Florida NN
F, #8041, b. 23 January 1669, d. before June 1669
| Adoptive father | Hendrik Reijnste1 b. c 1639 |
| Adoptive mother | Barbara Geens2 b. 15 Sep 1626, d. b 22 Feb 1688 |
| NGK (Cape Town) Baptisms 1665-1695 | NGK (Cape Town) Baptisms 1665-1695 |
| Last Edited | 16/04/2012 |
| Birth* | Florida NN was born on 23 January 1669 de Caep de Goede Hoop The child's mother was a member of the group of people known as the Goringchaicona (called Watermans by the settlers) who may have been an off-shoot of the much more populous Goringhaiqua (called Caepmans by the settlers). They lived quite close to the VOC settlement. The infant's mother had died in childbirth. The following day, as was customary, the living child was covered, placed in a grave with her deceased mother and both were covered with earth. Some settler woman, being told by the Goringchaicona woman of the events, immediately uncovered the child, who was still alive. The events sparked an outpouring of scorn against all the indiginous people of the area, described during that period by the Secunde Zacharia Wagenaer as this ugly Hottentoo race . . . and was used in historical writings up to the 20th century to brand them and portray them as uncivilized and inferior. None of the writers so doing, wrote of the social and religious beliefs - or even that there were such beliefs - that would have informed the decision to bury the living infant with its dead mother.1,3 |
| Baptism | Florida NN was baptized on 3 March 1669 Nederduitsch Gereformeerde Kerk, (Cape Town), de Caep de Goede Hoop. The baptism was witnessed by Hendrik Reijnste. She was described in the record as: een hottentotsch kindt.1 |
| Death* | She died before June 1669 de Caep de Goede Hoop.4 |
Citations
- [S397] NGK G1 1/1, Nederduitsch Gereformeerde Kerk, Kerken Boek (Bapt.), 1665-1695: Den 3 Maert - An. 1669
Een hottentotsch kindt door geloofstaen van de Com' en kercken raed van Hend. Reijnsche tot op voedinge als syn eijgen aen genomen wierd genaemt Florida tot getuijgen stonde Hendrick Reijnsz en sijn huijsvrouw doot, transcribed by Richard Ball, Norfolk, England, (May 2006), Genealogical Society of South Africa, eGSSA Branch http://www.eggsa.org/. Hereinafter cited as Nederduitsch Gereformeerde Kerk, Kerken Boek (Bapt.). - [S654] Mansell Upham 'What can't be cured, must be endured … Cape of Good Hope - first marriages & baptisms (1652-1665)', First Fifty Years, Uprooted Lives - Unfurling the Cape of Good Hope's Earliest Colonial Inhabitants (1652-1713), (http://e-family.co.za/ffy/ui66.htm), January 2012. "they adopt 'foundling' Hottentotoosje baptized Florida."
- [S670] Mansell G. Upham 'In memoriam: Florida - Mythologising the 'Hottentot' 'practice' of infanticide - Dutch colonial intervention & the rooting out of Cape aboriginal custom', First Fifty Years, Uprooted Lives - Unfurling the Cape of Good Hope's Earliest Colonial Inhabitants (1652-1713), (http://e-family.co.za/ffy/ui66.htm), 9 March 2012. "p.5; On 24 January 1669 some Dutch women on 'walk about' amongst the dunes some distance away from the Fort de Goede Hoop happened on some 'Hottentots'. These aborigines informed the ambulant female sea dogs that a burial of one of their deceased women had just taken place. The woman had died in childbirth the day before."
- [S670] Mansell G. Upham 'Uprooted Lives 07 In memoriam: Florida', Uprooted Lives - Unfurling the Cape of Good Hope's Earliest Colonial Inhabitants (1652-1713), "On 24 January 1669 some Dutch women on 'walk about' amongst the dunes some distance away from the Fort de Goede Hoop happened on some 'Hottentots'. These aborigines informed the ambulant female sea dogs that a burial of one of their deceased women had just taken place. The woman had died in childbirth the day before."
