Our history...in ruins

It’s been called “a hugely significant site of national importance” on one hand, and “South Africa’s most notable land-claim disaster” on the other.

But whatever the Botshabelo Mission Station in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, stands for, it’s undeniably emblematic of the multifaceted issues facing our heritage sites today.

It was a cold Tuesday in late June when I visited the historical group of about 80 buildings. The Botshabelo site – which once drew up to 2 000 tourists a day (according to Middelburg Observer) – stood empty, the doors of its many missionary buildings were bolted shut, trees growing through the steps, walls crumbling.

Its architecturally valuable 18th century Lutheran church, once the biggest south of the Orange River and boasting yellowwood benches and stained glass windows, is falling apart. Half of the roof has collapsed on to the altar.

Strolling through the eerily quiet ruins, I wondered about the nature of missionary stations, especially those in the 18th century German tradition. Do we really need to celebrate the invasion of Western Christianity, this apparently benign sort of colonialism that wanted to save black people from the hellfires and change their very way of life? Was that what Botshabelo was, and if so, should we even care that it’s crumbling?

An original stained glass window in the Lutheran church

Famous citizens

Botshabelo was set up by two German missionaries – Alexander Merensky and Heinrich Grützner – in 1865 on a 2 300 -hectare farm just outside of Middelburg. Along with their black Christian followers, they built houses, workshops, a general dealership, large mill, bookbindery, blacksmith, wagon-making shop and a school. Further up the ridge, they also built a large fort from sandstone rocks called Fort Merensky, to protect them from attacks by Matsebe Sekhukhune, the Bapedi chief, who persecuted Christians.

Like most settlements at that time, the population was segregated, and the community’s 113 black families – mostly Pedi and Ndebele people – stayed across the river in a large village of stone and tin houses. But Botshabelo was more than a place of German colonialism.

Wits history Professor Peter Delius, who has written extensively on the subject, says: “If you think about Botshabelo, it’s a bit like thinking about Lovedale or Fort Hare – you’re talking about an institution that grew out of mission history but would play a fundamental role in the making of a new African middle class, which in time went on to be fundamental in the making of the ANC and all our political movements and a new intellectual class in South Africa.”

These include the likes of Deputy Justice and Correctional Services Minister Thabang Makwetla, Limpopo Premier Stanley Mathabatha, world-famous artists Gerard Sekoto, Dan Rakgoathe and Esther Mahlangu, novelist Oliver Kgadime Matsepe and Abraham Serote, who help translate the Bible into Sepedi.

Not that Botshabelo was by any means some kind of integrated kumbaya sanctuary. Like all of our heritage sites, it has a conflicted and convoluted history. While black visionaries were walking through its doors, it also housed the likes of Max Eiselen, who would become minister of native affairs during apartheid and was considered former prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd’s ally and associate.

“It’s fascinating how many of the key ideologists of the apartheid system were the sons of German missionaries,” notes Delius.

The house of Abraham Serote, who helped to translate the Bible into Sepedi, now dilapidated and covered in graffiti

Removal

But the relative prosperity of Botshabelo was not to last. Under the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, the black inhabitants of Botshabelo were removed from their homes and resettled into the Sekhukhuneland bantustan (now Tafelkop, Limpopo).

With no one to minister to, Botshabelo stood bare.

Seven years later, it was bought by the Middelburg town council and turned into a “historical village”. However, it was primarily the European artefacts that were preserved, while the black village, which Delius describes as “one of the most prosperous peasant-farming communities anywhere in the Transvaal”, was ignored.

Says Rakgoathe in the book The Unfolding Man: the Life and Art of Dan Rakgoathe: “The existence of the vibrant local community on which the mission was founded [was] virtually ignored. Antique wooden agricultural implements, wagon wheels, photographs of wild game and photographs of eminent personalities involved in the mission history [were] all prominently displayed in the central museum, which previously housed the high school and teacher’s training institute. The museum offer[ed] little, if any, evidence of the generations of pupils who passed through its doors.”

FLOURISHING An archive picture of early Botshabelo. Note the large and thriving village

The land claim

Many years later, in 2005, more than 1 000 descendents of the original inhabitants – including Makwetla – registered a land claim to Botshabelo and won.

The awarding of this land claim has been heavily contested, notably by current Fort Merensky curator Arthur Barlow, who petitioned the Public Protector to investigate.

Barlow says that because of Botshabelo’s multicultural beginnings, one cultural group should not be allowed to own it. Barlow is part of more than 2 000 descendents of Botshabelo’s missionaries called Bund der Nachkommen der Berliner.

“The land claim must be revised,” says Barlow. “Botshabelo must be given to the town council of Middelburg. What has happened is a crime against the collective and the people of Middelburg.”

While Fort Merensky was declared a National Heritage Site in 1965, the Botshabelo Mission Station (which had been provisionally declared) now became privately owned land and the restitution recipients were expected to take care of the site on their own.

While they were given money from the National Lottery, some of which was used to build a recreation of a Ndebele village (historically inaccurate seeing as very few Ndebele lived at Botshabelo), much of what was left has been spent (stolen, says Barlow) and the site is now in serious decline and in need of urgent maintenance that will cost millions.

inaccurate National Lottery money was used to recreate a Ndebele village at Botshabelo, but few Ndebele lived there historically and none in the houses depicted here PHOTO: grethe kemp

Promises made

The slow degradation of the site has been the subject of many articles. In a fiery but myopic book called The Great South African Land Scandal, written by Philip du Toit, the author decries how some of the claimants of Botshabelo “publicly declared they will turn the South African heritage site into a pig farm”. There seems to be the idea that the Botshabelo claimants intentionally set out to destroy the site.

But this does not recognise that the responsibility of maintaining this site, one of national importance, should never have fallen on the claimants to begin with.

Says Delius: “Would we do a land claim on Robben Island, and then hand over the prison structure with a few million and say – would you look after it? The decision to hand over this incredibly important heritage site with no resources, with no support, to an impoverished community, which at best was going to struggle to survive there economically, was completely inappropriate.

“It’s not like they were given capital, they were given a site with an already run-down Botshabelo complex, and presented it as if this was a gift that was going to make them all rich. The reality is that it’s been an absolute impossibility. They didn’t have the skills or the knowledge or the resources.”

Tebogo Thage is one of the restitution recipients and secretary of the Botshabelo Community Development Trust (BCDT).

“We care about Botshabelo because we were born there, our forefathers lie buried there, our community could have settled for compensation, but because we value this place so much we felt that we needed to opt for the restoration of this heritage site.”

Together with a interim committee of stakeholders, including The Heritage Foundation, the Mpumalanga department of culture, sport and recreation, and Mpumalanga Heritage, the BCDT has received a promise from Mpumalanga that Botshabelo will be declared a national heritage site within weeks.

Barlow is derisive: “This is a promise that has been made for the past 13 years.”

City Press called the Mpumalanga department of arts and culture to confirm this, but the media liaison was on leave.

Even if the department makes good on its promises, serious resources will need to be poured into Botshabelo to save it from complete ruin.

Thage says: “Many promises were made by departments and private investors, but when the goodbyes were said, and the cars rolled out of the gates, they were forgotten.”