Sweden in South Africa http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.naip100006 Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka’s Terms and Conditions, available at http://www.aluka.org/page/about/termsConditions.jsp. By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see http://www.aluka.org Sweden in South Africa Author/Creator Sellström, Tor Publisher Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (Uppsala) Date 1999 Resource type Articles Language English Subject Coverage (spatial) Sweden, Southern Africa (region), South Africa Coverage (temporal) 1700-1960 Source Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (Uppsala) Relation Sellström, Tor. Sweden and national liberation in Southern Africa, Vol. I. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1999. 118-136. Rights By kind permission of Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (The Nordic Africa Institute). Description Part of a study on National Liberation in Southern Africa: The Role of the Nordic Countries, hosted at the Nordic Africa Institute Format extent 20 page(s) (length/size) http://www.aluka.org/action/showMetadata?doi=10.5555/AL.SFF.DOCUMENT.naip100006 http://www.aluka.org Sweden in South Africa Sweden in South Africa A Necessary Background Until the beginning of the 1960s, Southern Africa was in Sweden largely synonymous with South Africa (including South West Africa/Namibia), one of the very few non-European territories with which Sweden over the centuries developed close and diverse links. It was around the struggle for democracy and human rights in South Africa and Namibia that the Swedish solidarity movement for Southern Africa was formed. While Swedish historical relations with the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique were virtually nonexistent and later connections to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) primarily were limited to the activities of the Church of Sweden Mission, Swedes had since the establishment of a Cape settlement by the Dutch East India Company in 16521 played an important part in South Africa's cultural, social and economic history. This also influenced the Swedish South Africa debate. It falls outside this study to discuss the early relations between Sweden and South Africa.2 As they are incomparably broader and deeper than the connections between Sweden and the other countries in the study-forming a distinctly more complex background to the involvement on the side of the nationalist movement- they do, however, merit a slight deviation. In his pioneering study on Scandinavians and South Africa, the US historian Alan Winquist concluded that "in many respects, at least prior to 1900, Scandinavians were the fifth (after the British, Dutch, German and French) most significant European group in South Africa. [...] What amazed the researcher is 1 The early history of Sweden's secondbiggest town and chief seaport, Gothenburg (in Swedish Gteborg), is closely linked to Holland and to the Dutch East India Company. The construction of the port was directed by the Dutch and the first Gothenburg City Coundil in the 1620s consisted of not less than ten Dutch one Scot and only seven Swedes. Against this background, it is not surprising that many Swedes-particularly from the south-western parts of the country-were recruited by the company, eventually ending up in the Cape. The first Swede at the settlement was the soldier Elias Ciers, who arrived in December 1653 and died there in 1660 (Berg op. cit, pp. 32-33). 2 This is largely an under-researched subject. The most comprehensive study to date is Alan H. Winquist's Scandinavians & South Africa: Their Impact on the Cultural, Social and Economic Development of Pre-1902 South Africa, A.A. Balkema, Cape Town and Rotterdam, 1978. This comprehensive presentationby a US historian of Swedish descent is an abridged version of his doctoral dissertation with the same title, leading up to 1948 ('The Impact of Scandinavians on the Cultural, Social and Economic Development of Pre-1948 South Africa', New York University, New York, 1976; below referenced as Winquist Ph.D.). See also Eero Kuparinen: An African Alternative: Nordic Migration to South Africa 1815- 1914, Studia Historica No. 40, Finnish Historical Society, Helsinki, 1991; Kristian Hvidt: 'Skandinavisk Udvandring til Sydafrika' ('Scandinavian Emigration to South Africa') in Nordisk Tidskrift, No. 5-6, 1997; Sellstrbm in Od6n and Othman (eds.) op. cit.; and Berg op. cit. Sweden in South Africa 119 that there is hardly an occupation or historical event where some significant Scandinavian contribution is not evident".1 In the case of Sweden, there was a small, but steady emigration to South Africa from the mid-17th