ABSTRACT
Though most accounts of the deeply entangled oceanic connections between India and South Africa focus on the arrival and settlement of Indians as indentured labourers between the 1860s and the 1910s, the connect is actually far deeper. This paper focuses on the steady flow of numerous Indians brought in as slaves to South Africa by the Dutch, from 1652 (when the VOC set up its ‘Refreshment Station’ at the Cape as a midway halt between the Netherlands and its holdings in South and Southeast Asia) to at least 1834 (when slavery was officially abolished), that spans for two centuries, before the indenture system started. The descendants of these Indians got well-enmeshed into the white South African society through manumission and marriage, and many have become major pillars of the Afrikaner society, including, most famously, F.W. De Klerk himself, who claims in his autobiography to be a descendant of Diana of Bengal. This paper mentions many such Indians who were successful burghers themselves, giving special emphasis on the lives of two prominent Indian women – Angela of Bengal (c.1638-1720) and her daughter Anna de Koningh (1656-1734) – who became extremely prosperous and influential figures of the early Afrikaner society, and are the subjects of Therese Benadé’s novel Kites of Good Fortune (2004).
