Port Elizabeth’s name change to Gqeberha is timely – now we must honour the legacy of Krotoa

The decision to rename the city of Port Elizabeth in our indigenous languages – isiXhosa Gqeberha, in Khoi Khabera – and the renaming of Port Elizabeth International Airport after Khoi political activist and Khoi chief Dawid Stuurman is part of the decolonial project, which seeks to reshape and reimagine the benefit of preserving our heritage in post-colonial South Africa.

The project seeks to remind us who we are, where we come from. Mhlawumbi sizilibele ukuba sizalwa ngobani na (Maybe we have forgotten our roots). The decision to rename the airport after a Khoi chief reminds some of us of the story of the Khoisan princess Krotoa.      

If there is a woman to remind us of our past, it is Princess Krotoa of the Goringhaicona; a translator for the Dutch settlers, negotiating relationships between the settlers and the indigenous population; one of the first prisoners on Robben Island and fierce enemy to the Dutch.

Princess Krotoa was born in 1643, in the Cape of Good Hope, in what is now the Western Cape. She was the niece of Goringhaicona Chief Autshumao. At the age of 10 she had her first real contact with the Dutch settlers when she was taken in by Jan van Riebeeck (the first settler) as a domestic worker in his house. She mastered Dutch and soon began to work as an interpreter, trading agent and chief negotiator between the indigenous population, the Dutch, Portuguese and the English in the Cape.

The princess was a linguist of note and a courageous woman such that by 1660 she had become the principal interpreter to the Dutch, surpassing her uncle who had been their principal interpreter. She had an in-depth knowledge of Khoi and Dutch cultures, which enabled her to mediate between the settlers and the indigenous people during the early years of colonialism. Her legacy is like an echo that must continue to inspire us to learn, lead and fight.

Krotoa’s legacy is more than a memory of the hardships of colonialism, but a footprint that generations will follow to change their lives. Her marriage to Pieter van Meerhof – the Danish surgeon and explorer – was the first interracial marriage recorded in South African history. They were married on 2 June 1664 and had three children, who were also later baptised into Christianity. Her union with Van Meerhof gave birth to the concept of cultural assimilation in South Africa, which was later developed and articulated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Tata Nelson Mandela as the rainbow nation, a society where all can live together, love each other and embrace each other’s cultural differences. 

The story of Princess Krotoa should serve as a constant reminder that the Struggle is not the ANC, neither is the ANC the Struggle. The Struggle has always been the Struggle of the people for the people to change their living conditions for the future, to live better.