century and several prominent Afrikaner (or Boer) families-such as, for example, Trichardt2 and Stockenstrbm 3-were founded by Swedes. The emigration from Sweden (and the other Nordic countries) peaked in the period 1890-1910. At the end of the period, the estimated number of South Africans born in the Nordic countries was between 4,000 and 5,000, in more or less equal proportions coming from Denmark, Norway and Sweden, with a smaller group of mainly Swedish-speakers from Finland.4 This period also witnessed the increasing conflict between British and Afrikaner interests, culminating in the Second South African Anglo-Boer War of 1899- 1902. There was an active Swedish and Nordic involvement on both sides. In Sweden-where the conflict was well documented through military observers and war correspondents-opinion was divided, "although a large number of the common people viewed the Afrikaners as a brave and God-fearing folk, worthy of the highest respect and admiration".5 There was also direct assistance. A volunteer Scandinavian Corps and Ambulance Unit consisting of 113 men and 4 women was organized in Sweden and in the other Nordic countries.6 Dispatched to fight on the Boer side, it participated in the siege of Mafeking and in the battle of Magersfontein, where 27 Scandinavians were killed and many more captured on 11 December 1899. The permanent Swedish emigrants were over the centuries assimilated into either the Afrikaner or the British European population group and their links with the motherland soon faded away. This was also the case with the scores of Swedish sailors, adventurers, artisans, navvies etc., who after the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1867 and gold at the Witwatersrand in 1886 were lured to South Africa by economic opportunities not easily encountered in Sweden. More lasting imprints on the bilateral relationship were instead made by natural scientists, explorers, missionaries and businessmen. Some of the 1Winquist op. cit., pp. 2 and 10. 2 The Afrikaner hero Louis Trichardt was of Swedish descent, his grandfather, Carl-Gustav TrAdgArdh (original Swedish spelling), emigrating from the southern Swedish town of Angelhohn in the service of the Dutch East India Company in 1742. In 1835, Louis Trichardt was the first vootrekker to break away from the British administration in the Cape Colony. 3 The founder of the South African Stockenstrbm (still spelt with Swedish unlaut) family was Anders Stockenstr6m, who emigrated from the mid-western town of Filipstad also through the Dutch East India Company-in the MO7s. Making his Cape career in the British administration, Stockenstrm was appointed landdrost of Graff-Reinet in 1803. His son, Andries Stockenstrbm, was in 1815 also appointed to this position. Like his father, he was heavily involved in the border wars between the British and the Xhosas. 4 Winquist op. cit., p. 77. 5 Ibid., p. 4. The Swedish Social Democrats strongly supported the Boers against the British. 6 Ibid. p. 163. 45 were Swedes, 25 Danes, 22 Finns (mostly Swedish-speaking), 13 Norwegians, 7 Germans, 3 Dutch, 1 Russian and 1 Italian. The Corps was led by Johannes Flygare, son of a Church of Sweden missionary and the only member born in South Africa. On the Scandinavian Corps, see also Ericson op. cit., pp. 44- 54. Tor Sellstr6m scientists and, in particular, the missionaries would at an early stage raise their voices against the treatment of the indigenous people at the hands of the European settlers. More than any other category, it was naturalists who made South Africa known in Sweden. The long series of Swedish scientific expeditions to the region dates back to the mid-17th century, when Nils Matson Kidping, an employee of the Dutch East India Company, collected animal and plant specimens for the University of Uppsala. His main account in Swedish-Description of a Travel through Asia, Africa and Many Other Heathen Countriesl-"became a veritable bestseller and was printed time and again during the following centuries".2 Another early, notable Swedish explorer employed by the Chamber of Seventeen was the colourful Olof Bergh from Gothenburg, the progenitor of the prominent South African Afrikaner Berg family. Between the 1670s and the 1720s, Bergh served for longer periods in the Cape and managed-in addition to his geographical explorations-to be imprisoned on Robben Island, marry a daughter of Batavian slaves and become the owner of the famous Groot Constantia estate outside Cape Town in 1716.3 It was, however, through Carl Linnaeus, the famous 18th century botanist and originator of the modern scientific classification of plants and animals, that the Cape became a concentration area for natural scientists from Sweden.