Slavery Reconciled
Me Helen Zille, Mayor of Cape Town embracing a woman in a act of repentance and reconciliation at the Slave Loge in Adderley Street Cape Town.
RECONCILING SLAVERY WITH THE
FIRST PEOPLE OF SOUTH-AFRICA
PAULUS and RETHA
My wife Retha and I are prayer coordinators under the name: “Mossel Bay House of Prayer for The Nations.” As Intercessors en spiritual councillors we are involved in the restoration and reconciliation of broken people and communities. During the past 23 years of my life in full time ministry, I have witness countless cases of the destroying power of sin in people’s lives. My relationship and ministry to the Coloured people started 9 years ago, when members of various congregations in Mossel Bay came to seek council and prayer. I was also involved in prison ministry and have counselled more than 500 inmates in whose lives I saw the same pattern of violence, incest, murder, rape and addictions that was carried over from father to son. When I started to research these phenomena I found a book: “Children of Bondage” in the library. This book written by the historian Robert C H Shell gives an historical overview of slavery during past times in Cape Town. In this book I saw a different history than the one we were taught at school. This book opened my eyes to the real facts of our founding fathers.
SLAVERY AT THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
The Colony that was established by Jan van Riebeeck changed the history of this part of Southern-Africa for ever. The first indigenous people van Riebeeck met upon his landing on the shores of South-Africa were the Khoi – peace loving, nomadic people, herding their cattle and sheep as a way of life. With the growth of the Dutch East Indian Company, the need for labour soon arose which then lead to the import of slaves from various slave trading countries. These men, woman and children were mainly housed in a place called “The Lodge.” This house was also used to house criminals and mentally retarded people. At some stage there were a thousand humans locked away in that lodge, and it was appropriately described by someone as ‘a place of utter human misery’ in the centre of town. What a shameful contribution to the start of civilisation in Southern-Africa.
This Lodge was used by passing sailors during night times to satisfy their sexual needs with the slave woman that were kept there against their will. The Lodge also became a brothel. Van Riebeeck and his men from the Company were the first Freemasons in South Africa, and I am convinced that this Lodge was the first Freemason gathering place (Lodge) in Southern Africa. The staff of the Companies Head Quarters, called “Die Kasteel” also used the Lodge to satisfy their sexual needs. The slave woman gave their bodies to be used by these men in the hope to conceive a child from a white man, believing that their chances of being released from slavery would increase in such cases. But when the children with lighter complexion were born, it actually worked against them as the slave owners sold these children for more money on the slave auctions. The free burgers or slave owners also used their slave woman and had more children with them, even having children by their own slave offspring. Slavery developed from prostitution into incest. Jan van Riebeeck took further advantage of the situation when he gave tobacco and alcohol to children of slavery. He did this to help them enjoy the religious classes they were forced to attend. What an indictment against Christianity at this most southern point of Africa. Slavery in South-Africa started to bear the evil fruit of incest and addictions to alcohol and tobacco. These poor people’s situation digressed from misery to misery.
A UNIQUE NATION EMERGES
Due to restrictions on the International Slave Markets, the free burgers and landowners at the Cape, in quest for labour, started hunting down the Khoi and enslaved them too. The mixture that already existed between the white man and slave woman now started to encompass the Khoi. They were also drawn into this mixed race and in this process, a unique people; the Coloured People of South-Africa were birthed. The consequences and misery of this foundation that was laid by the founding fathers are still and integral part of many lives today. But God had another plan for this special Coloured nation. During 1737 He sent the Moravian missionary, George Smit to South-Africa with the commission: “Go to the Hottentot people of South-Africa, for they are a people I have formed for Myself to declare My praises.” (Isaiah 43:21)
Like Israel, the Coloured people of South-Africa are a people formed through slavery as a nation, but the Coloured people are a nation who lost their identity. The one sin of the founding fathers, that stand out is the crime of stealing the identity of the Khoi and the dark shadows of the spiritual inheritance of slavery are still lingering in their hearts. The Lord Jesus Christ commissioned me to deal with the sins of my forefathers and the only godly way of dealing with that is through repentance. Repentance to God and repentance to those who were so deeply wounded by the evil deeds of our ancestors. In South-Africa we need the forgiveness of the first people, the indigenous priests of this land, to bring about reconciliation to all our people. They are the people that can help heal our land and bring back the peace and wealth that van Riebeeck and his men found when they first met the Khoikhoi on the shores of South-Africa. They are the people with such a mandate from God and are the key holders to reconciliation and prosperity in our nation.
THE SINS OF OUR FORE FATHERS RECONCILED
On Saturday 9 August 2008 we dealt with this evil foundation on governmental level in the Slave Lodge where it all began. Because the crime of slavery and all evil were done by and with the permission of the first Governor of the Cape, these sins were dealt with before God by and with the permission of the current Governor of Cape Town. Alder Lady Helen Zille, Executive Mayor of Cape Town. Representatives of various political parties and some Afrikaner offspring of those first free burgers, together with the Khoi and Coloured leadership, met in the Slave Lodge and reconciled the crimes of our ancestors. We came together to say we are sorry. We repented that we took and misused their woman and their land. We repented that we enslaved them and put the yoke of alcohol and tobacco addiction on them. We repented that we didn’t recognize them as equal people made in the image of God and we repented that we took away their identity. We also repented that we took the language of their mother tongue and claimed it for ourselves. Mr. Sydney Opperman, Member of Parliament for the Democratic Alliance, genetically linked to the Khoi Hessequa led us in a wonderful way in this historical reconciliation meeting. That voice out of this slave lodge, that has cursed the Afrikaners for the past 340 years, was brought to rest by the forgiveness of our coloured brothers and sisters. The curse was transformed by the blessings that were spoken out by the descendants of the Khoi and Coloured leadership.
After our confession and repentance, together with the Mayor of Cape Town, the parliament member of the African Christian Democratic Party, Mr. Wesley Douglas, spoke the word of forgiveness over the Afrikaner descendants in an appropriate manner. Tears of reconciliation and forgiveness flowed while coloured and white embraced each other. The fact that all this happened on Woman’s Day was no coincidence, but organized by the Holy Spirit in God’s perfect timing.
During this meeting the book: “God’s Prophetic End Time Plan for The Coloured People of Southern Africa” by Retha Venter, was launched. This was the Afrikaans translation which has touched so many lives by giving them hope, destiny and identity. The impact of this book has touched lives since 2001 when the English version was launched. The veils have been lifted and we see the road ahead full of Gods promises for healing and restoration for both nations.
