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The contention that the phenomenon of “coloured” musical entertainment at white social dance parties was reserved to the Cape Colony and to the period before the formal abolition of the slave trade can be challenged in many ways. First, the image of the Dutch Boers trekking by themselves into the interior of the country to escape British rule is largely the product of Afrikaner nationalist historiography. Compelling arguments exist that the abolition of the slave trade, with its resulting challenge to the Afrikaners’ paternalist way of life, was one of the motivations behind the decision to trek, but also that some Voortrekkers, opposed to emancipation, took slaves with them across the border. Louis Tregardt, widely considered to be the “first Voortrekker”, serves as an example. According to Herman Giliomee he “became disaffected by the government’s refusal to grant him tenure of a farm in the neutral territory as he remained a slave-owner. Determined to ignore the emancipation proclamation, he took his ten slaves with him into the interior”.18 Whether the Voortrekkers continued to treat the formally emancipated slaves as before, or whether they were afforded the status of apprentices, indentured slaves or servants is open to debate. Giliomee states that “Voortrekkers and trekboers were able to persuade many servants or ex-slaves to go with them”, but according to Bredekamp it remains unclear whether indentured slaves followed their masters out of free will or under duress.19 What is clear is that the Voortrekkers did not trek alone and that, in all probability, servants who could not do their work by day because at night they were “playing the fiddle and having dancing parties” continued to be a “problem” even in the deep interior.20

18

Giliomee, The Afrikaners: Biography of a People, 147-148.

19

Ibid., 147; Henry C. Bredekamp, “Die slawe-vrystellingskwessie en die Groot Trek: ’n terugblik” (South African Society for History Teaching, Symposium: The Battle of Blood River, 16 Dec. 1836, 2006), http://www.sashtw.org.za/Bredekamp%20%282%29.pdf.

20

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Karel Schoeman, in his history of Bloemfontein – a city in central South Africa and historical capital of the Boer republic of the Orange Free State – mentions that during the 1860s the “lively but utterly unsophisticated dances accompanied by a little Coloured orchestra – violin, concertina, harmonium, and guitar” was a common sight.21 This band probably resembled Heinrich Egersdörfer’s sketch of a coloured orchestra c. 1885 (Figure 6).22

What is fascinating about accounts of the musical life of the Boers in the late nineteenth century is not so much the mere presence of people of colour, but suggestions of a shared musical culture. Another sketch by Heinrich Egersdörfer (Figure 7) illustrates an easy, if unequal, intimacy between master and servant, as a white child and a servant share a dance accompanied by a concertina played by a Boer.

A similar picture emerges from a 1900 account by Dudley Richard, a British traveller to South Africa, showing both the pre- eminence of the instrument amongst Afrikaners at the turn of the century, and what must have been a typical musical exchange between master and servant:

21

Schoeman, Bloemfontein, die ontstaan van ’n stad 1846-1946, 53.

22

Egersdörfer was a German-born artist, illustrater and cartoonist who emigrated to South Africa in 1879. Later he and his partners founded the South African Illustrated News. His sketches document everyday life in the Cape Colony and were often used in local publications. Eric Rosenthal, Heinrich Egersdörfer: An Old-Time Sketch Book/Heinrich Egersdörfer: ’n outydse sketsboek (Cape Town: Nasionale Boekhandel, 1960).

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Every Boer believes himself to be a born musician, but whence this idea remains a mystery ... and every Boer homestead possesses some musical instrument, as a rule a concertina, though in some cases the family has risen to the grandeur of a harmonium. The latter, however, is kept chiefly for ornament, and is used only on grand occasions, while the concertina is in use every day, and at all hours of the day. Now the concertina is all right in its way if the performer can play it, but when his only knowledge is that it “sings loud,” and his one object is to extract all the “song” he can, it is apt to pall the listener. When the Boer goes away on a transport journey he takes his concertina with him. From every waggon [sic] trekking slowly along the dusty road you will hear strains of this instrument breaking out on the quiet air, and if you give a backward glance, you will see the boss stretched out on his mattress in the tent of the waggon, pipe in mouth, grinding out some world-forgotten tune. When the waggon outspans, the owner will climb out, take his seat on the waterkeg and serenade the Kaffirs as they build the fire and prepare the coffee. When the night closes in, the transport rider will play himself to sleep. On the farm, too, the concertina is never idle, for the “boys”23 take it with them, as they go out in the early morning to watch the cattle feed, and again in the evening, when they count the stock as they are driven in.24

