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Krotoa !Goa/Gõas

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Krotoa !Goa/Gõas Krotoa !Goa/gõas Translator, Negotiator & Peacemaker 1642 – 1674 Krotoa was born in 1642, into the Camissa community of traders who founded the Port of Cape Town. Her name means a girl “in the wardship of others”. Her uncle the Chief Autshumao can be credited with establishing the trading settlement. He was a leader of one of the Khoe or Khoena groups called the Goringhaicona (those who drifted away). The Camissa (//Ammi i ssa or Sweet Waters) is a river flowing from Table Mountain (Hoerikwaggo) to the sea at Table Bay. This was the contact point between the Indigenes and passing ships on the shoreline frontier of the Cape Peninsula (//Hui !Gaeb). For 52 years before the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck a port community, people referred to by sailors as the Watermen (Watermans), evolved in three stages. The first stage of development was simple opportunistic trading between ships and the indigenes. The second stage was after Chief Xhore of the Goringhaicona people was kidnapped and taken to London in 1613. On his return a more formal approach governed trading through an interlocutor – Xhore. The third phase began around 1630 when Autshumao went to Java with the British and returned to the Cape. He was assisted by the British to establish a trading community of indigenes which comprised a formal trading and port logistical station for passing vessels. Jan van Riebeeck in his journals admits that Autshumao was highly conscious of his role in having started the port. He says, “Herrie (Autshumao) would have it that it was he who started the incipient trade…” Exposed to Many Languages The Camissa settlement was a free un-colonised growing port run by indigenes. Ever since 1600 European shipping increased to the East and stopped off in Table Bay. There were 1,071 ships with over 200,000 travellers since 1600 passing through the port on the outward bound journeys alone, with between 6 weeks and 9 months stay-overs by crews and passengers. The indigenes at Camissa had left other groups and began a new economy of trading, facilitating, running a communications service, helping to gather wood for ship repairs, mining for and selling salt, being interlocutors for meat supplies and so on. The port served shipping from the Netherlands, France, England, Portugal and Denmark. It was hardly the barren place with primitive communities who had never previously engaged with Europeans, as projected in some colonial history books. This was the world into which Krotoa was born and raised until 10 years of age. As a result of her uncle Autshumao’s prominent position, she was exposed to many languages and new ideas. Krotoa herself may, from descriptions of her appearance, have been born from a relationship between a European traveller and a Khoe woman in this seaport environment. VOC Commander Jan van Riebeeck took her into the service of his wife as a maid, possibly recognising that she had many talents. There is disagreement about how Krotoa came to be in the Van Riebeeck household. Some would contend she was possibly kidnapped while others claim it could have been the result of a deal struck between her Uncle Autshumao and Van Riebeeck. Jan van Riebeeck’s wife Maria de la Quellerie van Riebeeck was a relatively young woman aged 22 who arrived with one child of her own and two orphaned nieces. Maria was sickly and was pregnant almost every year while at the Cape, having one miscarriage after another. She died two years after leaving the Cape. During the period that Krotoa worked for Maria van Riebeeck her Dutch improved considerably and she was used as an interpreter for the Commander. She spent ten years of her life with the van Riebeecks and six of these years as a VOC interpreter, emissary and diplomat. At first Jan van Riebeeck praised her work but later he began to distrust her and even treat her with disdain. He complained that Krotoa was “Drawing the Longbow” in her interpretations, meaning that he believed that she was misleading him, exaggerating, telling him what she thought he wanted to know, rather than the truth. He intimated that she was disloyal and could not be trusted. During this time Krotoa’s Uncle Autshumao was treated as an enemy by van Riebeeck and his community of Camissa traders were decimated. Krotoa built bridges between herself and her sister who had married into the Cochoqua tribe to the powerful Chief Oedasoa. A Dominant Factor Krotoa was caught in the vortex of social and economic change and wrestled with this wave of change, handling it relatively well for a female teen in the world of roughneck men. These circumstances thrust her into the dangerous and uncertain world of politics and she proved to be a very strong and feisty person in this environment. Her importance in the early Dutch occupation at the Cape is underlined by the fact that Commander van Riebeeck first provided a simple note on Krotoa in his journal in 1654 by referring to – ‘a girl living with us in the service of my wife from the beginning’. But then after this first mention in the records, the Commander went on to mention her name over 200 times in 65 entries in the journal. Krotoa was a dominant factor in Jan van Riebeeck’s entire time at the Cape of Good Hope. In Krotoa’s early years with the Van Riebeecks she was as one of six children. These were Maria’s son and two nieces and the other two were the Arabus slave girls, the same age as Krotoa, given to the Commander by a passing French seaman. After distrust had set in with Jan van Riebeeck he secured the services of another Khoe interpreter, Nommoa or Doman, to try and ‘expose’ Krotoa. He stoked antagonism between these two highly competitive interpreters. Their positions also enabled them to trade for their own benefit (mainly livestock) and this fuelled the antagonism further. Krotoa is likely to have passed her cattle onto Autshumao for tending. Fiercely Independent & Sharp In the six years as an interpreter Krotoa grew into a fiercely independent and very sharp woman. A young girl entering into puberty had to be strong in what was a world of 140 roughneck men in the 146 strong (female depleted) European and slave community where protection was far from guaranteed. Two years after entering service at the Fort, Krotoa absconded with her uncle and had to be brought back to the Fort after Van Riebeeck had pursued them. Between the age of 12 and 15 she was further instructed in language, religion and culture of the Dutch, not for philanthropic reasons, but to act as an interpreter and diplomat. She had been found to have both an aptitude and a flare for the work when the Commander tried her out in this role on a few occasions. At 15 already the Commander indicated in his journal that she was doing interpretation work. Though some writers try to project that Krotoa was like a foster child to the Van Riebeecks and that she was a pious Christian teen there is nothing in records that suggest that this was the case. Indeed, the facts show the opposite. No attempt was made by the Van Riebeeck’s to baptise Krotoa and that is the only way that she would be regarded as a Christian and Burgher. It was a sign of non-integration into Dutch society. He mode of dress was also not that of the Europeans, but rather that of the slaves and of servitude. She was only baptised just as the Van Riebeecks were leaving the Cape. She was sharp enough to know that baptism would afford her some status and protection. She was baptised at the age of 22 at her own request. The Dutch renamed her Eva. Her role as an interpreter with special status had been abruptly ended as had her wardship under Jan van Riebeeck. The VOC leaders at the time of Jan van Riebeeck’s departure were warned against her by the Commander. He states in his journal that the matter was so grave that he could not write it down but could only convey his concern verbally. She was suspected of aiding her people with strategic information and advice, particularly during the first Khoe-Dutch war of 1659 – 60. Krotoa was both a clever and wise young person. She too must have recognised that she was in a powerful position to carry useful information, warnings and good counsel to her people. Jan van Riebeeck strongly hints that this may be the case. Held Onto Her Traditions Commander van Riebeeck noted that the child, the teen and the young adult over a 12-year period regularly stripped off her Asian dress — kabaka, sarong and kaparangs — and donned her traditional Khoena clothes (skins) and adornments to engage in rituals and communion with her people. By all accounts she took great pleasure and pride in doing so. Krotoa was to some degree torn between being Eva and Krotoa. Between being penned into the European world and at the same time being prevented from being part of the Khoena. She was marshalled, briefed and de-briefed by her handler, the Commander. She was asked to go among her people and to report back. At the same time Van Riebeeck did not want her to be with them too long or unchaperoned. She would also at times be asked to go among her people and possibly mislead them. She saw the ruthless and manipulating side of the Commander.
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