Colonisation by military conquest entails an element of moral regression on the part of the invader, and thereafter cocnsistently complicates any simple-minded notions of what might qualify as ‘progress’. In a situation in which two colonial powers foregoing most ethical considerations had, without consulting the party principally affected, agreed to the wholesale appropriation of African labour at exploitative rates in exchange for rail traffic to a port city that otherwise might not stand up to open capitalist competition, the past and the present were not that easily divided.

In the story of colonial settlements in Africa and America, only the Spanish and German rivals wallowed in blood, while the English overcame challenges of nature and man. Even in the story of the slave trade, the English, with their antislavery legal enactments, emerged as the heroes of the abolition movement and not the villains of its earlier expansion.

One of the fascinating stories of formerly enslaved people who started trading on their own and building wealth is that of a woman called Angela from Bengal in India. Angela was also known as Angila, Ansiela, Ansla and Hansela. She had arrived in the Cape together with her husband and three children, shipped to the Cape by a Batavian landdrost, Pieter Kemp. He then sold the family to Van Riebeeck. In 1662, Van Riebeeck sold Angela to Abraham Gabbema was promoted to a post in Batavia. He then liberated Angela and her three children. No mention is made of her husband from India. After she was freed, Angela was given land in Heerestraat with a title deed signed by one Cornelis van Quaelbergen. Part of the conditions for liberation included understanding and speaking the Dutch language, being a confirmed Christian and a member of a church.

The most fascinating black female entrepreneur in the early colonial era in the Cape was arguably Maria Everts, known as ‘Swarte Maria’. She was the daughter of an enslaved couple from Guinea, Evert and Hoena (Anna). Born in 1662, Maria grew up enslaved and in her life rose to become enormously wealthy. Among her assets was the farm that became what is now known as the affluent Camps Bay in Cape Town. Maria Everts also owned De Mosselbank farm in Klipheuwel, Kalwervlei in Darling, and grazing and hunting rights in the Sonquasfonteyn field and in the Drooge Valley next to Groen Cloof.

To say that we were missed in Soweto feels like an inadequate and flimsy way of describing the rupturing of hearts and scarring of the souls of those who loved us. For the family in Diepkloof, it followed a series of deep losses, first my great-grandfather, then my great-grandmother, then my mother and me. In Orlando East, the family put on a brave face. Life went on because it had to. They tried to place their grief behind a locked door, but it was still there. We were alive, so my uncles and aunts told themselves they were not grieving. But what else do you call the loss of a child who is the flesh of your flesh, and a sister-in-law who had become like blood? Rakgadi says it is the alternative that would have crushed her; her brother or sister-in-law imprisoned or worse, and me robbed of my parents.