South African activist uses history to highlight ongoing injustice

Cape Town, South Africa – Lucy Campbell, with her agelong grey dreadlocks, stands animated successful beforehand of the heavy chromatic walls of the Castle of Good Hope successful Cape Town’s metropolis centre, her tiny framework accentuated by their towering height.

The 65-year-old activist-turned-historian has a connection for the 10 American students who person travel to perceive her mentation of the city’s history. Dressed successful a achromatic hoodie and bluish jeans, Campbell is well-spoken but shows her disdain for Cape Town’s assemblage past, often erupting successful harsh connection for those she blames for its consequences.

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“This castle speaks to the archetypal economical detonation successful Cape Town,” she says astatine the opening of her five-stop circuit of the city. “It’s an architectural transgression scene.”

Campbell refuses to participate the 17th-century castle, which she sees arsenic a awesome of the unit and dispossession that the assemblage epoch brought to South Africa’s 2nd biggest city.

“That is wherever they utilized to bent people,” she says, pointing to 1 of the castle’s 5 bastions. It was built by the settlers of the Dutch East India Company, commonly known by its Dutch acronym, VOC. The VOC built the fortress arsenic portion of its efforts to found a refreshment station betwixt the Netherlands and different commercialized destinations successful the East. The castle is present tally by the South African military.

Campbell, an accredited circuit guide, has been giving privately tally tours similar this for 17 years, starting astatine the castle and offering a scathing critique of the city’s monuments and museums for dozens of radical each year.

She says astir authoritative tributes, specified arsenic the Slave Memorial erected successful 2008 successful Church Square, neglect to bash justness to the enslaved radical who contributed to the operation of Cape Town and often neglect to admit the Indigenous colonisation that lived present for hundreds of years earlier the Dutch arrived successful 1652, displacing them and introducing slavery to the Cape.

Campbell tin inactive spot wide echoes successful the metropolis of the “genocide” and dispossession of the Khoi people, the Indigenous herders who lived connected this onshore for thousands of years. She remembers her mother’s stories astir however this past personally affected her family, who are descendants of the famously affluent Hessequa, a subset of the Khoi. The Hessequa mislaid their onshore and livestock to the Dutch.

Known arsenic “the radical of the trees”, the Hessequa lived for centuries successful the farming country present known arsenic Swellendam, astir 220km (137 miles) eastbound of Cape Town. The accomplishment of European settlers transformed them from onshore and cattle owners to peasant workers employed by achromatic people, conditions that successful galore places persist to this day.

Land ownership successful Cape Town and South Africa arsenic a full remains overwhelmingly successful the hands of the achromatic minority. Rights groups person besides accused achromatic farmers of sometimes abusing predominantly mixed-race cultivation workers and evicting them connected a whim, a signifier that has carried connected since the assemblage era.

“Many of them person worked determination for generations, and they are conscionable being evicted,” Campbell says. “There’s nary pension. There’s nothing. So the ailments of the past [continue].”

Visitors participate Cape Town’s Castle of Good Hope, 1 of South Africa’s oldest surviving assemblage buildings [Esa Alexander/Reuters]

The coloniality of the museum

With a resume that includes posts ranging from commercialized national head and mechanic’s adjunct to historian, Campbell started her tours aft moving astatine the Groot Constantia property of the VOC assemblage Governor Simon van der Stel, present a museum. This is wherever she got her archetypal sensation for history.

When she started moving connected the property arsenic an accusation serviceman successful 1998, she recovered that the past of enslaved and Indigenous radical was mostly erased connected the property, including the “tot” system, the usage of vino arsenic payments to workers that dates backmost centuries and was inactive successful usage connected immoderate Cape Town farms years aft the autumn of apartheid successful 1994.

Alarmed by this erasure of her ancestors astatine the estate, Campbell resigned and pursued a grade successful history. Armed with a postgraduate grade specialising successful the past of slavery successful the Cape, Campbell established Transcending History Tours successful 2008.

Her world probe uncovered the inherently assemblage quality of museums globally. She discovered that quality remains were held successful museums, universities and successful backstage ownership, particularly successful Europe. The South African Museum, founded successful 1825, housed quality remains that were utilized successful studies that sought to reenforce racist ideologies, specified arsenic seeking to beryllium that non-Europeans were racially inferior. Even though these studies person been halted, the remains continued to beryllium housed by these institutions.

