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~ The Birth and Death of the Second America

AmaBhulu

Tag Archives: Dutch

The Cape, the Rabbit, and the Man from Java

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by Harry Booyens in The Writing of AmaBhulu

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Tags

Batavia, Cape of Good Hope, Democracy, Dutch, Dutch East India Company, False Flag Operations, Napoleon, South Africa, Strait of Bali, United States

In preparing AmaBhulu for publication, I had no choice but to cut certain sections from the text in order to keep the sheer size in check. In the event, I fitted the work into the allowed 630 pages with just one inch to spare.

One section that really broke my heart to leave out was the intriguing story of the Cape, the Rabbit, and the Man from Java who tried to help. It is a fantastic piece of history that no one ever hears about. It would make a superb movie, what with discontented frontiersman, native armies created by imperial Englishmen, Napoleon supporters, men sailing to the Far East for help, secret weapons shipments, false flag operations, and desperate efforts to undertake insane journeys. And, through it all weaves an intriguing man, tracked by British spies in Napoleon’s time along with a strange but dedicated man from Java who tried to help the Afrikaners at Graaff-Reinet. One just cannot make up this stuff. It proves that reality is often more impossible, than fiction. This is why I love history…. but read on HERE.

You mean you did not know? Seriously?

17 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by Harry Booyens in The US & South Africa

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Afrikaners, amaBhulu, apartheid, Cape of Good Hope, Dutch, Fish River, South Africa, Xhosa

One of the most frustrating things for Caucasian South Africans in settling in North America is the general lack of knowledge on the continent about South Africa. Many cannot point it out on a map, despite the name. Millions honestly believe Africa is one country. That is how this author was attacked by an American lady with an MSc in Physics for not removing Idi Amin from office! Most likely I need to explain that he was the despotic ruler of Uganda in the 1970s.

Fig.3-4Those who at least know South Africa is a country, know only one word about it, and that word is ‘apartheid’. They somehow believe they know what that is, until one asks them one or two questions. They truly believe that people of different races walked on different sides of the street. And they will stare at one blankly when one honestly reports that one had never seen such a thing. A young student told me in the last 5 years that they had recently been taught exactly that in school. I’d love to meet the author of the text book they are studying from.

BUT, here is the other thing they all believe they know about South Africa. They believe to a person that there were Black people at Cape Town when the Dutch settled there. Of course, they are dead wrong. When the Dutch arrived in 1652, the Black amaXhosa were at what is today the southern boundary of the KwaZulu-Natal province. That is some 800 miles from Cape Town!

Once one explains this, the argument usually becomes one of “Yes, but that is very long ago and the Black people were everywhere soon after“. In fact, that is also a massive fallacy. But, who is this author to verbally wave his arms about and explain, if it can be done much more elegantly by none other than the first British Commander at the Cape in 1796. This was less than a year after he arrived. It was also 144 years AFTER the Dutch settled the cape.

To give some time perspective, the first of the much lamented apartheid laws were  formulated in 1948. By then the settlement at the Cape was 296 years old. That means the halfway point in history up to that moment was the year 1652+148=1800. So, the question is, what was the distribution of people roughly at that halfway mark.

So, let us  proceed to the words [1] of the first British Commander at the Cape, General Craig, as written to Henry Dundas, the Secretary of War under Pitt on 12 April 1796. This was around six months after taking the Cape from the Dutch to prevent it falling into French hands:

A few days ago arrived here three Caffres, who said their sole business was to see the new nation, which they understood was now come to the Cape...[…]...I did my utmost to conciliate their friendship, and sent them away loaded with presents. It is a great many years since a Caffre was at the Cape. I endeavoured to persuade him, that it would be proper, that the King himself should come here, that I would furnish him with everything he wanted, and wished much to be friends with him, but he replied seemingly with some indignation at the proposal, that the King would not leave his own country, but that he would get him to send some of his principal men here.

It is so elegant when history stands up and gives black on white testimony to the truth. Here we have the man who would have intense interest in the matter of a competing nation “on his doorstep”, and he records that “it is a great many years” since a Black Southern African man was at the Cape.  It would have been more accurate for him to say there had NEVER been one. The simple reason for this, is that the black people were actually some 600 miles east of the Cape at that point.

REFERENCES

  1. George McCall Theal, Records of the Cape Colony from February 1793 to December 1796, (1897), p.354 Letter from Craig to Dundas

The First American Immigrant to South Africa

04 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by Harry Booyens in The US & South Africa

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Tags

Afrikaners, amaBhulu, Amsterdam, Cape of Good Hope, Dutch, Dutch Reformed Church, East River, Goldman Sachs, Holland, Manhattan, New York, Peter Stuyvesant, South Africa, Stone Street

Cape Town, 14 April 1675.

