africa is one of only two major countries in the world that employ the Roman-Dutch Legal System, the other being Indonesia, which was a Dutch colony until World War 2 and the foreign headquarters of the old Dutch Empire. Napoleon changed the system in the Netherlands, but it continued in some Dutch colonies, including the Cape of Good Hope. It is also applied in the former British colonies surrounding South Africa, as well as in (Dutch) Gyuana, East Timor, and Sri Lanka.

This is this very legal system that allowed Nelson Mandela to make his famous hours long political speech from the accused bench in 1964 without actually formally testifying. Had he testified, it is generally thought that he would have been found guilty and hanged. Americans would likely see this as something akin to speaking in support of one’s case despite “Taking the Fifth”. It conjures up images of Lois Lerner of the IRS who availed herself of her Fifth Amendment rights and yet made statements in defence. Unlike in the United States, South African Law does not allow for the use of juries, but employs a judge and two “assistants” called assessors. This explains why there was no jury for Oscar Pistorius.

Harry Booyens