- du Toit , A. 1983 . ‘No Chosen People: The Myth of the Calvinist Origins of Afrikaner Nationalism and Racial Ideology’ . American Historical Review , 88 : 920 – 32 . André du Toit's series of articles offers an extensive overview of the literature dealing with the notion of the Afrikaners as a ‘chosen people’. In this article I intervene in the discussion by closely examining one aspect of the evidence only. A. du Toit, ‘Captive to the Nationalist Paradigm: Prof. F.A. van Jaarsveld and the Historical Evidence for the Afrikaner's Ideas on his Calling and Mission’, South African Historical Journal, 16 (1984), 49–80;A. du Toit, ‘Puritans in Africa? Afrikaner “Calvinism” and Kuyperian Neo-Calvinism in Late Nineteenth-Century South Africa’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 27, 2 (1985), 209–40. See also A. du Toit and H. Giliomee, Afrikaner Political Thought: Documents and Analyses, volume 1: 1780–1850 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1983)
- Alton Templin , J. 1968 . ‘God and the Covenant in the South African Wilderness' . Church History , 37 ( 3 ) : 281 – 97 . and J. Alton Templin, Ideology on a Frontier: The Theological Foundations of Afrikaner Nationalism, 1652–1910 (Westport, 1984). A more recent challenge has come from D. Akenson, God's Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel and Ulster (Ithaca, 1992)
- Coetzee , C. 1993 . ‘Versions of the Promised Land: The “Great Trek” and the Missions' in ‘Writing the South African Land' University of Cape Town . Elsewhere I suggest, in addition, that the benefits to be derived from the constructed group identity would not be equally available to all members of the emigrant group. See (PhD thesis,. In this discussion I contrast the journals of Erasmus Smit with the unpublished journals of his wife and sister to Gert Maritz, Susanna Smit. I argue that missionary metaphors of agricultural labour excluded women from ‘husbanding’ (and thus owning) a religiously imagined ‘Promised Land’
- Smit , Erasmus . 1920 . “ ‘Uit ‘t Dagboek van Erasmus Smit' ” . In Voortrekkermense II Edited by: Preller , G. S. Cape Town An English translation by W.G.A. Mears has appeared as The Diary of Erasmus Smit (Cape Town, 1972). See also F.A. Steytler, ‘“Dag Verhaal” van Eerw. Erasmus Smit, 1815’, Hertzog-Annale Jaarboek (Dec. 1956), 67–89
- John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff . 1991 . Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa Chicago and John Comaroff and Jean Comaroff, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination (Boulder, 1991)
- Patterson , S. 1957 . The Last Trek: A Study of the Boer People and the Afrikaner Nation 177 London
- Akenson . God's Peoples 61
- Toit , Du . ‘Captive to the Nationalist Paradigm’ 54
- Geertz , C. 1973 . The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays New York
- Ibid. 89 – 90 .
- Ibid. 89
- Akenson . God's Peoples 61
- Steenkamp , A. “ ‘Die Gedenkskrif van Anna Steenkamp’ (The Memoir of Anna Steenkamp) ” . In Voortrekkermense II Edited by: Preller . 27 – 48 . in
- Cilliers , S. 1925 . “ ‘Die Joernaal van Sarel Cilliers' (The Journal of Sarel Cilliers) ” . In Sarel Cilliers: Die Voder van Dingaansdag (Sarel Cilliers, the Father of Dingaan's Day) Edited by: Gerdener , G. B.A. 92 – 109 . Pretoria
- Preller , G. S. , ed. 1917 . Dagboek van Louis Trigardt (1836–1838) (Diary of Louis Trigardt (1836–1838)) Bloemfontein
- Gedenkskrif 30 “This memoir has been prepared for my family, children and grandchildren, still residing in the interior, so that they might know why their parents and grandparents left their motherland and what fear and anxiety, pain and misery, hunger and concern they experienced, inflicted both by enemies and fire, and which was the reason for many sorrowful sighs and bitter tears, although we were guided and protected by our faithful God and Father in these difficult circumstances', Steenkamp
- Joernaal 92 ‘I wish to be enabled by a higher hand to write down the truth, because our God “loves the truth”’, Cilliers
- Joernaal 109 ‘What I have written, he knows who knows everything, that I have written no premeditated lie’, Cilliers
- Bird , J. 1888 . “ ‘Journal of the Late Charl Celliers: Elder of the Dutch Reformed Community of Kroonstadt, Orange Free State’, in ” . In The Annals of Natal 1495 to 1845 Vol. 1 , 238 – 52 . vol. Bird includes the ‘Journal’ in the section covering the period 1837–1842, reading the text as a contemporaneous account of events
- Templin . Ideology on a Frontier 103
- Ibid. 120n
- Boucher , M. 1969 . ‘The Frontier and Religion: A Comparative Study of the United States of America and South Africa in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century’ . Archives Year Book for South African History , 31 : 49 II
- Geertz . Interpretation of Cultures 6
- Preller , G. S. “ ‘Inleiding tot die Dagboek van Eerw. Erasmus Smit’ (Introduction to the Diary of the Reverend Erasmus Smit), in ” . In Voortrekkermense II 55
- ‘In the extract from the Diary I have omitted everything that seemed to me to be of little or no interest to the public: so for example, to mention a few things, I have left out many religious services, baptismal services, marriage services and the like: this I did so that the book would not become too monotonous', quoted in Preller, ‘Inleiding', 56
- Jaarsveld , Van . “The Ideas of the Afrikaner”, 11
- Templin . Ideology on a Frontier 106 – 7 .