On this day a marriage is solemnized in the Dutch Reformed Church in Cape Town. The entry in the marriage book intriguingly reads:

—“Den 14 Aprill: Hendrick Evertsz Smidt geboortigh van Eupenbieren j.m. en Adriaantje Sterevelt geboortigh uyt Nieuw-Nederlandt jonghe dochter.”

Translated and decoded, it reads,“

—“14 April: Hendrick (Evert’s son) Smidt born in Eupenbüren young man and Adriaantje Sterevelt born in New Netherlands young maiden.”

New Netherlands was, of course, the name of the Dutch Colony at New York, the town itself being called New Amsterdam. “Eupenbüren” is most likely Ibbenbüren just west of Osnabrück in Germany.

Three years earlier, on 22 may 1672, Adriana’s older sister, Cornelia, also married in the same church with her origin given as New Netherlands. In earlier Church documentation at the Cape the two are revealed to be orphans. There is no direct evidence of how exactly they came to be at the Cape of Good Hope.

As part of the research effort for AmaBhulu, the author had to research this family. These two orphan siblings constitute the earliest link between South Africa and the United states. This is important, because the book retains a link between the two countries all the way through. Interestingly, in the late 1600s a British officer at New York refers to the Dutch farmers in Upstate New York as “Boers”, the term used by the British in the 19th century for the Afrikaners of South Africa. It is also the source of the title of the book, which is the isiXhosa corruption of the term “Boere”. The prefix “ama-” means “people” and “Bhulu” was the closest the amaXhosa could get to “Boere”, hence “amaBhulu”; the Bhulu people.

On Manhattan

It took some years to get clarity on these two girls, but eventually the secret was revealed. They were the daughters of Adriaen Huybertsz Sterrevelt, son of Egbert Huyberts of Segwaart near Soetermeer in Holland. Their mother was Judith Robberts. Cornelia was baptized 12 August 1657 and Adriaentje on 29 August 1660. After the death of Judith around late 1662/early 1663, likely in childbirth, Adriaen married Thysje Gerrits on 3 May 1663.

The couple owned Aris Otto’s Tavern on Hoogh Straat in New Amsterdam, which was then confined to the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Wall Street was then known as de Cingel and ran along a wooden palisade which bounded the settlement. Back then, their home was one street removed from the East River. See the 1660 Castello plan (click on the map image). Today Hoogh Straat is the blocked off and cobbled/bricked section of Stone Street used for street cafes in the shadow of the imposing Goldman Sachs building. The Stadthuys (City Council Building), the seat of city government, was on the southwestern corner of Stadthuyslaan and ‘t Water, the road along the East River. in other words, it was right round the corner from the Sterrevelt home.

CatelloInteractiveAn absolutely fantastic website providing an interactive map of 1660 New York is available online. Do try it; it is truly  superb, and specifically lists Aris Otto’s tavern, the Sterrevelt home. Just click on the thumbnail image.

Their home, Aris Otto’s erstwhile tavern, stood more or less halfway along today’s Stone Street (Hoogh Straat), on the northwestern side. In her time as 3-5 year-old, Ariaentje could watch Governor Peter Stuyvesant riStone _Streetde past their front door on his famous Flanders mare. This was because the street was the most direct route to the all important ferry to Breukelen, which would later become Brooklyn, across the East River. Click on the image to see a described full-sized image.

Their neighbors included Burgermeester Olaf van Cortland, who lived across the road at one point, and negotiated the surrender of New York to the English in 1664. Two others, either side of their house, signed the “Remonstrance” to the tough old Governor Peter Stuyvesant, who meant to oppose the English attack of September 1664. The Remonstrance appealed to Stuyvesant not to endanger the population in this pointless resistance. The document reads,

But (God help us!), whether we turn us for assistance to the north or to the south, to the east or to the west, ’tis all vain! On all sides are we encompassed and hemmed in by our enemies.

Fig.2-3The painting included here is the famous fictionalized scene of the stubborn and ornately peg-legged Stuyvesant standing on the ramparts of the fort, ready to order his men to fire on the Fleet of the English Colonel Nicholl, while the womenfolk and Dominee Megapolensis plead with him not to do so. Note the Indian gunner and the man with the lit match at the ready. Stuyvesant was completely outnumbered in guns and men and powder, but was severely criticized for the surrender. The English came with 600 men while the Governor had a few men and his town militia. He was a tough old guy, but it is said he agreed when he saw his own son’s signature on the Remonstrance.

