Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider **From Memory to Marble**

Gerard Moerdyk. Voortrekker Monument, Hall of Heroes. 2012 (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott)

Elizabeth Rankin and Rolf Michael Schneider

# **From Memory to Marble**

The historical frieze of the Voortrekker Monument

**Part II: The Scenes**

Published with the support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Duesseldorf

ISBN: 978-3-11-061524-1 e-ISBN (PDF): 978-3-11-066879-7 e-ISBN (EPUB): 978-3-11-066902-2

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

#### **Library of Congress Control Number:<PHONE_NUMBER>**

#### **Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek**

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: Voortrekker Monument, Hall of Heroes, east section of south frieze (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott) Typesetting: Satzstudio Borngräber, Dessau-Roßlau Printing and Binding: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen Printed in Germany

www.degruyter.com www.africanminds.org.za For Angela and Peter

*From Memory to Marble* is an open access monograph in the true sense of the word. Both volumes of the digital version of the book are available in full and free of charge from the date of publication. This approach to publishing democratises access to the latest scholarly publications across the globe. At the same time, a book such as *From Memory to Marble*, with its unique and exquisite photographs of the frieze as well as its wealth of reproduced archival materials, demands reception of a more traditional kind, that is, on the printed page. For this reason, the book is likewise available in print as two separate volumes. The printed and digital books should not be seen as separate incarnations; each brings its own advantages, working together to extend the reach and utility of *From Memory to Marble* to a range of interested readers.

François van Schalkwyk African Minds

# **Contents**

Synopsis of Part I **— ix**

Acknowledgements **— xi**

Abbreviations of key archives, documents, names **— xiv**

# Part II: **The Scenes**

Introduction

Illustrations Part II **— 601**

Bibliography of works consulted **— 613**

Index of people Part II **— 635**

Index of places Part II **— 643**

## Synopsis of Part I: **The Frieze**

# **Introduction — 5**

**1 Context — 17**

A Great Trek? **— 18** The Afrikaner cause **— 26** The Monument committee **— 40** Funding **— 51** The site **— 60** The centenary **— 65**

# **2 Concept — 79**

Early ideas **— 80** Van Wouw and Moerdyk **— 90** Topics for the Great Trek **— 118** The role of the architect **— 140** Coetzer and the frieze **— 154**

# **3 Process — 177**

The sculptors **— 177** Harmony Hall **— 188** Models and portraits **— 217** The full-scale frieze **— 228** The plaster casts **— 247** The frieze in Italy **— 258** Homecoming **— 270**

# **4 Image — 291**

Composition **— 291** The problem of form **— 302** From plaster to marble **— 330** The visual narrative **— 352** Iconography and ideology **— 389**

# **5 Heritage — 395**

An Afrikaner monument **— 396** Destroyed or redefined? **— 405** Rebranding the Monument **— 421** Representations and rejoinders **— 431** Epilogue **— 462**

**x** Synopsis of Part I: The Frieze

Illustrations Part I **— 465**

Bibliography of works consulted **— 477**

Index of people Part I **— 499**

Index of places Part I **— 505**

## **Acknowledgements**

To undertake the complex research required to investigate the history and making of the Voortrekker Monument frieze, and the events and memories of the nineteenth century that underpinned it, would not have been possible without the help of numerous individuals, too many to name here. Our sincere thanks for individual assistance is recorded in our footnotes at the relevant places, and here we hope only to record our gratitude to those whose assistance was exceptional and ongoing.

Of paramount importance has been the support of the staff of the Voortrekker Monument and the Heritage Foundation, particularly Managing Director Cecilia Kruger and VTM Museum curator Etta Judson, who have been with us from the very beginning, sharing their remarkable knowledge and giving us access to material and the Monument itself; archivists Riette Zaaiman (now at the University of Johannesburg) and Zabeth Botha, who tirelessly tracked down our needs; researcher Estelle Pretorius; librarian Malene Schulze; educationist Christo Rabie; and recently, Riana Mulder, Petra Luus, Annie Antonites, Charlotte Drotsky, Geraldine Paulsen, Lizette Jansen and others. We could not have written this book without them.

In our research we have read the memories of Voortrekkers from which their history was shaped, but also tapped the memories of living witnesses of the Voortrekker Monument programme. Werner Kirchhoff in Johannesburg recounted his boyhood experiences of the making of the frieze and gave access to the material and photographs related to the work of his father, Peter Kirchhoff, assembled by himself and his wife Anna-Maria. Martso Strydom in Centurion Park shared her recollections of modelling for the frieze, and the late Danie de Jager in Meyerton vividly recalled his own and his stepfather's work as a builder at the Monument and in the installation of the frieze. The Romanelli family, the sculptor Raffaello and his sister Rubina Romanelli, welcomed us to their studio in Florence where the frieze had been carved, and later to the family home. In Florence we also enjoyed contact with Rossella Campana and Paolo de Anna, who have undertaken research on sculpture studios there and in South Africa. Family of Gerard Moerdyk were also helpful, especially Dorette and Gerhard Vermeulen in Pretoria, and Elke Vermeulen in New Zealand.

Another key source for us has been archives, libraries, collections and heritage sites the length and breadth of South Africa. Our thanks go in particular to, in Bloemfontein, the staff at the Archive for Contemporary Affairs, University of the Free State (ARCA), especially Ernene Verster who has continued to assist even after her retirement; in Johannesburg, initially Linda Chernis and then Diana Wall at Museum Africa; in Pietermaritzburg, Elrica Henning who generously assisted us at the uMsunduzi Museum and the Voortrekker Complex and shared with us her own research, as well as Peter Nel at the Archives Repository and Elize de Villiers and Dirk van Velden of the Dutch Reformed Church of Natal (NG Kerk Natal): Synodal Archives; in the Cape, Ronel Rogers at the National Library, and Zmelanie Ismail, Susanne Noll, Lidia Swart and the staff at the Special Collections of the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch libraries; Quarta Pretorius at the Vegkop Heritage Site, and the staff at the uMgungundlovu Heritage Park, the Blood River Heritage Site and the Ncome Museum. The list of grateful acknowledgements for Pretoria is particularly long: Gerrit Wagener at the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa (NARSSA); Trevor Moses at the National Film Archive; Nandor Sarkady at the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk in Afrika Argief (Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa Archive; NHKA); Marie Coetzee, Annette le Roux and Ammi Ryke at Unisa; Gerard de Kamper and Chris de Klerk at the University of Pretoria Collections and Archives; the staff at Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History, notably Linda Raath and Malene Schulze (later at the VTM Library) and recently Jaco Schoonraad; and Dirk Oegema of City of Tshwane Museum Services. In addition, beyond South Africa, we were fortunate to receive assistance from the University of California Library, Berkeley; the Getty Center Library, Los Angeles; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; the National Archives of the United Kingdom at Kew; and the National Archives at The Hague: we thank all their patient librarians and archivists, particularly Neil Corbett and Rene Janssen at the latter two archives respectively. Nor should we forget the librarians at our own universities who have good-naturedly and efficiently tracked down obscure requests.

Many have been generous in sharing their personal knowledge on an individual basis at various stages of our research, and we thank particularly Kristine Bøggild Johannsen, Judith Callmeyer, Clive Chandler, Nicholas Clarke, Nico Coetzee, Whitney Davis, Alex Duffey, Jane Fejfer, Jeanette Ferreira, Roger Fisher, Federico Freschi, Beate Fricke, Jan Bart Gewald, Chris Hallett, Jorrit Kelder, Sandra Klopper, Henrike Lange, Bill Lindley, William Martinson, Samantha Masters, Mlungisi Ngubane, John Parman, Ulrich Pfisterer, Astrid Schwenke, Alta Steenkamp, Isa Steynberg, Carrie Weston, and for his extraordinary assistance in translating difficult early Afrikaans texts, the late Ryk Hattingh, and more recently Zirk van den Berg. We are most grateful too to the artists who agreed to interviews and allowed us to reproduce their works, and also to institutions, collections and photographers who gave reproduction permission. And for the original photographs of the frieze we thank Russell Scott, whose exceptional commitment we describe in our Introduction.

Our research travels have had support from a number of sources, which we wish to acknowledge. A Visiting Research Fellowship for Elizabeth Rankin from the Center for Advanced Studies at Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, provided an opportunity to initiate our research faceto-face in 2012, most recently facilitated by a grant of the Gerda Henkel Foundation and accommodation as Summer Scholars at the Getty Scholar Housing complex for us to work together in the Getty Villa at Malibu for a month in 2017. Here we thank especially Alexa Sekyra and Jeffrey Spier for their kind assistance. On behalf of the Classical Association of South Africa, Koos Kritzinger and Roman Roth invited Rolf Schneider to Pretoria in 2009, a momentous visit as it was then that he saw the Voortrekker Monument for the first time. He was subsequently supported by the Johann Gottfried Herder Programme in connection with his Honorary Professorship in the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Cape Town, another fortunate opportunity for our work in South Africa. Other research trips over the last seven years, singly and jointly, have been liberally funded by research grants from the University of Auckland, the University of California Berkeley, the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the German Research Foundation (DFG), and Ludwig Maximilians University, all providing opportunities to visit sites, libraries and archives, and for writing sessions together, which have otherwise had to rely on a proliferation of phone calls, Skype, emails and a shared Dropbox. The discussions of invited papers in Auckland, Berkeley, Berlin, Cambridge (UK), Cape Town, Copenhagen, Freiburg im Breisgau, Leiden, Los Angeles, Munich, Nijmegen, Pretoria, Stanford and Stellenbosch contributed further to our book – as did valuable comments from John Laband, Christopher Saunders and our peer reviewers. We also acknowledge the many helpful discussions we have had with colleagues regarding the publishing and funding of our book, particularly Thomas Gaehtgens, Michael Sharp and Martin Zimmermann.

As acknowledged in the Introduction, we owe a great debt to Grant Parker who inadvertently initiated the project by asking us to write for his edited book *South Africa, Greece, Rome: Classical confrontations*, which led to us collaborating on an essay, and to our first discovery of the wealth of untapped research material that is the basis of this book. He also paved the way to make hundreds of our own copyright illustrations available in the open access database *South Africa, Greece, Rome: a digital museum*, hosted by Stanford University Libraries (https:// exhibits.stanford.edu/SAGR) and supported by the Stanford University Center for Spatial and Text Technologies (CESTA). We are very grateful for his continuing enthusiasm for our project and that of François van Schalkwyk of African Minds who has been far more than a publisher in the gestation of this book. Alongside him at the publication stage with the South African proofreader Lee Smith and designer Janet Alexander, we have also greatly appreciated the support and professionalism of De Gruyter editors Mirko Vonderstein, Marco Michele Acquafredda and Rabea Rittgerodt and production managers Sabina Dabrowski and André Horn. We owe the fine finish of our book to them.

The production and publishing of such an unusual study of a monumental frieze, illustrated with many hundreds of photographs, is a costly undertaking, especially when it is also made accessible online, free of charge. We wish to express our profound gratitude for a publishing grant from the Gerda Henkel Foundation, Düsseldorf. Without its outstanding support, this publication would not have been possible.

And last, but certainly not least, we thank our families for their patience and unwavering support on our long research journey.

# **Abbreviations of key archives, documents, names**

Part II: **The Scenes**

**Figure 0.1:** Hall of Heroes, order of scenes (drawing Tobias Bitterer)

# **Introduction**

As explained in Part I of our book, the richness and diversity of the material we uncovered about the Voortrekker Monument and its frieze led to our decision to divide our study into two parts. While the first, Part I, addresses the background, the process and the interpretation of the historical marble frieze, we decided that each of its twenty-seven scenes required individual treatment. Part II thus offers a series of detailed studies, analysing each narrative in its own right.

Each scene is introduced with its full title – the short version we have used throughout our text singled out in italics – followed by the historical date or period of the portrayed incident in brackets. In each case, we have first processed documentary material to provide tabular information about the stages of production for the particular scene, complemented by thumbnail photographs, where the sequence can be seen at a glance. Early archival references are also provided. For convenience and clarity, we have followed a standard layout for each scene, which is set out in a table overleaf (fig. 0.2).

The next section for each scene provides a 'Description', coupled with a photograph, intended to hone our looking at both the composition and the details of the depiction. It offers the reader an initial orientation to overcome the erratic perception of the eye which may pick out only focal points or random particulars. This is followed by an analysis of the 'Development of the Design' through its different stages for each scene – all of them illustrated – from sketch (A1–3), to onethird-scale maquette in clay then plaster (B2), to full-scale clay and plaster (C1–3), and ultimately to marble (D). For a number of scenes we were fortunate to find earlier representations of incidents they portray that throw light on the process of shaping the frieze or its interpretation.

In the last and most complex section, 'Reading the Narrative', the historical background of individual scenes is investigated, to try to understand when and how records were made and chronicled, finally tying the often conflicting micro-histories back to the choices that formed the images in the frieze. The attention given to 'Scenes' has resulted in what often are very long texts for single panels. Since an in-depth analysis had not previously been attempted, it was necessary to consider relevant aspects in full in each case. This approach has helped us to crystallise crucial aspects of the inherent authority of the visual narratives, and to tackle the iconographic strategies and ideologies of the scenes both within and beyond the contingency of written history.

Essential for our discussions are the photographs of the surviving material related to each scene, which we have numbered separately in each case, with the scene number as a prefix (e.g. fig. 1.1 for the first image in *Departure*). The maquettes and the marble frieze were expressly photographed by Russell Scott for our research for this publication, the frieze under special lighting conditions facilitated by after-hours access to the Monument for a night shoot, discussed in the Introduction to Part I. Photographs of the full-scale clay reliefs, from which the plaster replicas were taken for sending to Italy to be carved, were made by Alan Yates (Pretoria) as each scene was completed in the 1940s. Since these no longer survive as a set, they have been acquired from various archives and sometimes reproductions in books (such as Pillman 1984) that may today be the best surviving source. Whereas Museum Africa Johannesburg provided the photographs of the Coetzer drawings, the authors took those of the Gestetner reproductions in the Jansen file of ARCA Bloemfontein. Whenever it was available, we have supplemented each scene with relevant maps and comparative material, and the outline diagrams made by Hennie Potgieter that identify many of the models used for the full-scale reliefs (some names referred to by the familiar but respectful Afrikaans 'oom' [uncle] or 'tannie' [aunt]). We have gone out of our way to ensure that images are of high quality although, despite our best efforts, in a few cases only low-resolution reproductions were available.

