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Springbok: The Northern Cape town shaped by copper, culture, and commerce

Springbok: The Northern Cape town shaped by copper, culture, and commerce
The Windsor Hotel in Hermanus – Jopie Kotze’s favourite holiday roost. (Image: Roger de la Harpe)
Chris Marais
By Chris Marais
4 Apr 2025
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The bustling country town of Springbok in the Northern Cape tells a tale of enterprising Boers, Jews, Cornish beam pumps and copper mountains.

The story of the travelling peddler in South Africa begins with emigration, mainly from Eastern European countries like Lithuania, where the Jewish population lived in a state of oppression. 

He arrived with very little to his name and was invariably given a leg-up by a fellow Jew in Cape Town, with some stock to trade with the farmers of the interior.

In the words displayed at the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town:

“Some crossed the border as smouse (itinerant peddlers) where devout Boer farmers who regarded them as ‘People of the Book’ received them warmly. They acted as intermediates between the dorps and the producers, both black and white. Jewish storekeepers and smouse bought wool, maize and skins from Boer landowners and blacks and then sent them to urban markets and wholesalers.”

Joe Jowell, who began a regional transport dynasty in Springbok. (Namaqualand Museum)



The inscription continues:

“The footsore smous, the itinerant trader who trudged and trundled between farmsteads selling all manner of articles to farmers and their families, has become a figure of legend within South African Jewish memory.”

Into Kokerboom Country is an excellent book on Namaqualand’s Jewish Pioneers, written by Phyllis Jowell and Adrienne Folb:

“What attracted the Jews to Namaqualand were the opportunities offered by the development of copper mining in the 1850s and the lure of diamonds during the 1920s. The resulting increase in population created a corresponding increase in the demand for goods and services.

“Jewish immigrants … became the middlemen minority of the region — smousing, trading, shop-keeping and hotel-keeping — rather than becoming involved in the mining itself.”

A dynasty begins


Abraham Jowell was the first generation Lithuanian Jew in his family to immigrate to South Africa in 1880. He immediately began his trading life in Namaqualand.

His grandson, Joe, became a qualified lawyer and went to Springbok to make his fortune.

Carving fashioned by a Boer exile in the Anglo-Boer War – on display at the Namaqualand Museum. (Image: Chris Marais)



Early Springbok Town. (Namaqualand Museum)



Austin bakkie (ahead of the pack in its time) in front of the original Springbok Private Hotel & Café. (Springbok Lodge & Restaurant)



Joe partnered up with a mechanic called Jaap du Plessis in 1929, and they ran the Chevrolet dealership for the Namaqualand region. This, despite Afrikaner right-wing anti-Semitic sentiments of that era, was one of many instances where Boer and Jew joined hands in a successful collaboration.

A year later, the South African Railways cancelled its bus connection between the railhead at Bitterfontein in the south and Springbok. Jaap came up with the idea to build a makeshift truck out of old Chev and Buick parts. This vehicle, called Plaatjie, was the start of what was to become the Jowell transport empire.

Joe Jowell was but one of a number of Jews who settled in that region and successfully integrated with the people of Namaqualand on a social and business level. And again, despite World War II and all the general antipathy towards the Jewish community, he was mayor of Springbok, collectively, for nearly 30 years.

The Springbok Synagogue became the Namaqualand Museum, and it was dedicated to the memory of Joe and Rebecca Jowell.

Springbok Lodge & Restaurant


In October 2023, we cover the 300-odd kilometres from the Sandveld to Springbok in a record time of ten hours, because of the succulent gardens of Vanrhynsdorp, a quick detour into the Knersvlakte, a spot of trading at Bitterfontein, a diesel stop at Garies and a stroll around the village of Kamieskroon.

Finally, we chug into the Koperberg hills and make straight for the fabled Springbok Lodge & Restaurant, the centre of the Informational Universe around these parts. We’ve come to this particular establishment to pay homage to the memory of a man we met back in 2005: Jopie Kotze, the Pasha of the Springbok Lodge. He died in February 2021 after a long illness.

