Other
Landmark
Krotoa
c. 1643 – 1674
The interpreter who stood between the Khoikhoi and the Dutch, and belonged to neither by the end
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the South Africa Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
Taken into Jan van Riebeeck's household at about ten, she learned Dutch and Portuguese and became the one person alive who understood both worlds — changing out of Dutch clothes into skins and back again as she crossed between them.
Krotoa was taken into the household of Jan van Riebeeck in the first days of the Dutch settlement at the Cape, aged about ten or eleven, and first appears in the record in January 1654 as a servant to the commander's wife.
She mastered Dutch and Portuguese, and in the 1650s was the only person with an intimate command of both Khoikhoi and Dutch ways — negotiating between the fort and the followers of her kinsman Oedasoa, and instrumental in settling the terms that ended the First Dutch–Khoikhoi War. She moved between the two societies literally, exchanging Dutch clothing for skins and back as she went. She ended her life caught between both and at home in neither, and is now among the most argued-over figures in South African history.
She mastered Dutch and Portuguese, and in the 1650s was the only person with an intimate command of both Khoikhoi and Dutch ways — negotiating between the fort and the followers of her kinsman Oedasoa, and instrumental in settling the terms that ended the First Dutch–Khoikhoi War. She moved between the two societies literally, exchanging Dutch clothing for skins and back as she went. She ended her life caught between both and at home in neither, and is now among the most argued-over figures in South African history.
- Wikipedia — Krotoa
- South African History Online — Krotoa (Eva)
- University of Cape Town — Love in the time of imperialism: Krotoa 'Eva' van Meerhof
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