#### **4** Introduction

#### Scene number and short title

Position in Hall of Heroes (panel number out of total of thirty-one; also marked on the groundplan) Dimensions

#### Condition

Name of sculptor of the initial clay maquette B1

#### Stages of production

*This is the comprehensive list of the different stages followed in the production of the twenty-seven scenes discussed in Part I, Chapter 3; not all have survived in each case. We reference the archive, collection or museum in the caption of each illustration.*

If more than one version:

	- a. Initial full-scale clay relief
	- b. Modified full-scale clay relief

installed in the Monument (1949–50)

*\*We have used the term 'replicated' to signify the process of casting a replica of a clay model, but 'copied' for the sculpting of the plaster relief into marble, which depends on measurements but is ultimately free-hand. The dates supplied for the different stages are inclusive. Where external sources such as reports and photographs – like those in Die Vaderland 26.4.1945 (Part I, p.244 fig. 183) – provide clues, we offer more specific dates for individual scenes. But as the precise sequence of modelling and later carving of the scenes cannot be established with any certainty, we can often only provide the approximate period within which the work was undertaken.*

#### Early records

*This is a listing of references in key formative documents, which are discussed in general in Part I, Chapter 2 (see table in fig. 69). The acronyms for archival references are explained in 'Abbreviations'.*

SVK minutes (date) ― item number (quoted in 'Developing the design')

Moerdyk Layout (5.10.1936–15.1.1937) ― scene number/panel number and caption (Part I fig. 90) Jansen Memorandum (19.1.1937) ― item number and text taken from English version (Part I fig. 92)

Adjacent to the Monument's ground plan, the foldout at the back of each volume offers an indispensable view of the continuous frieze and the location and context for all the scenes, but we have provided throughout the text as large an image of each one as space allows, as well as the preparatory studies for it. They are thus not reproduced in relation to the actual scale of what they portray but rather to present as much detail as possible to satisfy viewers' curiosity and enhance their visual experience. We acknowledge the agency of images as objects of related realities, both their physical and their visual presence, and their interpretation of the reality they represent.

*Departure* **from the Cape (1835–37)**

**A2**

**A3**

**B2b i/ii**

**C2**

**D**

# **1** *Departure*

North wall, east of entrance (panels 1–2/31) h. 2.3 × w. 7.11 m (left panel: 3.8 m; right panel: 3.31 m) Restored fractures on the vertical edges between the two panels Sculptor of clay maquettes: Peter Kirchhoff

#### Stages of production

(after September 1937) Annotations: 'Spandau Kop Graaf Reinett' (Spandau Kop Graaff-Reinet) / 'Engelse betaal uit' (English pay out) / 'Trekkers pak op en verlaat sierlike wonings en boords' (Trekkers pack and leave attractive houses and orchards) / 'Stillewe groep in voorgrond Boeks, vysel Kers vorms Kandelaar strykyster almanac' (Still life group in foreground Books, jack, Candle mould, Candlestick, iron, almanac) / 'Uittog uit Kaapland' (Departure from the Cape) / 'uittog' (departure) / 'Voorgrond. viool, consertine, Blasbalk, reghoek, Broodpan. (snuit eister, aambeeld, Trek saag)' (Foreground. violin, concertina, Bellows, set square, Bread pan, ['snout' iron, anvil, 'pull' saw]) / 'Agtergrond. Tafelberge Tarka district' (Background. Table mountains Tarka district)

0 5 10 m

	- b. Two one-third-scale plaster maquettes (1942–43) (i) Left part of scene, h. 77.2 × w. 125 × d. 8.2 cm (ii) Right part of scene, h. 76.5 × w. 125 × d. 7.5 cm

#### Early records

SVK minutes (21.9.1935) ― item 9b 'Uittrek' (Departure); 4.9.1937 / item 4a (see below, 'Developing the design')

Moerdyk Layout (5.10.1936–15.1.1937) ― scene 1 on panels 1–4/31 'Uittog' (Departure)

Jansen Memorandum (19.1.1937) ― item 7.1 'The exodus from the Cape, reflecting at the same time something of the conditions of life there'

**Figure 1.1:** D. *Departure*. 1950. Marble, 2.3 × 7.11 m (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott)

## **Description**

Six men ‒ four in jackets and brimmed hats, and two armed with muzzleloaders ‒ and three women in impeccable dress are preparing to depart, yet are curiously still (fig. 1.1). Although the figures are standing, packing or waiting, there seems an intention to move to the right; only two people in the lower foreground face in the other direction. Impressive flocks mustered in orderly lines, accompanied by a shepherdess, are ready to move to the right, goats mingling with young and full-grown merino sheep. In the background are oxen: three pairs are already hitched up to the first of the two ox wagons, also waiting to start out in the same direction. Visible on the right is a small section of a rope that must be attached to a fourth pair of oxen beyond the format of the relief, their absence suggesting that the advance has already begun.

Ready to go also is the woman sitting at the front of the leading wagon and the Voortrekker next to her who skilfully swings his long leather whip. Further to the right a Voortrekker, his muzzleloader over his shoulder, is mounted on a horse that moves forward sedately, accompanied by a dog. The topic is evident: it is a departure, clearly not a brief sojourn as chattels, arms and livestock are included. Many possessions are not yet packed, so that they can be arranged to catch the viewer's eye.  Behind her, household goods are set up on a table – a mould for making candles, a teapot, mortar and pestle, and a flat iron placed on a thick fringed rug. Further back to her left, a sturdy riempie stool supports two muzzleloaders and powder horns, and beyond that two men load goods onto a second ox wagon, the one in shirt sleeves carrying a heavy sack. More goods occupy the right foreground – a guitar, a concertina, the tops of three bulging sacks, and a three-legged pot, as well as bellows lying in a large container for making bread. At the right of the relief, next to an early form of a jack for wheel removal, a man, also without a jacket, strains to tie up a big bundle; he must be standing with his left leg on a lower level though it is obscured.

The scene is staged in a recognisable landscape. The mountain on the left marks the peculiar double 'koppies' of Spandaukop near Graaff-Reinet, a town in the Eastern Cape founded by the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie) in 1786.1 Annotations on Coetzer's revised drawing for the scene (A3) tell us that the larger 'table' mountains on the right are from the Tarka district, which lies some two-hundred kilometres east of Graaff-Reinet.2 There are numerous little plants on the ground, generic in form, although some could represent *Boophane disticha* or *Brunsvigia* sp., based on the distichous leaf arrangement of the former (e.g. below the horse's hind leg) and the broader leaf of the latter (e.g. to the right of the hind leg).3

**1** For Graaff-Reinet, see Henning 1975; Visagie 2011, 17.

**2** See Coetzer 1947, 29.

**3** We are grateful to botanist Neil Crouch for his input, and to Philippa Hobbs who approached him on our behalf.

**Figure 1.2:** A2. W.H. Coetzer. Reproduction of first sketch for *Departure*. June 1937 (courtesy of ARCA PV94 1/75/5/1; photo the authors)

**Figure 1.3:** A3. W.H. Coetzer. 'Uittog uit Kaapland'. After September 1937. Pencil, 13.3 × 61.2 cm. Revised first sketch (photo courtesy of Museum Africa, no. 66/2194U)

**Figure 1.4:** A4. W.H. Coetzer. *Die uittog van die Voortrekkers uit Kaapland.* Late 1937–38? Monochrome oil on board, 26.7 × 121.9 cm (courtesy of DNMCH, Art Collection, presently on loan to VTM Museum; photo Riana Mulder)

## **Developing the design**

Coetzer's first drawing of *Departure,* retained only in the reproduction (fig. 1.2), is packed with people, animals, furniture, household goods, weapons and landscape, with a number of ox wagons departing or about to depart, all contributing to the main theme. It captures the preparations for the treks, the profusion of detail possible because of the very long format, intended to stretch across four eight-foot marble panels according to the Moerdyk layout (see fig. 88, Part I); finally, however, 23.3 feet (7.11 metres) in length. It was a subject where the SVK's concern about authentic detail could be exercised to the full, and on 4 September 1937 the Historiese Komitee made many demands of the artist, and set out their requests much more fully than in later cases.

The departure from the colony. The house must be more clearly shown; the fields must be shown as blocks so that people can understand what it stands for; an orchard must be shown near the house; the Englishman must pay with metal coins; the second auctioneer must be removed and replaced with a farewell scene of a boer with a whip over his shoulder shaking hands with a friend; a woman must turn around sadly; on the table books including a state bible and a book of psalms and the statute book v d Linde [sic]4 must be shown; it is flint guns; the man at the wagon must load a riempie-mattress bed; the equipment must include a 'buspen' [a linchpin; see fig. 1.11],5 swing hook, saw, drill and anvil; the chest's attachments as well as the wagonchest's hinges must be clearly visible; the pot must be a flat bread pan.6

When Coetzer revised his first drawing, he carefully modified many details to respond to these requests, probably more than in any other of his sketches, except *Soutpansberg*, where he completely redrew the image. Many features of the original design of his initial drawing (fig. 1.2) are still faintly visible in its revised version (fig. 1.3). Here he notably replaced the auction group in the left middle ground to allow for the introduction of a prosperous Cape Dutch farmstead and the cultivated fields surrounding it, and also eliminated other details such as the dog on the left and the African woman carrying a baby on her back disappearing into the distance behind it. But generally he retained the overall composition, and concentrated rather on correcting details, such as amending, replacing or adding the many Voortrekker items making up the still life that is depicted across the foreground.7 Drawing closely on this sketch (fig. 1.3), Coetzer developed a less packed and more ordered version of *Departure* in a monochrome, which he probably painted for the centenary of the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1938 (fig. 1.4).8 In all his versions he kept the sense of general drama and the buzzing activity of such an event. It is significant for the complex process of shaping the narrative that almost none of the many alterations demanded by the SVK were to become part of the clay reliefs, let alone the final marble.

**4** For Van der Linden's book, see *Inauguration*.

**5** We gratefully acknowledge Zirk van den Berg's help in translating this technical term, confirmed by Philip Willemse: often referred to as a 'platluns' or bent linchpin, it prevented the wagon wheel from sliding off its axle. An object corresponding to it is seen on the right of Coetzer's revised sketch in front of the anvil.

**6** 'Die uittog uit die kolonie.

**Figure 1.5:** B2b. Peter Kirchhoff. *Departure*. 1942–43. Plaster, 77.2 × 125 × 8.2 cm; 76.5 × 125 × 7.5 cm. Maquettes (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott)

**Figure 1.6:** B2a. Peter Kirchhoff. *Vendusie*. 1942–43. Plaster, 78 × 89.7 × 8.2 cm. Rejected maquette with detail of fig. 1.3 on which it was based (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott)

**Figure 1.7:** C2a. *Departure*. 1943. Clay. Full-scale relief (courtesy of HF Archives F 39.10.7 k, detail of fig. 1.8; photo Alan Yates)

The major shift to the final depiction of the departure of the Voortrekkers happened when Peter Kirchhoff started to change Coetzer's drawings. While no sketches by Kirchhoff survive, his composition for *Departure* appears in his maquettes (fig. 1.5), made as two clay reliefs for the left- and right-hand sections, then replicated in plaster. Their comparison with Coetzer's designs reveals how substantially the narrative shifted, from the dynamics of the lively hustle and bustle in the drawing to an ordered representation in the relief sculpture. The most obvious change was in the omission of the iconic Cape Dutch gabled farmhouse and the more developed rectangular fields and orchard in the background, requested by the committee, as well as the Englishman who makes a purchase from a Boer (figs 1.2, 1.3). They had served to show the prosperity that the Voortrekkers were willing to forgo in seeking their ideal.9 The scene of the purchase was developed as an independent maquette (fig. 1.6), however, with an auctioneer beyond as in Coetzer's first sketch; referred to as 'Vendusie' (auction), it was initially planned to continue the theme of the Voortrekker exodus on the short wall next to the longer *Departure* relief on the north wall*.* After it was cast into plaster in 1942, it was set up in this position along with the other maquettes in Harmony Hall, probably early in the new year, as can be seen to the left of the big clay panel of *Departure* in a 1943 photograph (fig. 1.8). But in the course of the rearrangement of the panel topics on the Monument's east wall, 'Vendusie' was finally rejected.10 This also led to the loss of the African woman with a baby on her back depicted on the far left, the only depiction of a black female servant in the known early designs. A man in a pointed hat, perhaps a Cape Malay, had already been abandoned in the maquette.

In general the clay maquettes of *Departure* retained most of the basic pictorial elements of the major part of Coetzer's sketch – people, ox wagons, livestock, goods and landscape. Yet while the broad treatment of the topic was much the same, Kirchhoff simplified it, particularly in reducing the objects and 'still life' groups in the foreground. He brought the figures, the animals and the wagons forward, making them larger in scale in relation to the overall proportions of the scene, and arranging them more formally in a way better suited to relief sculpture than Coetzer's more pictorial rendering. In creating a unified composition that unfolds in a sedate manner parallel to the picture plane, Kirchhoff endowed the scene with greater dignity.

**9** Cloete (1899, 87) records that the 'beginning of the year 1836 was marked by all the farms of those intending emigrants getting into the market. They were readily bought up by numerous speculators at Graham's Town, Somerset, and adjoining places for ridiculously low prices …'; see also Thom 1947, 80–83.

**10** Letter from Peter Kirchhoff to SVK chair, 27.9.1946; see Part I, Chapter 3 ('Harmony Hall'). Changes to the frieze layout took place in and after 1943, judging by a photograph of Harmony Hall (fig. 1.8), incorrectly dated 1942 in Part I (p.176 fig. 114).