Campbell would similar that the museums she tours beryllium decentralised and relocated to the Cape Flats, a chiefly nonwhite working-class country wherever Campbell and astir descendants of the Khoi and enslaved radical live. She argues this would marque the museums much accessible to these communities, bringing them person to their idiosyncratic histories and demonstrating that their existent hard surviving conditions and marginalisation are not earthy oregon inevitable, but alternatively the effect of a cruel past.

“At night, this spot is filled with stateless people,” she says connected a sunny greeting successful September arsenic the circuit leaves the castle.

A fewer steps away, past 2 lions perched connected pillars astatine the castle’s entranceway and a moat filled with food and pondweed, a barefoot antheral is dormant connected the sidewalk portion a pistillate successful a bra and camouflage pants scrounges for nutrient successful the shrubs. Like astir of the unhoused connected the affluent city’s streets, they are radical of colour.

The circuit passes the Grand Parade, the city’s nationalist quadrate and oldest municipality unfastened space, wherever the mud and wood predecessor to the existing castle stood. For galore years, it served arsenic a grooming crushed for the assemblage garrison earlier becoming a marketplace, surrounded by striking buildings, specified arsenic the Edwardian City Hall.

The parade’s astir celebrated infinitesimal successful modern South African past was arsenic the mounting of Nelson Mandela’s archetypal nationalist code aft his merchandise from situation successful 1990. Today, traders inactive stitchery present to merchantability everything from brightly coloured dashikis (colourful, accepted garments) to room electronics.

Krotoa, a Khoi woman, was the archetypal Indigenous idiosyncratic successful South Africa to person an authoritative interracial matrimony [File: Creative Commons]

A ‘trailblazer’

A fewer blocks away, the radical stops to look astatine a plaque successful St George’s Mall dedicated to 1 of Campbell’s heroes, Krotoa, a Khoi pistillate known arsenic the progenitor of Cape Town’s mixed-race colonisation aft her matrimony to a Danish surgeon.

The plaque dedicated to her successful this engaged modern commercialized country feels misplaced and superficial to Campbell, who says it fails to observe the woman’s humanities significance. Campbell besides dislikes the commonly utilized representation of Krotoa connected the plaque, which she says is fabricated.

“The Krotoa that I know, she’s a trailblazer. She’s an interpreter. She’s a negotiator,” Campbell says.

The niece of the Khoi main Autshumato, Krotoa joined the household of the archetypal Dutch politician successful the Cape, Jan van Riebeeck, astatine astir the property of 12. As 1 of the archetypal Indigenous interpreters, she became a mediator betwixt the Dutch and the Khoi, playing a cardinal relation successful the cattle trade, which was captious to the settlers’ endurance astatine the Cape. She besides negotiated successful the struggle that arose betwixt locals and the settlers.

Krotoa’s power successful van Riebeeck’s authorities yet led to her becoming the archetypal Indigenous idiosyncratic to beryllium baptised arsenic a Christian successful 1662 and adopting the sanction Eva. She joined a Danish soldier, who was aboriginal appointed arsenic the VOC surgeon, Pieter van Meerhof, successful 1664, and the mates became the Cape’s archetypal recorded interracial marriage.

In the end, though, Krotoa was a arguable figure: Khoi leaders criticised her for adopting assemblage ways, and some they and Dutch officials accused her of being a spy for the different side.

“She went close into the kitchens of the Dutch,” Campbell says. “She utilized to archer them, ‘I cognize you. I cognize who you are. You can’t bash thing for yourself. Slaves person to bash everything for you.’”

Campbell says Krotoa was instrumental arsenic a mediator successful the archetypal Khoi-Dutch war, which lasted from 1659 to 1660 and was sparked by a run led by section Khoi person Nommoa, oregon Doman, to reclaim the Cape Peninsula. The Dutch were victorious against the 2 Khoi groups, the Gorinhaiqua and the Gorachouqua, and expelled them from the peninsula to upland outposts astir 70km (44 miles) away.

Asked what she would see a fitting memorial for Krotoa, Campbell says: “Monuments are Eurocentric and hierarchic. Where her memorial should be, I americium not sure. What I cognize is that her communicative and her representation should beryllium a fashionable representation and portion of our learning successful schools and successful different tertiary learning. She and her Danish hubby van Meerhof were sent to Robben Island. She besides spent tons of clip astatine the archetypal castle, which is today’s Golden Acre [shopping mall], and her alleged plaque successful Castle Street is simply a humiliation of the contributions she made successful resisting the colony successful favour of her people.”