The first time we saw Jopie, he was at his perch, a raised platform from where he could survey the premises, which consisted of a large restaurant section, bulging bookshelves and a collection of very special geological artefacts.

The current-day Springbok Lodge & Restaurant — where everyone goes to eat and find out where the daisies are on that day. (Photo: Chris Marais)



The late and legendary Jopie Kotze: one of the memorable characters of Springbok. (Springbok Lodge & Restaurant)



Roelf Erasmus, Annelize’s husband, at the bridge of the Springbok Lodge & Restaurant. (Image: Chris Marais)



We had just come in from the Richtersveld. Somewhere near Steinkopf, we encountered something that defied the eye. A team of burly male road workers were hard at their task with pick and shovel — and two of them wore the classical Richtersveld women’s kappies (bonnets) to avoid the sting of the mid-morning sun.

Jopie Kotze couldn’t explain this weird phenomenon.

“Maybe you’ll find the answer in one of these books,” he said, waving at his vast collection of local literature. We duly plundered his shelves. I paid him, using my credit card. Then we saw some more books and I paid him again. Then we found another straggler we just had to have.

“I’m beginning to really like this little card of yours,” Jopie said with a smile. He sat behind his counter like a Namaqua lord, dispensing satire and social comment with great largesse.

“I’m a museum piece,” he told us, as we prepared to stumble out under the weight of some rather intriguing books. I asked him how the Namaqua flower season had gone.

“Great,” he beamed. “We had more tourists than flowers.” 

The Kotze family has had the business since 1947, when the late Jopie’s father Jan used to sit in the Pasha seat, usually with a large cup of coffee to hand. Floors Brand, a De Beers guide we knew from a long time ago in Kleinzee, remembered meeting Joe Jowell at the Springbok Lodge.

“I had recently arrived in Namaqualand,” he said. “One day, I was sitting at a booth in the café. Mr Jowell came up, sat next to me, introduced himself and welcomed me to this part of the world.”

Father of the flower season


My wife and I are presently sitting at one of those booths in the café, talking to Jopie’s daughters Jakkie and Annelize, and her husband Roelf.

“Back in the old days, there was no such thing as a Namaqualand flower season,” says Annelize. “Our dad saw the potential. He began to market the flowers on the radio, set up rooms all over town for visitors and then, when it really took off, he bought houses in Springbok and fixed them up as self-catering accommodations.”

I remember once asking Jopie how many flower tourists he could accommodate overnight.

“About 200, if you stack them right,” was his laconic answer.

The Windsor Hotel in Hermanus — Jopie Kotze’s favourite holiday roost. (Image: Roger de la Harpe)



In a bad flower season, Jopie would encourage tourists to visit the various historic sites in the area, or drive out to the nearby Goegap Nature Reserve. He would tell them the story of the time he found a German sitting on a camp chair on the road between Pofadder and Pella, staring out at the dry landscape.

“Are you OK?” he asked the German.

“All good,” said the man. “I’m just sitting here, drinking in the silence.”

Jopie’s widow Barbara sits down with us and tells us about their annual holidays to Hermanus in the Western Cape. They used to go to the Windsor Hotel for a whole month, and she would always drive.

Jakkie adds: “Jopie would sit on the stoep at The Windsor and drink his coffee, read his newspaper and look out at the sea. The hotel staff would place traffic cones on the street outside his room, so his view would not be impeded by a parked car. And when the locals saw the traffic cones outside The Windsor, they would know Jopie was in town, and visit him.”

“Chutzpah” once more comes to mind. DM



This is a short chapter excerpt from Karoo Roads IV – In Faraway Places (360 pages, black and white photography, R350 including taxes and courier in South Africa). Anyone interested in pre-ordering a first edition, author-signed copy should please contact Julie at [email protected] for more details.

The Karoo Quartet (Karoo Roads 1 – 4) consists of more than 60 Karoo stories and hundreds of black and white photographs. Priced at R960 (including taxes and courier in South Africa), this Heritage Collection can also be ordered from [email protected] 

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