**Figure 1.8:** Interior of Harmony Hall, Pretoria. Sculptors at work on *Departure*, 1943 (courtesy of HF Archives F 39.10.7 k; photo Alan Yates)

**Figure 1.9:** C2b. *Departure*. 1943. Clay. Revised full-scale clay relief (courtesy of Kirchhoff files; photo Alan Yates)

While the main features of the maquette were retained, this quality evolved even more strongly when Kirchhoff, with the other three sculptors, created the full-scale clay panel (fig. 1.7). The work in progress is recorded in a few photographs with the sculptors posing in front of or busy modelling the panel, the only records of the full scene of the sculptors' workshop in Harmony Hall (fig. 1.8), invaluable for understanding the process of production. As discussed in Part I,11 it was probably no coincidence that Kirchhoff's big clay panel was tackled first: apart from its being first in the narrative sequence, it must have acted as a prototype to test the technical and artistic challenges linked to such an ambitious project. This panel also had the advantage of being a single unified scene, so that there were no difficulties to be resolved in terms of the relationship to adjacent scenes. Nonetheless, transforming a maquette to the final scale was a task which required specialised skill and practice. As the first completed big clay panel of the frieze, *Departure* must be the one mentioned in the SVK minutes of September 1943: 'One panel is completely finished and another nearly ready.'12

The surviving photographs of the large clay panel provide interesting evidence of modifications being made as the sculptors worked on it. In the photographs of work in progress, Spandaukop on the left has a single outcrop at its summit (fig. 1.7), corresponding to the depiction in Coetzer's drawing and the maquette. But in the photograph of the completed clay panel, a double-headed image of the mountain is shown, an even more distinctive profile seen from a different viewpoint in the landscape near Graaff-Reinet (fig. 1.9). We can only guess who might have brought this to the sculptors' attention, but it suggests the ongoing input from committee members during the production of the frieze. It is the form that was carried through to the marble relief. The final marble relief differs from the full-scale clay only in details, such as the slightly changed position of the horse's lifted foreleg, the now full swing of the whip in the background, and the subtly modified stances, poses and movements of people and livestock, small refinements that add to the formality of the scene. Like other scenes which did not arrive in time, *Departure's* two marble panels were installed only after the inauguration of the Monument on 16 December 1849, discussed in Part I.13

**11** Chapter 3 ('The full-scale frieze').

**12** 'Een paneel is heeltemal klaar, en 'n volgende is byna gereed' (30.9.1843: 6).

**13** Chapter 3 ('Homecoming'). That the scene was missing can be seen in fig. 216 in Part I.

**Figure 1.10a:** Routes of treks in the Western Cape. 1835–37 (courtesy of Visagie 2014, foldout opp. p.22)

**Figure 1.10b:** Routes of treks in the Eastern Cape. 1835–37 (courtesy of Visagie 2014, foldout opp. p.16)

## **Reading the narrative**

In picturing the area around Graaff-Reinet together with the Tarka district, this scene condenses the wider territory of the Eastern and Western Cape from where the treks started to the north (figs 1.10 a–c).14 As such a diversity of places, people and actions cannot be presented straightforwardly in a relief sculpture, the narrative has been transformed into a model of departure characterised by both anecdotal and symbolic representation. Although unified, no single Trek is represented here. The scene is populated by generic Voortrekkers rather than depictions of one or other Trek leader and his followers. As would be the case with the huge unknown Voortrekker on the fourth corner of the Monument, which stood for the Boers in general and leaders who were not celebrated in the other colossi of Retief, Potgieter and Pretorius, this scene serves to encompass the achievements of all. It forms the prolegomena to the more specific stories recounted in many of the succeeding panels of the frieze.

The demand for historical accuracy, emphasised throughout the SVK minutes, and later reiterated in the *Official Guide*, was met by painstaking depictions of a panoply of Voortrekker dress, weapons, animals, goods and ox wagons, as well as specific landscapes, to which the subject lent itself perfectly.15 The items were portrayed in accord with historical records and artefacts. The 'kakebeenwa', as the ox wagon was known, which had been reconstructed for the re-enactment of the Trek in the centenary celebrations of 1938 and which was to appear in so many of the scenes of the frieze, was depicted accurately with its smaller front and larger back wheels, for example, and the correct number of spokes (fig. 1.11). In his later account of the frieze, Hennie Potgieter comments on the sculptors' careful research, and rebuts any questioning of the veracity of the frieze, clarifying that the items in *Departure* were indeed available to the Voortrekkers, such as the accordion dating from 1813 and merino sheep first imported in 1785 (fig. 1.12).16 Yet, in contrast to real life, all are shown in a strictly uniform and pristine state. Similarly, the individual Voortrekkers are depicted more like flawless stereotypes than personal portrayals, even though we know that all the main figures are portraits, as recorded by Potgieter in diagrams of the scenes in his 1987 publication (fig. 1.13).17 Some faces may appear older, like the first Voortrekker on the left and the shepherdess to his right, but they seem devoid of emotion and the distinctive features of their actual sitters. This is evident when we compare contemporary portraits of the three sculptors Peter Kirchhoff, Frikkie Kruger and Hennie Potgieter with the faces of the figures they modelled for, all in the foreground – the standing man, the rider and the man tying a bundle respectively (fig. 1.14). On a microhistorical level there are also personal stories attached to the choice and position of the sitters for this and other scenes of the frieze.18 Here the first three prominent figures on the left of the frieze portray exclusively members of the Kirchhoff family: the sculptor, his wife and his daughter. It is tempting to ask if this was intended not only to increase the status of Kirchhoff as the sculptor *primus inter pares* and designer of this scene, but also to allude to his family's departure from Germany, as they all emigrated to South Africa to settle in the hinterland that had been won by the Voortrekkers in the nineteenth century.19

**14** For causes and departures of the treks, see Cloete 1899, 75–88; Walker 1934, 59–105; Du Toit and Giliomee 1983, 195–217; Etherington 2001, 243–250; Giliomee 2003, 144–162. Visagie (2014, foldout maps opp. pp.16 and 22) provides an excellent compilation of the different departure locations and the individual trek routes, while Smail's (1968) survey is more in line with nationalistic Afrikaner concepts.

**15** As claimed, for example, in *Official Guide* 1955, 41, 45; Potgieter 1987, 46.

**16** Potgieter 1987, 10, 46. It was timely that Van Rooyen (1938 and 1940) provided a detailed study of the historical inventory of the Great Trek in his two-volume *Kultuurskatte uit die Voortrekker-tydperk* (Cultural treasures from the Voortrekker period), which may have been available to the sculptors.

**17** See Part I, Chapter 3 ('Models and portraits').

**18** Ibid. also for the notable absence of the fourth sculptor, Laurika Postma.

**19** Kirchhoff 2016, 6–14.

**Figure 1.10c:** Routes of the main treks. 1835–38 (the authors; drawing Janet Alexander)

**Figure 1.11:** Voortrekker wagon and detail of linchpin: Afrikaans 'platluns' or 'buspen' (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/A\_aesthetic\_linchpin.JPG)

**Figure 1.12:** Sheep and artefacts, including guitar and accordion, in *Departure*. Marble, detail of fig. 1.1 (photo Russell Scott)

Anecdotal yet symbolic are the actions of the Voortrekkers, who are caught in transition, both about to depart and simultaneously still preparing to leave (fig. 1.9). Reading from left to right in customary western fashion, their calm coming and going is marked by three spatial and iconographic juxtapositions: first, in the foreground, the passivity of the standing Voortrekker with his muzzleloader and powder horn contrasts with the ushering shepherdess and the Voortrekker on his horse, who are ready to depart, although they too are remarkably static; second, in the lower foreground at opposite ends of the relief, the two figures busy packing, the woman quietly immersed, but the man vigorously occupied; third, in the background, two Voortrekkers still loading the second ox wagon whereas the first is ready to start. This measured back and forth between packing and leaving, inertia and action, is given a further edge by the two motionless 'still life' groups of Voortrekker possessions, one staged on the table behind the kneeling female, the other on the ground in front of the male tying a bundle. Another point of subtle dynamics is the relation of the figures to the picture plane. None of them is purely frontal: three are in motionless profile (the woman seated on the ox wagon, the man next to her, and the rider), whereas most of the others are shown in three-quarter view, which suggests a transitory position and the potential for movement in space.

**Figure 1.13:** Models for portraits (Potgieter 1987, 11)

Peter Kirchhoff Frikkie Kruger Hennie Potgieter

**Figure 1.14:** Photographs and carved portraits of the sculptors in *Departure* (photos top left to right courtesy of Kirchhoff files; HF Archives F 39.10.8 k, detail; UP Archives, undated *Dagbreek Spesiale Monument Uitgawe* 1949. Bottom row: photos Russell Scott)

Yet all are contained by the dominant form of the procession which runs parallel to the picture plane across the full width of the relief from left to right. People and animals aim generally in the same direction ‒ as did the actual treks which moved from south to north. This implies a strong unity and potently proclaims the ideology of a unified Great Trek. This is endorsed by the gloss for the first topic in the undated 'Panele' list from the mid-1930s, discussed in Part I,20 which added that the departure was to be characterised by 'determination' (vasberadenheid). This first scene of the frieze sets the standard for the narrative that follows in showing a well-ordered exodus of white people: no haphazard individual ventures, but a unified purposeful event. The subtle dynamics of the interplay between packing and being ready to leave do little to disrupt an overall sense of a static, tableau-like presentation. For Moerdyk the relief 'is filled with a serene calm'.21 It is an intended effect which the composition further endorses. Instead of a focal point around which the narrative is developed, it is spread out with a deliberate evenness, compatible with the coherent surface of the relief. The individual departures are turned into orchestrated conduct, a world apart from the confusion typical of such events. The romanticised narrative of a rich and ordered Voortrekker civilisation also signals the substantial loss that their departure had caused for the British colony in almost all areas of life, in the economy, in the administration, and in the protection of outlying regions.

Here, right at the beginning of the frieze, crucial values of the Afrikaner nation were given a distinct shape, such as the importance of both sexes, model behaviour, immaculate dress, control of livestock, invincible arms, untarnished chattels and ox wagons providing home, defence and transport in one. All endorsed the ideological Afrikaner parameters to which three of the four sculptors had been exposed since childhood. But no ideology is free from inconsistency. Illuminating here is how Hennie Potgieter later justified the depiction of the guitar (fig. 1.12), which some Afrikaners regarded as an instrument played only by 'coloured' people:

Then there was the objection that the guitar was a 'Hotnots-instrument', but at the farewell party for Andries Pretorius a coloured band performed and at Bloukrans and Weenen several hundred coloured servants were murdered along with the whites. If they accompanied the Trekkers then it is logical that their possessions were also on the wagons. Thus the guitar had a right to be depicted at the determined place in the Monument.22

However, only a mere object – and one of colonial origin – alluded to the presence of coloured servants.

*Presentation* **of the Bible to Jacobus Uys (April 1837)**

**A2/A3**

**B2**

**C2**

# **2** *Presentation*

East wall, north-east projection (panel 3/31) h. 2.3 × w. 2.4 m Sculptor of clay maquette: Hennie Potgieter

Stages of production

#### Early records

SVK minutes (4.9.1937) ― item 4b (see below, 'Developing the design')

Wenke (c. 1934–36) ― item VI. SEN. F.S. MALAN, 3 'Tweede toneel: Aanbieding van Bybel te Grahamstad aan

Voortrekker Uys' (Second scene: Presentation of Bible at Grahamstown to Voortrekker Uys)

Moerdyk Layout (5.10.1936–15.1.1937) ― scene 2 on panel 5/31 'Bybel en Uys' (Bible and Uys) Jansen Memorandum (19.1.1937) ― item 7.2 'The English inhabitants presenting Uys with a Bible before his

departure'

0 5 10 m

**Figure 2.1:** D. *Presentation*. 1949. Marble, 2.3 × 2.42 m (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott)

## **Description**

Two parties face each other, a male and female on the left, doubled on the right, on either side of a small table covered with a cloth like an altar (fig. 2.1). The group is united by the decorum of their dress and stance, although they differ slightly in pose, costume and hairstyle. The focus is on the two men at the table, facing each other and dressed in formal tailcoats. The man on the left holds out a large volume, its leather binding and decorative metal corners and clasps distinguishing it as a Bible. The balding older man on the right reaches out to receive it. Standing in a key position almost in the centre of the relief, this patriarchal figure seems to be one of the Trek leaders absent in the more general gathering of *Departure*, and indeed is identified as the elderly Jacobus Uys. Despite his not wearing a short Boer jacket, we realise that he is a Boer chiefly by his distinctive beard, long but trimmed to grow beneath his chin. The nationality of the giver is British, characterised by his clean-shaven face and wig-like coiffure. Behind him, a woman, perhaps his wife and presumably also British, observes the scene passively. While she wears a standard bonnet with a stiff brim, the older woman behind Uys wears a richly embroidered Voortrekker kappie with its deep, softer brim that shades the face. We can see that she is married from the wedding ring visible on her hand.

The national identity of the two figures on the far right is less certain, but their close grouping with the identifiably Voortrekker figures suggests that they too are Boers. The rather conventional beard of the man at the rear may mark him as Boer, but he wears a frock coat and, like the British man, a bowtie. The same uncertainty applies to the seated elderly woman, dressed in a formal hat, gloves and shoulder cape, as though ready for church, also suggested by the small book she holds, an intimate echo of the presentation Bible. Her clothes indicate status rather than nationality, but her position, seated on a small cushion on a wooden trunk with a handle for lifting, suggests that she is about to travel, and hence a Voortrekker. Her old, intensely wrinkled face is the most sensitively rendered portrait in the frieze, and reminds the viewer that all members of the Boer community, old as well as young, took part in the Trek.