A seal from the Registrar of Slaves and Deeds is seen connected show astatine the Slave Lodge Museum successful Cape Town [File: Mike Hutchings/Reuters]

Profits implicit people

Around the country from Krotoa’s memorial successful Castle Street, Campbell stops astatine different VOC landmark – the cobbled walkway featuring the VOC’s bronze emblem framed by an outline of the castle’s 5 ramparts.

“I privation you to spot however the VOC is embedded close successful the cloth of the city,” she says, pointing to the insignia emblazoned successful the street.

Then she directs her tour’s attraction to adjacent skyscrapers, which she views arsenic symbols of wealthiness rooted successful VOC exploitation.

As she speaks, workers connected their luncheon breaks locomotion by portion others merchantability beaded jewellery, paintings, leather handbags and different wares successful stalls dotted on the mall. Most of these workers unrecorded successful overcrowded townships acold extracurricular the city, which is famed for its French Riviera-like manner and has often been voted 1 of the world’s apical tourer destinations.

“For me, it’s important to talk of that company, the archetypal institution that came here,” Campbell says, explaining the root of capitalism successful the region.

“It comes from determination – profits earlier people. It comes from history. … The VOC is live and kicking successful the city.”

Restoring memory

The astir haunting halt connected the circuit comes next: the Slave Lodge. It stands connected the doorstep of the parliament precinct and the gardens that the VOC established to supply caller nutrient to ships journeying betwixt the East and the Netherlands.

Thousands of enslaved radical from arsenic acold distant arsenic Angola, Benin, Indonesia, India and Madagascar were housed present from 1679 to 1811. Converted into a museum, it contains artefacts, including shackles and the reconstructed hull of a enslaved vessel arsenic good arsenic a plinth signaling the names of the enslaved radical – names assigned to them by enslaved owners erstwhile they arrived astatine the Cape.

The Slave Lodge successful Cape Town housed thousands of enslaved radical from 1679 to 1811 [Creative Commons]

Campbell objects to the pristine exhibits, saying they are successful stark opposition to the building’s acheronian past arsenic a spot of suffering and violence. One of the astir horrific aspects of beingness determination was the intersexual unit inflicted by soldiers connected women, including rape and coercion into enactment work, often with payments made to the VOC.

This convulsive civilization has had lasting effects, contributing to today’s precocious levels of intersexual crimes and home unit connected the Cape Flats, according to Campbell.

“The Slave Lodge does not get the reflection that it should get,” Campbell tells her tour. “It is precise overmuch veneered and made palatable to the visitors. It doesn’t bring the voices of the women in.”

The circuit ends successful the thoroughfare down the Slave Lodge, wherever Campbell shows the tourists a macabre landmark they mightiness different miss. On a postulation land successful the mediate of Spin Street is the spot wherever the city’s enslaved auctions were erstwhile held. A histrion that marked the spot was chopped down successful 1916. In its place, a slab of chromatic was installed successful 1953, inscribed with a fading and hardly legible connection astir its humanities significance.

“It looks similar a drain,” Campbell says, noting the crisp opposition betwixt this neglected memorial and the bronze statue of Afrikaner person Jan Smuts, oddly situated successful beforehand of the Slave Lodge, wherever the plaque bearing his sanction has been restored to a superb gleam.

In 2008, the metropolis tried to rectify this oversight astatine the auction site, unveiling a commemorative creation installation designed by salient artists Gavin Younge and Wilma Cruise crossed the street. It consists of 11 granite blocks, astir astatine genu height, inscribed with the assigned names of enslaved radical and words that callback their tortured reality: “Suicide, infanticide, abscond, escape, flee.”

Activists person criticised the installation for being excessively acold and failing to convey the heavy wounds near by astir 200 years of slavery.

“Birds s*** connected it, radical beryllium connected it, but they don’t cognize what it is,” Campbell says. “They person the names of the slaves that were held astatine the Slave Lodge, but there’s nary story. … It’s a monument that lone serves the master, astatine the extremity of the day, due to the fact that it doesn’t bring retired the symptom of the people.

“I would person loved to spot a precocious emergence to bring retired the representation of the people, … thing much visible.”

Historian Lucy Campbell, 3rd from right, poses with American students astatine the extremity of her circuit done historical sites that archer the communicative of slavery and colonialism successful Cape Town [Gershwin Wanneburg/Al Jazeera]