The uncomfortable intermingling of intimacy and domination in the depiction above challenges the master- narrative of South Africa’s racial history on several accounts. The suggestion here is that the concertina was the communal property of the household. Read with Figure 7, this account describes a paternalist household as much as one divided along racial lines. In Figure 7 the servant is portrayed at the same level as the Afrikaner woman and

23

“Boys” was the common term for male servants at the time.

24

Dudley Richard, “The Musical Boer”, Hampshire Telegraph and Naval Chronicle (Portsmouth, England), July 14 1900, quoted by Worrall, The Anglo-German Concertina, 2:12-13.

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child, engaged in household activities. The Afrikaner men, on the other hand, are lazing about. Within the bounds of paternalist domination, the servant is allowed certain liberties (as is the wife on occasion), like taking the concertina into the veld. Suggesting that the relationship between servant and master is exclusively one of dominance is, therefore, like implying that no intimacy between married couples is possible within a paternalist context. This relationship, rather, is one of ambivalent flickering between dominance and familiarity. This is the primary source of unease in Figure 7: the ambivalent relationship between the dancing servant and the child. One interpretation would be that the servant is merely minding the child, and therefore engaged in work as opposed to leisure. The question remains: was there any possibility of further intimacy between master and servant within the constraints of structural racism?

A colourful description of dancing at a (white) birthday party by Sophie Leviseur in her book “Ouma [Granny] looks back”, seems to suggest that there was:

The room was small. The floor was made of mis [dung]. The musicians were four yellow boys, with the musical instruments always used at dances in those days. Two Griquas played the violin and concertina, accompanied on a fluitjie [mouth organ] and a guitar by two Hottentots. As the dancing and music became fast and furious, the musicians swayed backwards and forwards, and from side to side. The dancers made no sound with their feet on the mud floor, the only sound heard above the music being a shout every now and then of “askoek” or “hiertjou” from and excited dancer. Occasionally a mournful wail was produced by the guitar of the small Hottentot player who, when the leader of the orchestra called “vee! vee!” [sweep, sweep] swept the backs of his nails along the strings of his instrument.

The music stopped with a sudden jerk. Players and dancers were equally exhausted and the whole party flocked out to the veld to partake of birthday cake and coffee.

Refreshed, the dancers went back into the voorhuis, which, in the meantime, had been sprinkled with water to settle the dust.

Amid much laughter and fun, Ouma Gouws and Tan’ Hannie announced that they would be the musicians for the next dance, Ouma armed with the concertina and Tan’ Hannie only with her voice. They both sang in high treble voices while Ouma played “Jan Pierewiet, Jan Pierewiet, staan stil.” The dancers twirled round and round and sideways, planting each foot in turn on the ground with a thump at the words, “staan stil”.

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Presently the musicians came back and played “Die Bitter Bessie Bos”, the young people squatting on their heels round the room, clapping their hands, singing and laughing, while each couple took turns at dancing in the middle of the floor.25

Rather than a divide across racial lines, the impression is given here of a shared musical idiom: the exchange of the concertina between the Griqua and the Boer matriarch; the movement of bodies to the shared rhythm of the music; the possibility that master and servant enjoy refreshments together during a break. In contestation of claims that “coloured” musicians were merely in it for the money, these musicians seem fully engaged with the music, swaying “backwards and forwards, and from side to side”. But it is the fascinating mention of a “mournful wail” produced by the guitarist amidst “much laughter and fun” that points towards a different level of racial intimacy altogether.