We know that the ceremonial handover of the Bible took place at Grahamstown (then Graham's Town), but the setting for the presentation is left ambiguous.24 The draped table suggests an interior, yet this does not accord with the presence of a Voortrekker wagon in the background. However, there are no other indications of the out of doors, and the unnaturally flat outline and position parallel to the picture plane make the wagon look like part of a stage set, and reinforce the tableau effect of the composition. If the first scene made a formal occasion of the disarray of departure, the sense of decorum and order is even more pronounced here.

**24** For Grahamstown, see Sellick 1904; Oberholster 1972, 138–146 (opp. p.154 a painting of the settlement in 1823 by an unknown artist); Butler 1974; O'Meara 1995; Marshall 2008; Raper, Möller and Du Plessis 2014, 163.

**Figure 2.2:** A2. W.H. Coetzer. Reproduction of first sketch for *Presentation*. June 1937 (courtesy of ARCA PV94 1/75/5/1; photo the authors)

**Figure 2.3:** A3. W.H. Coetzer. 'Oorhandiging van Bybel aan Uys'. After September 1937. Pencil, 13.3 × 15.3 cm. Revised first sketch (photo courtesy of Museum Africa, no. 66/2194F)

**Figure 2.4:** J. Juta. *Settlers presenting a Bible to Jacobus Uys.* 1938. Oil on canvas, c. 3.35 × 9.14 m. Pretoria City Hall (courtesy of City of Tshwane; photo Helenus Kruger)

## **Developing the design**

Comparison with the two versions of Coetzer's drawing, the reproduction (fig. 2.2) and the revised sketch (fig. 2.3), makes it obvious how substantially the narrative shifted from paper to clay and marble. He portrayed a historically more plausible and less formal handover of the Bible, given to the Voortrekker patriarch Jacobus Uys by the representative of the English-speaking townsfolk when they called on the Voortrekkers while they 'outspanned' in the vicinity of Grahamstown, early in their long journey. This gives way to a strictly ceremonial image set up on an invented stage, frozen in relief. But let us first consider the alterations demanded by the Historiese Komitee on 4 September 1937:

Uys receives the Bible. The English under Thompson came on horses; there were women in riding costume; there were no children with the English; show also horses; the boers' clothing is too poor; the partiarch Uys (80 years) must be more worthy.25

In his revised drawing (fig. 2.3), Coetzer responded to the details of the SVK critique, drawn from anecdotes and oral history, but paid less attention to aspects that set the tone of the scene and characters. He removed the settlers' children as required, eliminated the baby of the couple to the left and the girl in the centre, and moved the man next to her to the left in her place; traces of his original legs can still be seen. The tree and hills in the background of the first sketch give way to the requested horses. There are now two wagons, not just one, and, on the side of Jacobus Uys, there is an additional Voortrekker. But Coetzer ignored the injunction that the Voortrekkers' clothing should be less poor and that partiarch Uys should be portrayed more worthily.

Both features, however, are present in the colossal oil on canvas mural painted by Jan Juta in 1938 for the Council Chamber of Pretoria's new City Hall (fig. 2.4). Juta designed a landscape with Uys as a towering patriarch in the centre, dwarfing the British settler in a tailcoat who presents the Bible to him.26 The ceremony is witnessed by a Voortrekker family on the left and two male settlers on the right. Like Coetzer, Juta chose a rural setting with wagons. But his wide landscape format provided room for labouring Boer figures and two flanking groups that might be interpreted as symbolising key factors in (Voortrekker) conquest: military prowess and procreation. The first is suggested by an armed group of Boers, with a woman attending a wounded man on the right. Procreation, on the other hand, is represented by an English mother with an infant on the left, although an 1820 settler rather than a trekker woman, identified by her dress and a distant scene of the settlers' landing at Algoa Bay. At a time when the fusion politics of Hertzog and Smuts' United Party was fostering a closer relationship between English- and Afrikaans-speaking South Africans, she stands for the importance of women, both British and Boer, in the growth of the nation.   Born in 1770/71, Uys was in fact sixty-six or sixty-seven years old: the advanced age claimed suggests a patriarch of biblical proportions.

**26** A reporter in a *Rand Daily Mail* article remarked that this Bible was at the time kept in Pretoria's 'Transvaal Museum, the building immediately facing the City Hall in which the [Juta] mural will be placed' (Freschi 2006, 103 n 13; the article is without date, but the context suggests that it was published in late 1936).

**Figure 2.5:** B2. Hennie Potgieter. *Presentation*. 1942–43. Plaster, 79 × 76 × 10.4 cm. Maquette (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott)

**Figure 2.6:** C2. *Presentation*. 1943– 46. Clay. Full-scale relief (courtesy of UCT Thompson A4.123–39; photo Alan Yates)

The same topic had been intended as the final oil panel in Juta's historical cycle in South Africa House, London, inaugurated in 1933. Charles Theodore Te Water, South African high commissioner from 1929 to 1939, stated the following year that it would celebrate

that the English Settlers presented to the patriarch Jacobus Uys and his Voortrekkers … a Bible as a token of their admiration for the religious qualities of the Boers, and as an appreciation of their kindness and hospitality to the 1820 Settlers in those times of trial and need.28

Although this scene never materialised, the early date of this painting suggests that a sketch of its design could have been known to Coetzer. In contrast to the expansive nature of Pretoria's City Hall mural, Te Water's description suggests that Juta's London mural would have focused on the 'religious qualities' and 'racial friendliness between the English and the Dutch races in South Africa',29 an emphasis close to the scene commissioned by the SVK and developed by Coetzer and the sculptors for the Voortrekker Monument.

Superficially, the small plaster maquette for the frieze seems to follow Coetzer's drawing, but upon closer inspection significant changes are evident (fig. 2.5). Now the Voortrekkers are better dressed, although the cropped trouser legs of the Boer men are more homely than the Englishman's. The participants, distributed more pointedly into two groups facing each other, are made more emphatically part of the handover of the Bible. The act is also more articulated as both the Englishman and Jacobus Uys look down at the Bible. The focus on the ceremony is further emphasised by Potgieter following the first Coetzer sketch that omitted horses and had a single wagon, now more formally arranged (fig. 2.3). Yet there are also contrary tendencies. The Bible is considerably smaller, the women wear no hats and the bald old Voortrekker seated conspiciously in the right foreground diverts attention from the presentation, as does the female spectator that appears between the Englishman and Uys. We also note the inclusion of a little girl, contrary to the committee's exclusion of children.

The shift between the maquette and the final relief compositions, achieved when Potgieter and the other sculptors started to work on the full-size clay model (fig. 2.6), is very pronounced. Curiously, the final treatment inverts Coetzer's response to the advice of the committee: it eschews the anecdotal detail which he corrected, but invests the scene with the sense of worthiness required by the committee. One wonders whether the sculptors had access to the minutes of the Historiese Komitee of 4.9.1937; Moerdyk would certainly have done so. Whether this was the case or not, what becomes clear in this panel is that the desire to dignify the events related to the Voortrekkers was a key driver in the conceptualisation of the frieze. When the SVK met on 15 and 16 January 1942, it was noted that that members of the SVK would visit Harmony Hall during the process of production, in ample time to allow for suggestions for changes, and no doubt the desire to present the Voortrekkers in a decorous way had not diminished over time. The static quality of the figures adds to the formality, particularly that of the two on the right whose bodies are presented frontally although their heads are turned towards the presentation, which adds to the tableau effect and the planar nature of the relief, and endows the event with a sense of gravitas and profound significance.

**28** Te Water 1934, 263; see Freschi 2006, 103–104.

**29** Te Water 1934, 263.

**34** 2 Presentation

**Figure 2.7:** Eastern Cape treks including the Uys trek beginning in Uitenhage, north-west of Port Elizabeth (courtesy of Visagie 2014, foldout opp. p.16)

## **Reading the narrative**

It was in April 1837 that the trekker party, led by Petrus Lafras (Piet) Uys (1797–1838),30 the second son of the family's patriarch Jacobus Johannes Uys (1770/71–1838),31 abandoned their homes in the rural area around Uitenhage. On 20 April 1837, 'a party of 23 wagons and upwards of a hundred souls …'32 on their way to the far north reached Grahamstown, a fledgling British settlement situated roughly one hundred and thirty kilometres north-east of Uitenhage (fig. 2.7). After their arrival the Boers camped on the northern 'flats above the town, near where the Cradock road passes'.33 According to the Boer-friendly *Graham's Town Journal* of 27 April 1837, a Bible

was taken out to the encampment by a deputation of gentlemen, accompanied by about 100 inhabitants of Graham's Town, who were received with much respect by the assembled farmers and their families, drawn up in line in front of their wagons.34

In the *Official Programme* published in 1949 for the Monument's inauguration, we are told that the portrait of the English presenter of the Bible on the frieze, 'was obtained from his great-grandson, Mr. Justice C. Newton Thompson, and the representation of this historic personality is therefore completely true to life'.35 Hennie Potgieter confirms the source in his diagram of the models used for the scene (fig. 2.8). He states that W.R. Thompson, who presents the Bible to Uys, was portrayed 'after an old painting' (fig. 2.9),36 while he identifies the live model for Jacobus Uys as Mr Louis van Bergen (fig. 2.10). And indeed characteristics such as the hairstyle, the coiffured sideburns and a few age markers are taken from the 'old painting' for the frieze portrait of the Englishman, though it is thoroughly idealised (fig. 2.11).37 However, Thelma Gutsche clarified on 3 November 1966 in her 'Aide Memoire: Mrs Newton Thompson – Portrait of W.R. Thompson':

The 'portrait' of W.R. Thompson hanging in the Council Chamber of the first floor of the Graham's Town City Hall is in fact a dim enlargement of a photograph which has been heavily over-lined with a charcoal pencil to compensate for its faded appearance. A mount of oval shape has been superimposed upon it and the charcoal touching-up was evidently done after the mounting as the pencil strokes ended on the edge of the mount upon which has been inscribed post hoc – W.R. Thompson Mayor 1837.

 ... [The photographer,] James Edward Burton … operated … at an address in Jetty Street, Port Elizabeth for the period 1848–1873 …38

This makes it likely that the photograph was taken between 1848 and 1871, the year of Thompson's death.

But there is much more at stake here than the quality of W.R. Thompson's portrait: the identity of the Englishman is in question. When we want to know which Grahamstown notable presented the Bible to the trekker patriarch, Jacobus Uys, we find conflicting identifications: either William Rowland Thompson (1797‒1871) or Thomas Philipps (1776‒1859).39 The different claims require closer inspection as they show how the assertion of the historical accuracy of the frieze –

**30** Visagie 2011, 504–505. For his death at Italeni, see *Dirkie Uys.*

**31** Ibid., 503. For the Uys family, see Uys 1976; Uys 1988, 33–34.

**32** Newton Thompson 1966, 143–144, quoting the *Graham's Town Journal*, 20 April 1837.

**33** Cory, *South Africa* 3, 1919, 401.

**34** Chase, *Natal* 1, 1843, 93–94; Harington 1973, 65.

**35** *Official Programme* 1949, 49.

**36** Newton Thompson 1966, fig. after p.164.

**37** If Thompson had been the presenter of the Bible, he would have been forty years old at the time.

**38** UCT Thompson A4.219.

**39** *DSAB* 2, 1972, 542–543 (T. Philipps), 746–747 (W.R. Thompson). For the latter, see also UCT Thompson.

incessantly intoned by SVK members, Moerdyk and the sculptors – was handled in practice and modified when appropriate for Afrikaner agendas.

As with many other newspapers of the time, *The Cape Argus* (8.7.1938) stated that it was W.R. Thompson who presented the Bible to Uys. In the article 'The Hon. Mr. Justice C. Newton Thompson', published in *The South African Law Journal* in 1946,40 it was still claimed that

William Rowland Thompson, the great-grandfather of [Cyril] Newton Thompson, presented a Bible on behalf of the citizens of Graham's Town to Jacobus Uys and his party of Voortrekkers when they were on their way to the north. In 1938, at the invitation of the head committee of management of the great Symbolic Trek, Newton Thompson, on behalf of the Thompson family, presented another Bible to the leader of the Trek [Henning J. Klopper] at the historic send-off at the foot of Adderley Street, Cape Town.41

The same Thompson had been mentioned as the presenter when Coetzer's drawings were criticised by the Historiese Komitee on 4 September 1937. The story is fleshed out in the substantial memorial book published for the centenary that was celebrated on site on 16 December 1938.42

**40** Newton Thompson 1946, 1.

**41** This seems to be the 'Klopper-Bybel', a State Bible, which the Cape Town trek leader Henning J. Klopper (a founder of the nationalistic Afrikaner Broederbond) presented to the SVK to be, together with the other items, placed behind the Monument's foundation stone (Duvenage, *Gedenktrek* 1988, 202–203; Heunis 2008, 186 s.v. Pretoria). In an undated inventory of these items in the Jansen archive at Bloemfontein, this Bible is referenced as 'State Bybel, 1729' (ARCA, Jansen EG PV94 1/75/1/9, numbered '.22' in pencil at the upper right corner). For further (State) Bibles presented on that occasion, see Mostert 1940, 113–114.

**42** Du Toit and Steenkamp 1938, 44–45. This error was repeated and compounded as late as 2008, when Richard Marshall (2008, 33) recorded that W.R. Thompson was an influential merchant of Grahamstown, who 'presented a bible to the departing Dirk Uys [sic]', though it was in fact presented to Jacobus Uys. Dirk Uys could only have referred to either the fourth son of Jacobus Uys (born 1814; Visagie 2011, 502) or Piet Uys' second son (born 1823; ibid., 503).