So, our ancestral Sterrevelts found themselves right in the middle of a pivotal point in American history. Some months later, Sterrevelt left for Holland, recording for posterity that he “no longer knew how to make a living here“. We can trace his arrival in Amsterdam when he registers as a “Tobacco Merchant from Soetermeer”. The next thing we have is several months later, when the two girls appear at the Cape as orphans. Ariaentje’s life in New Amsterdam is described in more detail in AmaBhulu.

The little Chinese doll

The complete story of the family may be found in AmaBhulu. The genealogical research may be seen in the paper “Ariaentje geboortigh van Nieuw Nederlandt.” The entire PDF may be downloaded from that site.

Ariaentje would eventually marry three times. In 1690 she and her last husband would be accused of assaulting a boarder at their home in Cape Town. For this they were going to be banned for life to the “tropical hell” of Mauritius, where Ariaentje had been as a young girl in the care of Mr Smiendt, Caretaking Governor of the island. To avoid this fate, Ariaentje and husband Joost Luns fled the Cape on the 6 June 1692 Return Fleet from the Far East, leaving all the children with the family Smit. The excruciatingly detailed contents of Ariaentje’s home in 1692 may be studied in the Luns Estate Inventory. It is fascinating. My father used to call a crowbar (koevoet) an “uintjiesyster”. In this inventory it is referred to as “1 ijser om uijen te graven“!

The author’s wife is descended from Ariaentje’s daughter from her first marriage, Judith, named for her mother who died in faraway New York.

If anyone knows what happened to the Chinese doll that my ancestor Ockert Cornelisz. got, please let me know. To understand this strange question, you’ll have to read the paper linked above and live Ariaentje’s life for an hour as I did for many months of research. It wil also allow the reader to find out what likely eventually happened to Ariaentje. As to the missing horse, I have absolutely no idea.

So, tell me that bit again about history and genealogy being boring…

 

Stefan Molyneux and AmaBhulu

12 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Harry Booyens in AmaBhulu News

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Tags

amaBhulu, BEE, Communism, Dutch, Khoekhoe, Molyneux, South Africa, Soviet Union

Irish-born Canadian, Stefan Molyneux, is described by some as “probably the most influential libertarian thinker of our times.” He has certainly been quite contentious at times, and the views of the present author certainly differs from his in a number of respects, but the fact is that he has a solid following. Recently,  he posted an expanded presentation on the subject of South Africa.

As author of AmaBhulu, I was very much surprised to hear my own written words transmitted at me in a very energetic Youtube presentation. Mr Molyneux has clearly read AmaBhulu in some detail, because he quotes verbatim from it no fewer than five times and relies on the book for other information and for some of the points he raises.

  • Referring to the Dutch trading the Cape to the British in 1814, he quotes the line from page 99 of AmaBhulu: “Herewith the Dutch finally deserted their kin in exchange for coin.” This he does in order to make clear this author’s point that Afrikaners have not had anywhere “to go back to” since then. This profound point is lost on pretty much all commentators on South Africa, including most in South Africa. Finally, someone outside South Africa comprehends this crucial point.
  • In respect of the Afrikaner’s attitude towards Communism, he quotes a section from page 342 of AmaBhulu ending in: “It was not so much the socialist philosophy as the total disrespect for religion and human life that created in the staunchly Calvinistic Afrikaner nothing but utter revulsion.”
  • Molyneux also quotes the author on the matter of the economic gains for Black South Africans in the wake of changes made by P.W. Botha, as described on page 454.
  • On the secret 1989 meetings in South Africa between the Soviets and the South African government, Molyneux quotes from page 484 of AmaBhulu.
  • As regards Nelson Mandela’s meeting with P.W. Botha on 5 July 1989,  he recounts this present author’s description on page 485 in the section “The inmate, the jailer, and the Coca-Cola.“

More generally, Molyneux appears to accept a number of points made in AmaBhulu. These include the fact that black people resided far to the east when the Dutch landed at the Cape (see the map below from AmaBhulu), and that the former were also immigrants. Unlike the Dutch, they drove off the indigenous Khoekhoe, which Molyneux regrettably refers to as “Blacks”. The Khoekhoe are, of course, a distinct anthropological grouping within the broader Family of Man.

17th Century migration of Black people down the east coast of South Africa.

17th Century migration of Black people down the east coast of South Africa.