- de Jongh , P. S. 1977 . Die Lewe van Erasmus Smit 116f Cape Town f
- Smit . Dagboek 62
- Smit . Dagboek 1 – 16 . ‘In the evening of this day, when we thought that the activity of the day had subsided, the Minister preached, in the open air next to his wagon, to a small congregation of 20 listeners, about Matthew 20:. Although he had had this assembly announced throughout the camp-it happened here also with some people according to the 6th verse of this text, who did not wish to come but remained standing idle in the marketplace of this world’, 63–4
- Smit . Dagboek 64 ‘congregation had appointed me as their invited preacher”
- but wished first to seek advice in the camp about my position in order to place it on a better footing. Yet the passage of time has taught me: I get no payment for my services…', Smit, Dagboek, 71.'I accepted the offer provisionally with thanks
- Smit . Dagboek 75 ‘This estranged me much, as people had taken me from the Colony, and had placed me before the camp as Minister in that capacity’
- Smit . Dagboek 77 ‘stealthily to sneak into my congregation and to push me out of it by oppression'
- Smit . Dagboek 90 ‘that the Minister was making insinuations about them’
- Smit . Dagboek 90 ‘informed his listeners that no one needs to assume for himself the character of Judas the betrayer of our Lord, if he seeks and loves the Lord Jesus Christ from his heart’
- Ibid. 93
- ‘also be settled this coming Sunday’, Smit, Dagboek, 94.‘a general meeting of the people’
- Smit . Dagboek 94 ‘At the conclusion of this sermon of dedication, when the Minister would, at the nod of the Hon. Chief Commander P. J. Retief, read the formulary of his induction, there arose a great, unseemly disturbance in the church, caused by one and subsequently by a second person, so that the Hon. Governor thought it advisable to postpone the induction to a subsequent occasion’
- Smit . Dagboek 98 ‘the first Minister of the congregation of the Reformed Church travelling to Port Natal’
- Smit . Dagboek 98 ‘because here in the wilderness in our vicinity there were no Ministers of the Dutch, Walloon or Scottish Churches'
- ‘Remonstrant-inclined Wesleyan missionary Jakobus Archibald’, Smit, Dagboek, 95.‘our Reformed religious practice’
- Smit . Dagboek 100 Very solemn day for the taking of the oath by the Governor and the other officials, and by all the people of these united camps'
- Smit . Dagboek 103 ‘some comments based on Nehemiah 9: 33, 10: 29 and tried to make these words applicable to the minds of his audience in accordance with the events that had taken place on this memorable holy day of the oath'
- ‘owing to the hasty composition of the wording of the oath taken by His Excellency, an important section of the Governor's oath, namely the Dutch Reformed Church's confession of faith, had been forgotten or omitted’, Smit, Dagboek, 103.‘after due consideration and driven to it by conscience’
- Ibid. 105
- Smit . Dagboek 108 ‘May the Bible be for Your Excellency the great Foundation on which all the laws and decisions made by Your Excellency in the time to come must rest and with which they must agree’
- Smit . Dagboek 109 ‘a Moses over our army’
- Smit . Dagboek 109 ‘have judgment not from men but from God’
- Ibid. 110
- Ibid. 112
- Jongh , De . Lewe van Erasmus Smit 5
- Ibid. , 101 104
- Smit . Dagboek 165 ‘no one should be able to hold public service for our congregation without having previously been examined by the Hon. Church Council, and having duly obtained permission from same'
- Smit . Dagboek 211 ‘unusually small’
- Comaroff and Comaroff . Ethnography 54
- Ibid. 55
- Ibid. 59
- Kruijf , E. F. 1894 . Geschiedenis van ha Nederlandsche Zendinggenootschap en Zijne Zendingposten 5 Groningen ‘Dutch missionary society for the propagation and encouragement of Christianity, especially amongst the heathens'
- Ibid. 54
- Ibid. , 66 71 74, 75, 71
- Kruijf . Geschiedenis 83 ‘history of the Holy Scripture’
- from their sometimes quite licentious behaviour, as well, it seemed clear that they were certainly not what the Germans call “schooled'”, Kruijf, Geschiedenis, 82.'regarding their intellectual development and their character, as well as their manner of thinking and their suitability
- Comaroff and Comaroff . Revelation and Revolution 80
- Ibid. 81
- Ibid. 59
- Ibid. 196
- Ibid. 80
- Ibid. 63
- Ibid. 233
- Jongh , De . Lewe van Erasmus Smit 5
- Ibid. 7
- Foucault , M. 1977 . Discipline and Punish Edited by: Sheridan , Alan . 7 London tr
- Ibid. 308
- Jongh , De . Lewe van Erasmus Smit 8 ‘In the Small Aalmoeseniersweeshuis Erasmus, along with the other children, lived under the strict discipline of the two house-mothers-one for the boys and one for the girls. The children were hardly ever allowed to leave the grounds of the orphanage. The few times that it did happen, for example when they went to church, it was under strict supervision. The orphans were generally well cared for spiritually. There was a schoolmaster who instructed them in reading, spelling, catechism and prayer, mainly with the purpose of preparing them to become members of the Reformed Church’
- Ibid. 14
- Smit . Dagboek 102 ‘The Free Province of new Holland in South East Africa’
- Schama , S. 1977 . Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813 246 New York
- Ibid. 373
- Foucault , M. 1981 . The History of Sexuality: An Introduction Edited by: Hurley , Robert . 58 – 67 . Harmondsworth tr. See also his “The Minimalist Self and ‘An Aesthetics of Existence’ in Politics, Philosophy, Culture: Interviews and Other Writings 1977–1984 (New York, 1988,3-32 and 47–53, and Truth, Power, Self: An Interview with Michel Foucault', in L.H. Martin, H. Gutman and P.H. Hutton, eds, Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (Amherst, 1988), 3–32
South African Historical Journal
Volume 32, 1995 - Issue 1