**Figure 2.9:** Undated portrait of W.R. Thompson (Newton Thompson 1966, after p.164)

**Figure 2.10:** Mr Louis van Bergen, model for Jacobus Uys (Van der Walt 1974, 81)

**Figure 2.11:** 'Thompson' handing Bible to Uys in *Presentation*. Full-scale clay relief, detail of fig. 2.6 (photo Alan Yates)

That book mentions the *Graham's Town Journal* and even includes verbal quotes from both W.R. Thompson and Jacobus Uys, but does not provide a clear reference. A further layer to the story was added by the *Official Programme* published in 1949 for the Monument's inauguration, when W.R. Thompson is identified not only as the presenter, his likeness taken from a portrait, but as 'the Mayor of Grahamstown'.43 This needs correction. In 1919 George Cory had explained that in 1837 'seven commissioners were appointed [of whom W.R. Thompson is the first named] and formed what may be called the first Town Council of Graham's Town',44 so there was no mayoral appointment. But more significant is the constant claim that he was the presenter of the Bible, repeated by Cory himself:

Mr. W.R. Thompson made the presentation, saying that ever since the arrival of the British settlers, seventeen years ago, there had always been the greatest cordiality between themselves and their Dutch neighbours … Thus in these days were British and Dutch united.45

At the Monument's inauguration on 16 December 1949, this identification was reinforced when Justice Cyril Newton Thompson, a great-grandson of W.R. Thompson,46 who had previously presented a Bible to Henning Klopper at the outset of the 1938 ossewatrek, was chosen as one of the five key speakers at the Monument's inauguration on 16 December 1949.47 According to *The Cape Argus* of 24 December, which published an English translation of his Afrikaans address, he proudly proclaimed that the scene in the Voortrekker frieze 'portrays the presentation of the Bible by my great grandfather to Jacobus Uys'.48 In 2001 Jackie Grobler invented another version in stating that 'Judge C Newton Thompson … was a descendant of the Justice of the Peace, Phillips [sic]'.49

The wrongly claimed lineage of Cyril Newton Thompson from Thomas Philipps (1776‒1859) is presumably an attempt to reconcile a revised account replacing Thompson as Bible presenter with Philipps. The incorrect citing of Thompson was found in publications for the centenary and inauguration and the first edition of the *Official Guide* in 1955, but had been corrected in later editions, when Thomas Philipps, Justice of Peace in Grahamstown and first master of the Masonic Albany Lodge, founded in 1828,50 is named as the person who presented the Bible to Jacobus Uys.51 Harald Edward Hockly, referring to the contemporary report in the *Graham's Town Journal* of 27 April 1837, confirms this as the correct version of the event:

The climax to a most moving event was reached when, in an impressive silence charged with deep emotion, the Bible was solemnly handed over to Jacobus Uys by the chosen leader of the settlers, the popular and respected Thomas Philipps, J.P., an energetic and successful farmer at Glendour on the

**50** Dru Drury 1928, 8–11; Cooper 1980, 96; see also *Murder of Retief* (appendix).

**44** Cory, *South Africa* 3, 1919, 426. Newton Thompson (1966, 146) adds that the seven commissioners were elected in May 1837 and 'Thompson topped the poll', which made him 'Chairman'.

**45** Cory 1919, 402. Quoted, for example, in memory of this event in the centenary year, when the foundation stone of the Voortrekker Monument was laid, by *The Cape Argus* 8.11.1938; see UCT Thompson 'Newspaper clippings, 1938– 1950'.

**46** Newton Thompson 1946, 1.

**47** *Official Guide* 1970, 75. See *Dagbreek*, 30.10.1949 'Engelssprekende sal Afrikaanse rede by inwyding lewer'. His speech is also cited in Botha 1952, 280–282.

**48** The article's headline reads: 'Two sections of one nation? Stirring appeal to English and Afrikaner'; see UCT Thompson 'Newspaper clippings, 1938–1950'.

**49** Grobler 2001, 72. The accessible records of Thomas Philipps' family show no links to the Thompsons of Grahamstown. For Philipps, see Hockly 1957, 37 and passim (after p.128: contemporary portrait); Keppel-Jones 1960 and *DSAB*  2, 1972, 542–543.

**51** *Official Guide*, first edition 1955, 46: 'The Mayor of Grahamstown, who undertook the presentation, was a forefather of Mr. Justice Newton Thompson, who spoke on behalf of the English-speaking South-Africans during the inauguration ceremony at the Voortrekker Monument in 1949. A photograph of the Mayor was obtained from Mr Justice Thompson and used for the panel so that it can be accepted that the representation on the panel is a faithful one.' Few of the later editions of the *Guide* are dated, which makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly when the correction was made but, using the changeover to decimal coinage of 1961 as a guide, one can deduce that it was in the mid-1960s. An English edition where the price is given in both shillings and cents (6/6; 65c), presumably soon after the change, still has Thompson as the presenter, but undated English editions priced only in cents (65c) have corrected this to Philipps, as has the edition which is dated 1969. Curiously, while the Afrikaans was also corrected (confirmed in an edition dated 1972), the Afrikaans version dated 1976 (a compressed edition in a smaller font) still cites Thompson.

coast. This public-spirited citizen, who had so frequently in the past acted as the settlers' representative and spokesman on important public occasions, well deserved the signal honour of once again playing the principal part at this historic function.52

The *Graham's Town Journal* from 27 April 1837 resolves the apparent contradiction. Here we learn that the Bible 'was presented by Thos. Philipps, Esq., J.P.' but that the 'address … was read by Mr. W.R. Thompson'.53 Thompson stated in his address: 'My good friends, … I am deputed, together with the gentlemen who accompany me, now to present it [the Bible] to you …,' which may have contributed to the confusion, but the ceremonial handing over of the Bible to Jacobus Uys was done by Philipps.54 The short address Philipps 'had been asked to present was read on his behalf by one citizen in English and another in Dutch, after which P.[hilipps] presented the Bible to Jacobus Uys'.55

Both Thompson and Philipps, representatives of two prominent families of Grahamstown, were later memorialised in these public functions by the Grahamstown Bible Monument, commissioned by the local 'Bible Monument Committee' on 16 December 1957 and erected in the area of the historical Voortrekker encampment.56 The monument, two stone walls in the form of an open bible, each decorated by a bronze relief and an inscription (fig. 2.12), was unveiled by President C.R. Swart on 17 December 1962, the day after the anniversary of the Battle of Blood River. The left wall is reserved to represent the British – a settler and Thompson headed by Philipps with the Bible; and the right one for the Boers – a trekker and a woman framing Jacobus Uys with his arms open to receive the gift.57 The composition of the small bronze reliefs, made by the Eastern Cape sculptor Ivan Graham Mitford-Barberton (1898–1974),58 is not unlike the Monument's *Presentation* of the Bible, no doubt too significant a forerunner to be ignored. The inauguration programme of the Bible Monument confirms:

The presentation [of the Bible] was made by Thomas Philipps, assisted by W.R. Thompson who made the speech … The Bible Monument marks the spot where this presentation took place and will ever remain as a memory of the spirit of good fellowship which characterised the two White races in South Africa.59

The Dutch Bible which Philipps presented in 1837 was 'the most respectable and truly valuable present which could be made to them [the departing Boers], a folio copy of the Sacred Scriptures …, in massy Russian binding' (fig. 2.13).60 It was printed in 1756 in Dordrecht by the well-known Jacob and Hendrick Keur, 'extra-illustrated with 252 Biblical scenes on 126 engraved plates' and based on the text the Dutch Reformed Church presented at the Synod of Dort in 1618/19.61 'The cost

**52** Hockly (1957, 139–41, p.140, quote) is paraphrasing the *Graham's Town Journal*, correct in substance but not word for word. The original text of the *Graham's Town Journal*, 27.4.1837, is reproduced by Chase, *Natal* 1, 1843, 92–95.

**53** Ibid., 94. See also Newton Thompson 1966, 144 (with marginal divergences from the *Journal's* original text); Butler 1974, 279–280; typed biography of 'William Rowland Thompson. Frontier Merchant' (UCT Thompson A1.1–A2.14, p.8). **54** *Graham's Town Journal*, 27.4.1837 (Chase, *Natal* 1, 1843, 94); Newton Thompson 1966, 145.

**55** *DSAB* 1, 1968, 543.

**56** UCT Thompson A4.179–A4.222; Muller 1978, 46 fig. 17.

**57** The inscriptions, in English on the 'British' and Afrikaans on the 'Boer' wall, deserve further attention.

**58** See Part I, Chapter 2 ('Van Wouw and Moerdyk').

**59** UCT Thompson A4.179–A4.222.

**60** *Graham's Town Journal*, 27.4.1837 (Chase, *Natal* 1, 1843, 93).

**61** Quotation from a detailed description of the 1756 edition (https://www.sotherans.co.uk/2080058). For Dordt and South Africa, see Coertzen 2012. We owe to Etta Judson valuable information about this Bible which is presently kept in the Voortrekker Monument Museum as a loan from the Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History (formerly Transvaal Museum); she kindly permitted us to study and Russell Scott to photograph it.

**Figure 2.12:** Ivan Mitford-Barberton. Bible Monument, Grahamstown. 1962. Bronze panels with English settlers presenting Bible (left side of monument) to Voortrekkers (right side) (photos the authors)

of this handsome volume was one hundred Rijks Dollars, which was raised by a subscription of 1/- [one shilling] each.'62 On the outside of the front cover is inscribed in Dutch in gold capital letters:63

> The Gift of the inhabitants of Graham's Town and its neighbourhood to Mr. Jacobus Uys and his emigrating countrymen64

Printed on the inside of the cover (on the flyleaf) is the following inscription in Dutch:

This Sacred Volume Is presented to Mr. Jacobus Uys, and his expatriating Countrymen, by the Inhabitants of Graham's Town and its vicinity, as a farewell token of their esteem and heartfelt regret at their departure. The anxiety which they have evinced to endeavour to obtain a Minister of Religion, and their strict observance of its ordinances, are evident proofs, that in their wanderings in search of another land they will be guided by the precepts contained in this Holy Book, and steadfastly adhere to its solemn dictates ‒ the stern decrees of the Creator of the Universe, The God of all Nations and Tribes!65

The gift of a richly illustrated Dordrecht Bible dedicated with Christian sympathy to the Voortrekkers by the British people of Grahamstown bears testimony to the social interaction between the settlers and the emigrants. It is likely that the British settlers felt a particular empathy with the Voortrekkers as they had themselves so recently been emigrants. Jacobus Johannes Uys, the recipient of the Bible, was given the nickname 'Koos Bybel' in honour of 'his deep religious convictions which he instilled into his family',66 which may explain why the Bible itself, today on display in the Voortrekker Monument Museum, came to be known as the Koos Bybel.

Looking again at the panel at the Monument, the weighty solemnity of the representation in marble is increased by the fact that the participants are portrayed formally in town dress as though

**62** Newton Thompson (1966, 144), who quotes further from the *Graham's Town Journal*, 20 April 1837: 'We understand that a subscription has been opened in this town for the purchase of a splendid edition of the Sacred Volume in the Dutch language to be presented to our expatriating fellow colonists …'

**63** The English translation of the two following dedications is from the *Graham's Town Journal*, 27.4.1837 (Chase, *Natal* 1, 1843, 93).

**64** 'Geschenk van de / inwoonders van Grahams Stad / en / nabyheid / aan den Heer / Jacobus Uys / en zyne weggetrokkene / landgenooten.'

**65** 'Dit Heilig Boek / is gepresenteerd aan / Den Heer Jacobus Uys, / en Zyn Vertrokkene Landgenoten, door de Inwoonders van Graham's Stad en omtrek, / tot een / Vaarwel Gedenkteeken / Van hun Hoogachting, en hartelyke Leedwezen op / hun Vertrek. / De angstvalligheid welke zylieden betoond hebben om te tracten een Prediker te / verkrygen, en hunne stiptelyke na z[two illegible letters]ling der Heilige Instellingen, zyn duidelyke / bewyzen dat in hunne wandelingen om een ander Land te zoeken, zy zich zullen laten / geleiden door de Bevelen in dit Heilig Boek begrepen, en standvastiglyk aankleven / aan deszelfs Heilige Wetten ‒ de strenge Besluiten van den Schepper van het Heelal – / Den God van alle Natien en Volkeren.' For the text see also Newton Thompson 1966, 144 (with marginal mistakes); Butler 1974, 279–280. The Dutch translation has been credited to Louis Henri Meurant (alias Klaas Waarzegger), who founded the *Graham's Town Journal* in 1831 (see *Murder of Retief*).

**66** Uys 1976, 2; Visagie 2011, 503.

**Figure 2.13:** Uys Bible. 1756. Printed in Dordrecht by Jacob and Hendrik Keur (courtesy of HF VTM Collection B1; photos Russell Scott left, the authors right)

the Voortrekkers were not yet on their way, but gathered ceremonially in Grahamstown, in a way perhaps not dissimilar to the white dignitaries gathered at the Voortrekker Monument's inauguration. For our study three aspects are crucial. First, *Presentation* underlines the acknowledgement of the historical importance given to the treks not only by the Boers but also by British people, and the recognition of the fundamental role of Christianity in the treks. Second, the Bible ceremony is a vivid demonstration of the British settlers' sympathy with Piet Retief's manifesto published only two months before, on 2 February 1837 in the same *Graham's Town Journal*, which Etherington characterised as a 'cheering squad for the trekking movement' (see *Inauguration*).67 Third, beyond the intentional meanings inscribed in the relief, this case shows that the key interest of the SVK and the *Official Guide* was not to scrutinise available historical records and avoid factual contradiction, but to reinforce commonly held beliefs. The myth was being (re)invented even as it was set in stone.

The commitment to and mission of Dutch Reformed Church Christianity is the principal theme of this second scene of the frieze. As stated in the *Official Guide,* 'The presentation of the Bible is inserted at the beginning of the frieze because the Bible was to the Voortrekkers a shining light on their path.'68 Moerdyk comments that it 'was left to the Voortrekkers ‒ the descendants of the Dutch colonists and Huguenots ‒ to force, at a great price, an entry into the interior and establish a white civilisation';69 a civilisation which is constantly associated with the Protestant beliefs instituted

**67** Etherington 2001, 257–259 (quote p.257), who discusses the manifesto in the wider political context of the time. **68** *Official Guide* 1955, 46.