He also understands that apartheid did not materialize out of thin air in a gush of collective malice. It was preceded by around 170 years of frontier strife with Black people.  Molyneux has a degree in History and this likely accounts for the fact that he attributes importance to the subject.

He clearly understands that South Africa had turned a corner in the early 1980s and had started building a Black Middle Class. He seems to agree with the thesis of the author that the Northern Hemisphere White Liberal Guilty Conscience sits at the root of much of the harm that was done to South Africa by the West.

He also very aptly uses the summary  the author provides on pages 549 & 550 of AmaBhulu on the subject of Black Economic Empowerment legislation. He cleverly replaces the word “Black” everywhere in the summary with the word “White” and amusingly suggests it was a 1948 National Party act. He  strings along the unwitting racist and then, at a suitable point, explains that this is actually a 2003 Act and the word “White” is replaced everywhere by “Black”.

Molyneux then confronts the viewer with: “If you suddenly see this legislation in a more favourable light, then congratulations! You now know that you are a racist.” Brilliant! I can see a whole bevy of people I have met in my life splutter and cough and search desperately for an intellectual door to leave by. He provides none such as he then launches into his summary opinion.

He believes that South Africa is a today a “Tragic Missed Opportunity“, a “Gaping and Opening Hell Hole.” He very appropriately ends with “If we don’t know the facts, we can never be in control of the future.”

The present author agrees on this point and contends that the Western Media has never really had the facts about South Africa. All it has ever had has been a psychotic degree of guilt complex which it attempted to address by beating up on the most exposed and most endangered of all nations in the Western Family of Man, the white man in Africa.

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AmaBhulu

Canadian ER Physician: “I am a Boer from South Africa”

Opening the Year with Scott Balson

Opening the Year with Scott Balson

Interview with Alex Newman

Interview with Alex Newman

Livestream with Scott Balson

Livestream with Scott Balson

One Year of Silence

One Year of Silence

The Black Racist Virus

The Black Racist Virus

Trailer for AmaBhulu YouTube Channel

Trailer for AmaBhulu YouTube Channel

The Farm Murder of Bredin Horner

The Farm Murder of Bredin Horner

Harry Booyens Livestream with Scott Balson

Harry Booyens Livestream with Scott Balson

Senekal! o’ Senekal!

Senekal! o’ Senekal!

AmaBhulu Topics

  • A 350-year Odyssey
  • About AmaBhulu
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  • AmaBhulu the Book
  • AmaBhulu Topics
    • Black and White South African Allies
      • The Black King seeks White Help
      • The White Giant and the Black King
      • The Black King with the White Stepfather
      • Until the Birds of Prey have Consumed them Away
      • Slagtersnek – Where men die twice
    • God Bless the Good Ship China
    • Groot Matewis Schilpadbeen se mense
    • Pierre Jourdan de Cabrières and the other man
    • Radio Interview with Harry Booyens, author of AmaBhulu
    • Senekal o’ Senekal
    • South Africa: Who stole the Land?
      • 1. The Time of the Portuguese 1487-1647
      • 2. The Dutch founding of the Settlement at the Cape – 1652
      • 3. Setting the Fish River Boundary 1750-1779
      • 4. The Two Frontier Wars between the Afrikaners and the amaXhosa
      • 5. The British Cape Frontier before the Great Trek 1799-1836
      • 6. The World of the Black People before the Mfecane: 1816
      • 7. The Mfecane – Twenty Years of Hell on Earth: 1816-1836
      • 8. The Great Trek-1: 1836-1837 – The Trans-Orange
      • 9. The Great Trek-2: 1837-1841: Transvaal and Natal
    • The 1975 US Congress gave us 9/11
    • The Cape, the Rabbit, and the Man from Java
    • The First American in Africa
    • The First True European Settler in South Africa
    • The South African Family Booyens
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Recent Posts: AmaBhulu

Canadian ER Physician: “I am a Boer from South Africa”

Opening the Year with Scott Balson

Opening the Year with Scott Balson

Interview with Alex Newman

Interview with Alex Newman

Livestream with Scott Balson

Livestream with Scott Balson

One Year of Silence

One Year of Silence

The Black Racist Virus

The Black Racist Virus

Recent Posts

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  • Interview with Alex Newman December 17, 2021
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  • One Year of Silence December 17, 2021
  • The Black Racist Virus December 20, 2020
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  • Who stole the Land?: The Great Trek- Part 1 May 17, 2020
  • Who Stole the Land? – Status Check May 2, 2020
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