My "Free Black" Progenitors in the Cape of Good Hope
The “Free Black” progenitors of Johanna Maria Schonken (1777-1848) in the Dutch-governed Cape of Good Hope Allan H. Anderson [1] her great-great-great grandson Introduction Johanna Schonken, my generation’s great-great-great grandmother, was born in Stellenbosch in the Cape of Good Hope in the southern tip of Africa, and baptised on 27 July 1777. [2] Her parents were Bartholomeus Schonken (sometimes spelled “Schonke”) (1739-1806) and Elisabeth Maria van Ellewe (1750-1845), who were married in 1765. [3] We do not know anything about her early life, but on 17 August 1806 she married the London-born missionary William Anderson (1769-1852) in the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) in Cape Town. [4] Afterwards she travelled with her husband to work in the London Missionary Society, at first amongst the Griquas in Klaarwater, now Griquastad, north of the Orange River. The Griquas were a mixed race of people speaking Afrikaans and descended from imported s...