**69** *Official Guide* 1970, 31. The apartheid emphasis on establishing 'a white civilisation' here contrasts with the wording of the earliest edition that simply said, 'which had been unconquered unto then' (1955, 32).

early in European settlement, which Afrikaners later claimed the Voortrekkers had maintained and nurtured. The ritual of handing over the Bible legitimated the historical mandate and dynamic character of this assertion, further upheld by the ongoing use of the Koos Bybel by the trekkers.70

When, between 1934 and 1936, the public and SVK members were asked to contribute ideas for the narrative of the Great Trek, they proposed inter alia the depiction of religious services ‒ held in a tent with the coloured servants amongst those listening, or catechism lessons on the Trek – although these were not included in the final narrative.71 *Presentation* reinforces a religious message of a similar kind, and imbues it with a ceremonial quality suited to this special occasion, while avoiding the inclusion of any black servants. But there is more to the choice of this particular scene. The literature about the Monument stresses that the event was evidence that British settlers supported the Voortrekkers. Yet, while the marble recognises the mutual respect of British and Boer in the narrative of the Great Trek, as did Jan Juta's painting for Pretoria's City Hall, it does not acknowledge British rule. Rather, the support of English-speaking townsfolk for the emigrant Voortrekkers underlines that these recent settlers also took exception to the policies of the British authorities, acknowledging the Boer cause.

Through the collective focus on the Dordrecht Bible, supported by the arrangement of participants turning towards it, the relief creates a strong sense of solidarity. However, it is still dominated by the Boer majority, two of them in expansive frontal positions that further strengthen their primacy in the narrative. Further distinctions are created for them by another iconographic choice. Whereas all participants are depicted with clear portrait features, the Boers are distinguished by their seniority, all showing signs of maturity if not old age. One wonders whether this was meant as a subtle substantiation of the Boers' longer establishment on South Africa's soil.72

**70** This is confirmed by an entry in Erasmus Smit's diary on 11 June 1938 that describes a meeting presided over by Jacobus Nicolaas Boshof jr (1808–81; see Visagie 2011, 65–66), a leading Boer and later state president of the Orange Free State (1855–59), who read a text from 'the Octavo Bible presented in Grahamstown' (Smit trans. Mears 1972, 116; Dutch text: Smit ed. Scholtz 1988, 142).

**71** 'Wenke', item II Dr L. Steenkamp, M. Basson, A.J. du Plessis, A.1. 'Godsdienstig' (Religious); item VI.8 SEN. F.S. MALAN 'Ander toneel: Gewone godsdiensoefening onder 'n tent, met gekleurde bediens onder die gehoor' (Further scenes: Regular church service inside a tent with coloured servants in the congregation). **72** See *Official Guide* 1955, 33.

**3 Trichardt at** *Soutpansberg* **(summer 1836 to autumn 1837)**

**A1/A2/A3**

**B2a/b**

**C2**

# **3** *Soutpansberg*

North wall, north-east projection, above door (panel 4/31) h. 2.3 × w. 2.4 m

Restored fractures on vertical edges

Sculptor of clay maquettes: Hennie Potgieter

#### Stages of production

b. New unfinished one-third-scale plaster maquette, h. 78.3 × w. 86.6 m × d. 8 cm (1942–43)

#### Early records

SVK minutes (4.9.1937) ― item 4c (see below, 'Developing the design')

Moerdyk Layout (5.10.1936–15.1.1937) ― scene 3 on panel 6/31 'Trichardt Z.P.Berg' (Trichardt [in] Soutpansberg) Jansen Memorandum (19.1.1937) ― item 7.3 'Trichardt at the foot of the Zoutpansberg Mountains'

0 5 10 m

**Figure 3.1:** D. *Soutpansberg*. 1949. Marble, 2.3 × 2.4 m (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott)

## **Description**

As also with *Blydevooruitsig*, *Marthinus Oosthuizen* and *Mpande*, the composition is determined by the odd shape of the relief panel, as a triangular section to accommodate the gable-shaped door frame is cut out off-centre (fig. 3.1). The remaining space is shared by five people, a woman and four men ‒ three of them in the short buttoned-up jackets typically worn by the Voortrekkers on the frieze. Although cut off by the door frame, the older man in the centre is clearly the main figure, his importance emphasised by his height, formal frontal pose, and the grouping of two figures on either side of him. His dress and beard, the latter like a ruffle under his cheeks and chin, tell us he is a Voortrekker, identified as the leader, Louis Trichardt. He holds an elephant tusk, point uppermost, while the beardless Boer in profile on the far left holds another in reverse position. In front of him is a youth, kneeling in a three-quarter view. He is holding a book upright, supported on other volumes piled rather precariously on the sloping edge of the door frame.

On the right two persons are depicted almost back to back, a mature woman and a younger man. She is seated on the other slope of the door frame in a complex pose, with legs to her right, but profile head facing left towards Trichardt. Her hair is neatly combed and drawn tightly into a bun, and she wears a long-sleeved dress, its skirt gathered into a fitted bodice with a shawl collar, fastened with a brooch. The ring on her left hand, which holds her folded kappie, suggests she is Trichardt's wife. The broad-shouldered man behind her in a long travelling coat (based on an amateur wrestler model, Potgieter tells us) is seen from the back as he carries a bundle of hides to a wagon. He is the only person both looking and moving away from the centre, his pose no doubt introduced by the sculptor to enliven a rather static scene, and to act as a link to the succeeding panel. Although there are two figures on either side of the central one, this diversity, in part a response to the difficult format, breaks the symmetry by setting off immobility on the left against more complex movement on the right. And there the two figures, back to back, are themselves characterised by oppositions such as female and male, seated and standing, staying and departing, and facing left and right.

The limited space behind the figures is filled with objects right up to the panel's top margin. For lack of space the Voortrekker wagon behind the group is, uniquely, uncovered. Hard against it on the left is a building meant to represent a schoolhouse, and further away, on the right, a massive flat-topped mountain.

**Figure 3.2:** A1. W.H. Coetzer. 'Trichardt Zoutpansberg'. Before June 1937. Pencil, 13.4 × 15.3 cm. First sketch (photo courtesy of Museum Africa, no. 66/2194E)

**Figure 3.3:** A2. W.H. Coetzer. Reproduction of first sketch for *Soutpansberg*. June 1937 (courtesy of ARCA PV94 1/75/5/1; photo the authors)

**Figure 3.4:** A3. W.H. Coetzer. 'Trichardt Zoutpansberg'. After September 1937. Pencil, 13.4 × 15.3 cm. New sketch (Museum Africa, no. 66/2194A; photo courtesy of Museum Africa)

**Figure 3.5:** A4. W.H. Coetzer. *Trigardt by die Souijtpansberg*. Late 1937–38? Oil, 25.4 × 30.5 cm (Coetzer 1947, 73)

## **Developing the design**

The pencil drawing of this scene which Coetzer presented to the SVK (26.6.1937) exists identically in linear form in both the Museum Africa (A1: original; fig. 3.2) and the ARCA collections (A2: reproduction; fig. 3.3), and there is also a different drawing, more developed with shading, in Museum Africa (A3; fig. 3.4), fully revised in response to the demands of the Historiese Komitee. This sequence of designs in relation to the committee's critique is crucial to our argument that Coetzer made the more developed pencil drawings after the purely linear drawings of the reproductions.

The first design that was rejected (figs 3.2, 3.3) emphasised trading, with men loading animal skins behind, and ivory tusks in the foreground presided over by Louis Trichardt in a large hat. A boy with a dog on the left and a cup and saucer on a sack on the right rather arbitrarily fill the foreground corners. Beyond the figures is a small thatched building and ploughed fields, with a distinctive thorn tree and a grand flat-topped mountain locating the scene in the far north. At the review meeting on 4 September 1937, the Historiese Komitee requested a complete redrawing, the only case we know of when a Coetzer sketch was wholly rejected:

Trichardt in Soutpansberg. This must be redone entirely. Read Trichardt's diary and show among other things scenes where Botha mends a wagon wheel or does something similar; women pick green mielies; the boers drank out of round bowls; the school must be in the foreground; show old Daniel Pfeffer and children that are walking to school; remember some of them were already fairly big.73

The second drawing (fig. 3.4), produced after the review meeting sometime before March 1938, is entirely different. As demanded, it focuses on Voortrekker Botha (in shirt sleeves) mending a wheel,74 women picking mealies,75 the corner of a (school) structure in the foreground (with an animal hide as a mat next to the door), and old Daniel Pfeffer accompanied by two girls and an older youth, each dressed with propriety. All that remains from the first drawing is a modified version of the tree and the mountain in the background. Coetzer's monochrome oil on canvas of the subject (fig. 3.5) largely follows the design of the second drawing but creates a more visible structure in the background (appropriately with a thatched roof), shows Botha more actively engaged in his carpentry, and distinguishes Pfeffer as a taller more patriarchal figure. In his book *My Kwas Vertel,* Coetzer stated that 'this panel is a sketch in the series intended for the Voortrekker Monument',76 although we have no evidence that this painting was seen by the sculptors.

As in many other cases, the demands of the Historiese Komitee were disregarded: it was not the redrawn but the rejected first drawing (figs 3.2, 3.3) which served as a blueprint for the sculptors, when, some five years later, they started making the small clay models from which the extant plaster maquettes were taken. It seems the old arguments had been forgotten, yet some additions in the second maquette design that has survived do reflect ideas similar to some of those expressed by the Historiese Komitee, as discussed in Part I.77

As in the drawing, where six figures comfortably occupied the square format (fig. 3.2), six figures are clustered around the challenging format in the earlier plaster maquette (fig. 3.6).

**73** 'Trichardt in Soutpansberg. Die toneel moet heeltemal oorgedoen word.  The motif of the wagon wheel is synonymous with the treks, used by Coetzer in the design of commemorative stamps and other items for the Monument, and still common in Afrikaner popular culture.

**75** Mealies are mentioned, for example, in Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 51.

**76** Coetzer 1947, 72–73: 'Die paneel is 'n skets in die reeks wat vir die Voortrekker-Monument bedoel is.'

**77** Chapter 2 ('Coetzer and the frieze').

**Figure 3.6:** B2a. Hennie Potgieter. *Soutpansberg*. 1942–43. Plaster, 76.5 × 89.8 × 8.5 cm. Rejected maquette (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott)

**Figure 3.7:** B2b. Hennie Potgieter. *Soutpansberg*. 1942–43. Plaster, 78.3 × 86.6 × 8 cm. New maquette (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott)

**Figure 3.8:** C2. *Soutpansberg*. 1943–46. Clay. Full-scale relief (courtesy of UP Archives; photo Alan Yates)

Trichardt, the main person in the centre with a long beard and a hat, holds an elephant tusk; he is flanked by five men, all, like him, in shirt sleeves. Standing figures to the rear, two in back view, carry goods for loading in the large open wagon behind the group. In the foreground, two bearded men handle large chests balanced on either side of the sloping door frame; to reach the chests in their low placement, the man on the left kneels, while his counterpart leans forward awkwardly as though climbing steps. The seventh figure, tucked between the men on the right, is a young woman, perhaps Trichardt's wife. The scene is crowded, which makes the basic problem of the multifaceted subject obvious: in a restricted space the sculptor tried to represent various aspects of the settlement at Soutpansberg, its hunting and its trade, and possibly the education Trichardt introduced, suggested by the books in one of the chests and the building in the background, which might represent the school.

Unavoidably, a second design was needed (fig. 3.7). It is only roughed out in the second small plaster, the blobs of clay demonstrating the sculptor's technique. It presents a more balanced composition, reduced to five figures, and close to the final design. A key point is the taller intrusion of the door frame, presumably required by the architect to match the correct proportions of the doorway, which forces greater engagement of the side figures with the panel's shape. They provide a counterpoint to the previous emphasis on trade, with the female figure brought into the foreground on the right, and the kneeling male figure opposite now more clearly shown with books. And the men now wear more formal jackets.

The full-scale clay panel (fig. 3.8) elaborates and refines the form and composition of the second small plaster, and endows the figures with individuality. As already suggested by the second maquette, dress is more formal, and the woman, modelled on Mrs Ackerman, one of the three Voortrekker descendants chosen to lay the foundation stone for the 1938 centenary, is shown in the actual dress she wore on that occasion. The final marble (fig. 3.1) follows the blueprint of the full-scale clay prototype, as was usually the case. However, two differences in finishing details are striking. In the final clay the portraits of Trichardt and his wife appear less aged, and the folds of

**Figure 3.9:** Models for portraits (Potgieter 1987, 13)

**Figure 3.10:** Mrs C.F. Ackerman, photographed at the centenary in 1938, model for Trichardt's wife in *Soutpansberg*. Marble (photos left courtesy of Unisa; right Russell Scott)

> the kneeling man's trousers and the woman's dress next to the door frame correspond more closely to the character of fabric, whereas the Florentine sculptors carved them rather clumsily. Both deviations highlight an occasionally less refined stylistic quality at the Romanelli workshop. And, as is obvious in all the scenes of the frieze, modelling in clay allowed for greater plasticity and liveliness than did sculpting in marble, and could produce a more dynamic effect.

## **Reading the narrative**

The five people are self-absorbed and do not interact. As a result, the entire image feels decidedly staged. Louis Trichardt (1783–1838),78 as the leader of the first trek, is centrally placed, and the mature woman seated next to him probably represents his wife Martha (the same model is used for her depiction in *Delagoa Bay*), although this identity has never been confirmed. In contrast to the other three people, the couple is predominantly frontal in presentation, even though she twists to look towards him. The couple's importance is further underlined by the models' links to the historical narrative. Trichardt's portrait was modelled after an old drawing said to have been made in his lifetime.79 The sitter for the woman, here identified as his wife, was Mrs Katharina Fredrika Ackerman,80 an important figure in the Monument's centenary celebrations, and the great-granddaughter of Voortrekker leader Andries Hendrik Potgieter, who had visited Trichardt in June 1836. Apart from being identified by Hennie Potgieter in his 1987 publication (fig. 3.9), Mrs Ackerman is easily recognisable from contemporary photographs (fig. 3.10).81

Trichardt led the first 'voortrek' to leave the Colony permanently in September 1835.82 About a year before, then Lieutenant Colonel Harry Smith had already framed the British view on Trichardt in a scathing sentence: 'That villain of a Boer is notorious, as well as his family, I understand, for their hereditary animosity towards the British.'83 Against the explanation of Trichardt's departure in Afrikaner accounts – that he was 'driven out of Cape Colony by despair at the hesitant British frontier policy' – Oliver Ransford argued that 'a good deal of evidence' suggests instead that the Boer left because he had 'shown overt hostility' to British authorities and was 'even accused … of having enticed the Xhosa to begin the frontier war of 1834–5 ...'84 It was a small trek 'composed of seven Boer farmers, together with their wives and thirty-four children', and the aged wagonmaker Daniel Pfeffer, discussed below, as well as 'several Bushman slaves' and 'Bantu servants';85 only nine men altogether seem to have been 'capable of handling guns'.86 Starting out from the Indwe River in the Eastern Cape, Trichardt was to lead his group as far from British rule as possible, travelling to the high ground of the Soutpansberg,87 a mountain range near the Limpopo River, one of the northernmost points of the treks (fig. 3.11). The party arrived there in the summer of 1836, and established a little settlement.88 His pioneering advance later became an Afrikaner symbol of the scale of the Voortrekkers' annexation of land in southern Africa. In Afrikaans narratives Trichardt

**78** Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, ix–cv (first ed. 1917); Cory, *South Africa* 3, 1926, 3–7, 11–19; Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 9–17; Walker 1934, 107–113; *DSAB* 1, 1968, 802–805; Ransford 1972, 33–57; Etherington 2001, 246–247; Visagie 2011, 500. **79** Venter 1985, 34 fig. top left; Visagie 2011, 500.

**80** There is confusion about Mrs Ackerman's first names and lineage. Hennie Potgieter (1987, 13) incorrectly identifies her as the granddaughter of the trek leader Andries Hendrik Potgieter, instead of his great-granddaughter; he gives her the initials C.F., which we have quoted above in our synopsis identifying the models. This seems to be an Anglicisation of K.F., sometimes given in full in other sources as Katharina Fredrika (Mostert 1940, 777 with photograph, 780). However, elsewhere she is referred to as Mrs D.P. Ackerman, the more formal use of the initials of her husband, Dominee D.P. Ackerman (see *Pretoria News*, 13.12.1938; Mostert 1940, 577–578; Ferreira 1975, 80, 117). We are grateful to Etta Judson for clarifying this in the correspondence with Mrs Ackerman in the VM Archives: when the SVK invited her to take part in the foundation stone ceremony, they wrote to her as Mrs D.P. Ackerman (2.11.1938), although her reply was signed K. Ackerman (10.11.1938).

**81** See Part I, Chapter 1 ('The centenary').

**82** Various dates have been suggested. We follow Giliomee (2003, 162) and Visagie (2011, 500, 'Vertrekdatum: September 1835').

**83** Trichardt ed. Preller (1938, lviii with n 74), quoting Smith from *D'Urban Papers*, bl. 35 (today in UCT library, special collections, 575, C59).

**84** Ransford 1972, 33–34.

**85** Ibid., 35. For the composition of the trek, see also Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 162–164.

**86** Ransford 1972, 38.

**87** Raper, Möller and Du Plessis 2014, 200 (Indwe River), 473–474 (Soutpansberg).

**88** For the date, see Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 7 with n 10 and 12. For the trek, see ibid., lxxiv–lxxvii; Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 22–27; Ransford 1972, 34–44.

**Figure 3.11:** A.C. Vlok. *Kaart by die Dagboek van Louis Trichardt*. Coloured map (Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, foldout after last page)

**Figure 3.12:** *Soutpansberg*. Background showing schoolhouse, open wagon for trading and Soutpansberg mountains. Full-scale clay relief, detail of fig. 3.8 (photo Alan Yates)

stood out among the Voortrekker leaders for his defiance of British authority, his determination, his tragic death and his compelling diary,89 all fitting him to become an Afrikaner hero. Less admirable aspects of his life, such as his likely links to slave trading, are seldom mentioned.90

Trichardt's importance is reflected in the relief by the distinct habitus of his position in the centre and his people around him. They and the accompanying objects are chosen to address a wide array of Voortrekker virtues.  Its character is endorsed by the immaculate clothing of the five people, which demonstrates the superiority of white civilisation in the most remote wilderness, given an even sharper focus by the absence of any black or coloured people. Yet they were not only part of his trek as indentured servants,91 but also key to his trading in the area that is represented in the panel. Valuable commodities, represented by a pair of tusks and a bundle of hides, highlight the enterprise of these Voortrekkers, who sustained their community by hunting and trading. The perfectly manufactured wagon in the background exemplifies the essence of the Voortrekker existence, providing home, defence and transport in one, though here lacking its tented cover as it is pressed into service for trade (fig. 3.12). It comes as no surprise that in the majority of scenes in the frieze the presence of the wagon is indispensable, a symbol of the Trek itself. Here the wagon also stands in for the skilled wagonmaker, Pieter Johannes Hendrik Botha (1794–1838),92 who was represented in Coetzer's second sketch at the behest of the Historiese Komitee.

**91** See Giliomee 2003, 163.

**92** Visagie 2011, 82.

**89** Trichardt ed. Preller 1938. See also Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, who provides a painstaking reconstruction of Trichardt's trek across the Drakensberg to Delagoa Bay, including 'many extracts from the Diary, in a somewhat free rendering of the original' (ibid., xviii).

**90** Etherington 2001, 247. Trichardt ed. Preller (1938, lxxvii) himself was master of ten African herdsmen and servants ('veewagters en ander bediendes'), namely 'Danster, Adonis, Renosterarm, Gert (Boesman), Katos, Keiser, Windvoël, April, Poemlana en Ou-Jong' (see also Giliomee 2003, 147). When, on 13 April 1838, the Portuguese governor at Lourenço Marques (Delagoa Bay) asked Trichardt why he had left his home country, the Boer stated three reasons, of which the second was 'that the Government puts all slaves on a free footing' (Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 154).

Of special importance in this panel is the large house in the background. Meant to represent the first school built by the trekkers, it is rather too well-built a structure to convincingly depict the rudimentary 'hartebeeshuisie' architecture of Trichardt's settlement,93 described in the suggestions for topics in Voorstelle. The school was run by Daniel Pfeffer (Pfeiffer; 1760–1838), who acted as teacher to the children (fig. 3.12).94 There were apparently twenty-one aged under sixteen, but occasionally he also taught people more advanced in years, such as 'Breggie Pretorius, Jan's better half, who herself had two children in school'.95 However, neither a child nor a mother but rather a sleek youth is placed purposefully in the foreground, already literate enough to be preoccupied with a pile of books, to represent the virtues of Voortrekker education, associated with Christian values, as Moerdyk stressed when he wrote of this panel for the *Official Guide*:

Two extremely important aspects of the Voortrekkers' existence are emphasized, viz. their material projects, as revealed in their trading ivory and skins with Portuguese traders, and the efforts made to meet their spiritual needs, for a little school – the first in the Transvaal – is shown being built.96

Leonard Thompson analysed the extent to which school education was used by Afrikaner institutions, especially the Afrikaner Broederbond, to promote Afrikaner values through Christian National Education at the same time that the narrative of the frieze was being conceived.97 In 1943 a school inspector explained the crucial role of Afrikaner teachers to inculcate this spirit in the children:

The Afrikaner teachers will … demonstrate to Afrikanerdom what a power they possess in their teacher's organisations for building up the youth for the future republic. I know of no more powerful instrument. They handle the children for five or more hours daily, for five days each week … A nation is made through its youth being taught and influenced at school in the tradition, customs, habits and ultimate destination of its *volk*.98

It was a purpose not dissimilar to that of the frieze itself.

**98** Quote ibid., 49–50, with reference to Wilkins and Strydom 1978, 258–259. It is not irrelevant to remember that J.J. Scheepers, who played such an important part as secretary of the SVK, was himself a schoolteacher.

**93** See Van Rooyen, 1940, 170–171.

**94** Visagie 2011, 353.

**95** Trichardt ed. Preller 1928, lxxvii: 'Daniel Pfeffer se leerlinge het bestaan uit 21 kinders onder die 16 jaar, maar sy lesse werd af en toe ook bygewoon deur meer bejaardes soos Breggie Pretorius, Jan se wederhelf, wat self twee kinders in die skool had, Hendrina Botha e.a.' For Jan (Johannes Petrus jr) and Breggie (Gerbrecht Elizabeth Maria Pretorius, née Alberts), see Visagie 2011, 387–388.

**96** *Official Guide* 1955, 46. It is an example of Moerdyk's carelessness in describing detail in the frieze that he writes of the school 'being built' when there is no evidence of ongoing building here, though there was in Coetzer's first drawing.

**97** Thompson 1985, esp. 46–68.

**4 Trichardt in** *Delagoa Bay* **(April 1838)**

**A2**

**B2a/b**

**C2**

**D**

# **4** *Delagoa Bay*

East wall (panels 5–6/31)

h. 2.3 × w. 2.88 m (full width of panel 5 and 0.36 m of panel 6) Restored fractures on vertical edges between panels 5 and 6 Sculptor of clay maquettes: Hennie Potgieter

Stages of production

	- b. New one-third-scale plaster maquette, h. 76 × w. 76.6 × d. 8 cm (1942–43)

#### Earlier records

SVK minutes (4.9.1937) ― item 4d (see below, 'Developing the design')

Moerdyk Layout (5.10.1936–15.1.1937) ― scene 4 on panel 7/31 'T. in Del. Baai' (Trichardt in Delagoa Bay) Jansen Memorandum (19.1.1937) ― item 7.4 'Trichardt at Delagoa Bay'

0 5 10 m

**Figure 4.1:** D. *Delagoa Bay*. 1950. Marble, 2.3 × 2.88 m (courtesy of VTM; photo Russell Scott)

## **Description**

Seven people of varying age and national dress are spread across the relief (fig. 4.1). The main narrative is positioned to right of centre: two men facing each other in profile view and taller than the rest. The mature bearded man on the left, picked out by his superior stature and the space around him, is the Voortrekker leader Louis Trichardt. He hands over his muzzleloader to Captain Gamitto, the Portuguese governor of Delagoa Bay. Gamitto wears a uniform of the type of a nineteenth-century naval commander, decorated with epaulettes, shoulder insignia, two medals and a sash, with fitted trousers and a Napoleonic hat.99 Behind him stands another officer of smaller stature, who wears the same uniform as his superior, but without medals and sash, and keeps his hat folded in his left hand. A gunpowder keg next to the governor can be identified by its size, the bung on the top, and the narrative context.

A second, beardless and older Voortrekker, Daniel Pfeffer, sits, self-absorbed, on a chest behind Trichardt, his passivity complementing the leader's alert pose. He holds his muzzleloader close to him, between his extended legs, which rest on what appears to be a deformed elephant tusk.

To the left of the two Boers who occupy the centre of the composition is a group of three female figures, well dressed but without hats. Furthest left, a tall woman, distinguished by her elegant European dress, earrings and elaborate coiffeur with ringlets, represents Gamitto's wife. She has her arm reassuringly around the waist of a Boer woman, Martha Trichardt, who seems about to faint. Her body is bent forward, her eyes half-closed, with her lowered head supported on her left hand; the other dangles listlessly at her side and holds a handkerchief. Her little daughter Anna, who keeps her mother's kappie for her, looks up at her with parted lips, as though about to speak, and reaches out to lay a hand solicitously on her elbow.

Most of the background is filled by a crenellated building with slit windows, and a mighty double door, which stands ajar. It is framed, rather incongruously, by two pilasters supporting a curved Dutch gable, adorned with an anchor. On the far right a three-masted vessel with furled sails and gunports is moored in a natural harbour, protected by a man-made sea wall.

**99** See Crawford and Hughes 1995, 35 (for a drawing of naval officers around 1800, in this case of the US).

**Figure 4.2:** A2. W.H. Coetzer. Reproduction of first sketch for *Delagoa Bay*. June 1937 (courtesy of ARCA PV94 1/75/5/1; photo the authors)

**Figure 4.3:** B2a. Hennie Potgieter. *Delagoa Bay*. 1942–43. Plaster, 77 × 76.5 × 8 cm. Rejected maquette (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott)

**Figure 4.4:** B2b. Hennie Potgieter. *Delagoa Bay*. 1942–43. Plaster, 76 × 76.6 × 8 cm. New maquette (courtesy of VTM Museum VTM 2184/1–28; photo Russell Scott)

## **Developing the design**

For *Delagoa Bay* we only have Coetzer's reproduction (fig. 4.2), presented to the SVK on 26.6.1937. The basic elements of the narrative are already outlined here: the Portuguese governor (with sabre and moustache), in full regalia, stands next to a building; two Voortrekkers hand over their weapons, Trichardt standing and his comrade kneeling; the governor's wife supports Martha Trichardt, who is accompanied by her daughter (both of them wearing kappies); the sea and a sailing ship are in the background. More closely aligned to the actual occasion than the eventual marble relief, Coetzer's Voortrekkers are shown disconsolate at having to hand over their weapons, while Gamitto, presented in frontal view and showing no welcoming traits, dominates the scene. He holds a document and points authoritatively to where the Boers must surrender their guns. Two additional figures are depicted, one offering Martha Trichardt a drink on a tray and, further away and in back view, a Voortrekker looking out to sea.

In the Historiese Komitee meeting on 4.9.1937, the following changes were required:

Trichardt in Delagoa Bay. This scene must be changed. Show how the Trekkers arrived there and were welcomed by the Portuguese governor; the sea view with the man at the beach must stay the same.100

The lack of a revised drawing means that we cannot tell to what extent these alterations were undertaken. Nor do we know whether a second drawing was available to the sculptors but, as is the case with other panels, the initial drawing was influential.

In his first small plaster maquette (fig. 4.3), Hennie Potgieter rearranged the figures, and increased their number to ten, but retained the abject mood of the surviving design. Here Gamitto is shown in profile on the far right, near his final position. While he still holds a document in his left hand, his other takes the muzzleloader from Trichardt, whose head is bowed submissively. Another Voortrekker crouches unconventionally at Gamitto's feet (perhaps he is fatally ill with malaria), and a third, based on Coetzer's kneeling figure, almost genuflects obsequiously towards the Portuguese commander. The group of women on the left now face towards the men, Martha Trichardt's distress more visible, as she is supported by Gamitto's wife, who is distinguished by her long drop earring. Between the two groups are two boys, back-to-back, one bringing a cup to the women. They add to the overcrowding of the scene, which also has an elaborate background with two ships at sea and, although the figure on the beach has disappeared, there is a distant onlooker in the arcade of a colonial-style building.

The second maquette (fig. 4.4) reduces the figures to seven, eliminating the two boys and the crouching Voortrekker, and tidies up the composition. The Boers are also depicted in a less submissive way: Trichardt is more erect, and the formerly crawling man now sits upright on a chest, holding a gun between his legs and placing his left foot on a tusk on the ground, as though he is a hunter. The governor and his wife are little changed, though her arm supporting Martha Trichardt is now clearer. Despite these changes, the two maquettes are so similar in composition and in many details that we surmise that Potgieter probably reused the design of his initial clay maquette (replicated in plaster in B2a) to develop the second version (B2b).

The full-scale clay panel (fig. 4.5) brought changes in the pose, composition and style, for the most part closely transferred into the marble. The general grouping remained broadly the same, but the wider format of the large panel permitted a more generous arrangement, with breathing space between the figures and the addition of a second Portuguese officer on the right, which creates a more balanced composition overall. Notable is Trichardt's more dominating presentation,

**100** 'Trichardt in Delagoabaai. Hierdie toneel moet verander word.

**Figure 4.5:** C2. *Delagoa Bay*. 1943–46. Clay. Full-scale relief (courtesy of Kirchhoff files; photo Alan Yates)

**Figure 4.6:** Portrait of Louis Trichardt in *Delagoa Bay*. Full-scale clay relief (left) and marble (right), details of figs 4.5, 4.1 (photos Alan Yates; Russell Scott)

now fully upright and taller than the governor. There are also changes in the detail, such as the governor acquiring a hat and his wife ringlets. Facial features are more individualised, which reflects the sculptors' use of models, particularly clear in the foreground figure, identified as Pfeffer, who, with a fuller head of hair, looks considerably younger than his seventy-eight years. A rare photographic detail of Trichardt's head in the full-scale clay panel allows us to appreciate not only the way the portraits were treated by the South African artists, but also, when we compare it with the final marble, the skill with which the Florentine sculptors copied his features, discussed in Part I (fig. 4.6).101

A remarkable change is the transformation of the small distant building into a stronghold with slit windows and a Dutch gable that fills the left background of the full-scale clay panel, and seems to have been invented for sham historical accuracy, although it now leaves little space for the harbour scene, necessitating the reduction of the ships to one. Once the full-scale clay composition was cast in plaster a further change must have been requested, as the simple roof line was replaced by crenellations, evidently to emphasise the defensive purpose of the concocted edifice to protect the port of Delagoa Bay.

As with *Departure*, the completion of *Delagoa Bay* in Florence was delayed, and could only be installed in the frieze after the inauguration of the Monument on 16 December 1949.102

**101** Chapter 4 ('From plaster to marble').

**102** See Part I, Chapter 3 ('Homecoming').

**Figure 4.7:** Claude Fuller. Pre 1927. Watercolour (Fuller, *Trichardt's Trek* 1932, foldout opp. title page)

### **Reading the narrative**

Although the little settlement in the remote region of Soutpansberg had been reasonably successful, as represented in the previous panel, there were problems, not least of which was the difficulty of getting supplies: Trichardt's diary records letters to the Portuguese in Delagoa Bay requesting necessities.103 After Trichardt had waited a year for Hendrik Potgieter's promised return, he decided to leave on 23 August 1937 for the Portuguese port.104 The routes to the coast for travellers on foot, which he had learned about from Africans he was trading with, proved unsuitable for wagons and herds. Hence it took Trichardt's party an inordinate time to traverse the precipices of the northern Drakensberg, then the Bombo Hills and the Incomati River, a trek of incredible hardship, extreme heat, and deadly illness.105 Claude Fuller's beautiful watercolour maps, published in 1932, provide a rare reconstruction of the meandering and forbidding journey mastered by the Trichardt party, condensed into a single frontispiece (fig. 4.7), and then a sequence of images showing the different stages of the trek (fig. 4.8). The later scenes *Descent* and *Return* give form to some of the drama of crossing this treacherous mountain range, but the route Trichardt followed was particularly difficult, and at times impassable, so that it was nearly eight months before his party reached the Indian Ocean. Trichardt recorded in his diary that the remaining oxen were so weak by the time they neared the fort at Delagoa Bay that they could barely pull the wagons, and he solicited a boat on the river to assist with their heavy goods.106

The marble relief represents the arrival of Louis Trichardt's party at the Portuguese stronghold of Lourenço Marques (today Maputo) at Delagoa Bay on 13 April 1838,107 where they were received by the Portuguese writer and governor, Captain Antonio Candido Pedroso Gamitto (1806–66).108 Gamitto's status is highlighted by his well-turned-out uniform, based on that of a nineteenthcentury naval officer, and the Portuguese officer behind him, probably meant to represent his personal adjutant. Both are in upright soldierly stance, contrasting with Trichardt's less formal pose as he presents his muzzleloader, although he stands taller.109 There is also a distinction between the Portuguese and Voortrekker women, as the former shows the elegance of a settled and civilised existence, while the suffering Martha Trichardt's simpler dress is more appropriate for the hard life of the trek, although it shows no signs of wear and tear. She is echoed in miniature in her daughter Anna, who is nonetheless big for a five-year-old, perhaps suggesting her robustness as she was the only Trichardt daughter to survive.110

Six days after his arrival in Delagoa Bay, on 19 April 1838, Trichardt furnished Gamitto, at his request, with a census of his party. In summary, he listed five married couples; two widowers;

**103** Trichardt was in contact with Delagoa Bay as early as 7 March 1837 when he tried to set up a trade contact (Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 40–41). He wrote again on 10 April 1937 requesting cloth and sewing supplies (ibid., 58) and yet again on 11 May 1837, when he added ammunition to his request, and tea, coffee and sugar needed by his wife (ibid., 81–82). There is no record of any replies (unsurprising since he wrote in Dutch).

**104** For Louis Trichardt, see *Soutpansberg*, and for Hendrik Potgieter *Vegkop* and *Kapain*.

**105** Fuller (*Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 29–153) provides a minute reconstruction of the trek's route on the basis of Trichardt's diary (Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, xvii; see also 2–3), intensive geographical surveys and interviews with the 'Sikororo natives'; see also Ransford 1972, 48–57.

**106** Entry for Thursday 10 April, Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 151–152; Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 302.

**107** Here and what follows, Chase, *Natal* 1, 1843, 70–71; Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 303–324; Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 153–159; Walker 1934, 111–113; Nathan 1937, 101–127; Etherington 2001, 247.

**108** For Gamitto, see Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, lxxxix–xc with n 129, xcvii–xcviii; Almeida de Eça 1950 (as governor of Lourenço Marques / Delagoa Bay, see ibid., 97). We identify Gamitto, following Trichardt in his diary (ed. Preller 1938, 301 and passim), as 'Goeverneur' (governor).

**109** The conventional story has it that the Voortrekkers fired salutes on their arrival at Delagoa Bay, misunderstood by the Portuguese, who then confiscated the Voortrekker guns (Grobler 2001, 78). This, however, is not backed by Trichardt's diary; see Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 303–307; Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 154–157.

**110** Anna was born in November 1832. For Trichardt's family, see Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, xlii–lxii; Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 163; Venter 1985, 34 fig. top right; Visagie 2011, 498–500.

**Figure 4.8:** Claude Fuller. Pre 1927. Watercolour. Five maps showing different stages of Trichardt's trek from Soutpansberg to Delagoa Bay (Fuller, *Trichardt's Trek* 1932, foldout opp. pp.40, 56, 72, 128, 160)

**Figure 4.9:** Portuguese–Boer relations in *Delagoa Bay* – Trichardt handing gun to Gamitto; Gamitto's wife supporting stricken Martha Trichardt. Marble, details of fig. 4.1 (photos Russell Scott)

one widow; eight sons over sixteen years; fourteen sons under sixteen years; four daughters over sixteen years; seven daughters under sixteen years; in total, forty-six 'Christians, including the four half-caste children of Albagh'. He also specified one Mantatee over sixteen, three Bushmen over sixteen, and three Bushmen under sixteen, which gives a total of fifty-three. He concluded: 'Two Mantatee (BaSuto) women are not included as they escaped a few days after we arrived at the Fort. (Sgd.) L. Trichardt.'111

At Delagoa Bay Trichardt's trek came to a disastrous end.112 Many children had died on the journey, and many of the fifty-three trekkers who reached their goal had contracted malaria and perished miserably, including seventy-eight-year-old Daniel Pfeffer on 21 April, Trichardt's wife Martha on 1 May, and Trichardt himself on 25 October 1838. He ended his diary on the day his wife died, adding only a single poignant entry on 10 August: 'I had a quiet birthday, but will remember it.'113 According to Claude Fuller, a mere twenty-six Voortrekkers in Delagoa Bay survived, mostly women and children.114 It took a whole year before 'Twenty-five [sic] Africanders and three coloured

**111** Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 162.

**112** Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 312–313. Fuller (*Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 162–164) provides additional information about the individuals, which of them survived, and the composition of the trekkers' families, but the most detailed study is by Thom (1949, 59–76).

**113** '1838, Aougust den 10de, had ik een stille verjaarsdag, dog zal daaraan gedenken' (Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 324).

**114** Fuller (*Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 164) breaks down the numbers as follows: 'Total accounted for, 40. Unaccounted for, 6 boys. Survivors, 26.' Of the adult males only Louis Trichardt's son, Carolus Johannes (*DSAB* 1, 1968, 799–802; Visagie 2011, 498–499), seems to have survived. About a month before Trichardt's death, he left the party in Delagoa Bay, on his father's suggestion, according to Preller in his introduction to Trichardt (1938, xciii), to explore areas further north. It has been claimed (Nathan 1937, 126, 129–134) that he discovered the Victoria Falls (before Livingstone), doubted, however, in *DSAB* (1, 1968, 800). A few weeks after the survivors of Trichardt's trek had left for Port Natal, Carolus stayed again with the governor at Delagoa Bay (ibid., 801).

**Figure 4.10:** Models for portraits (Potgieter 1987, 16)

people embarked on the *Mazeppa* and arrived in Port Natal on July 20th [1839]. Their passage had cost £180'.115

The catastrophic calamities of Trichardt's trek were transformed in the relief into a representation of Afrikanerdom that celebrates imperturbable Voortrekker virtues. Even after the great adversity of their journey, the stoic Voortrekkers are depicted immaculately dressed and courteous in their behaviour. The Voortrekker leader and Portuguese governor conduct civil transactions as a stately act between white people. On the first day of his arrival in Delagoa Bay, when Governor Gamitto had sent for all the trekking men and women of Trichardt's party, Trichardt wrote:

After I had dressed, we all went together – Jan, Botha, Carolus, Albagh and Pieta.116 After formal greeting had been exchanged, the Governor … asked me for a truthful statement of my reasons for leaving my native country. I replied to His Honour as follows: – 1st. That the boundary of two Colonies has been ruined by the Black nation; 2nd. That the [British] Government has put all slaves on a free footing; 3rd. That the Government has demanded that the Afrikanders be soldiers.117 Thereupon I said that I would go to the Portuguese coast. The Governor said that he would have to report to the Governor of Mozambique – which is the chief place of the East Coast of Africa, belonging to the Crown of Portugal. I told him that nine more wagons had accompanied me, as I had written to him, and that I understood that those people all had been murdered – 49 in number, not counting servants. Thereupon the Governor said he would give us a place where we could live as we liked. This concluded the interview.118

**115** Cory, *South Africa* 3, 1926, 20–21, 97 with n 1 (quote); see also Chase, *Natal* 2, 1843, 92 (the presented figures do not match). The *Mazeppa* was a trading schooner belonging to Mr J.O. Smith of Port Elizabeth, which also played a role in later conflicts between the British and the Voortrekkers; see Cory, *South Africa* 3, 1926, 141–149; Muller 1978, 80 fig. 4. The schooner and the Trichardt trek survivors are also mentioned in 'Voorstelle', item 4 (SVK, 5.12.1934), and the copy in ARCA PV94 1/95/1/7 has 'vir Pendentives' (for Pendentives) inscribed next to it.

**116** Daniel Pfeffer and Hans Strydom are not mentioned, and the women did not attend either.

**117** We adjusted Fuller's odd translation 'That the Government asks the Afrikander as soldier'.

**118** Fuller, *Trigardt's Trek* 1932, 154–155 (Dutch text: Trichardt ed. Preller 1938, 304–305).

**Figure 4.11:** Portrait of school inspector Jack Pauw as Pfeffer in *Delagoa Bay*. Marble, detail of fig. 4.1 (photo Russell Scott)

In the cause of good relations, the Voortrekker men entrusted their weapons to the Portuguese, although we know from Trichardt's diary that they were extremely unhappy doing so.119 In the frieze the three women represent another example of admirable mutual rapport, in this case through the feminine solicitude of Gamitto's wife (fig. 4.9). The door of their residence stands open to receive Martha Trichardt in her suffering, although, for the sake of exemplary behaviour, her dire state is noticeably underplayed. To construct this scene as a model of civility and white solidarity, showing the support of the Portuguese (and by implication the lack of understanding on the part of the British), separate events have been conflated, as Trichardt recorded his wife's illness on 17 April, a week after their arrival, and she was only invited to stay by the governor's wife on 21 April.120

Hennie Potgieter records that he modelled the portraits of Trichardt and his wife Martha after the same image and