Go, Andries, Go - the story of Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius

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Uncle Paul

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A wonderful song by the great John Edmond, telling the story of one of South Africa's greatest men - Commandant General Andries Pretorius. Imagine George Washington, Martin Luther King, and Benjamin Franklin combined into one man, and that is what Pretorius was like. A great general and statesmen who never stopped fighting for his people to be free.

It is inspired by the real dying words of Christina Pretorius, where she told her husband, Andries, who had been asked to lead the Boers in a fight against Britain so that they could be free, "Go, Andries, go, your countrymen need you. For me, there is now no more you can do." As far as I can tell, the next part ("I have always been your ever-loving wife. You can give me love, but you can't give me life.") appears to be John Edmond's poetic license.


Go, Andries, go...​
 
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This is cringe.
 
Imagine George Washington, Martin Luther King, and Benjamin Franklin combined into one man, and that is what Pretorius was like. A great general and statesmen who never stopped fighting for his people to be free.
Whose people to be free?
Because South Africa has what can only be called, at best, a complicated history involving freedom and race.
 
Whose people to be free?
Because South Africa has what can only be called, at best, a complicated history involving freedom and race.
The Boers. Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius died in 1853. Apartheid was created in 1948. He had nothing to do with it.
 
The Boers. Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius died in 1853. Apartheid was created in 1948. He had nothing to do with it.
Somehow I doubt the racial structure present in Apartheid sprung into existence in 1948.
If my posts feel like they lack substance, its because I know nothing about this guy and very little about the early history of South Africa. I'm not sure what is to be discussed here beyond someone made a song based off of a quote of his and that you have a high opinion of him.
A quick look at the (rather slim) wikipedia article on him doesn't seem to present him as all that influential. He was closely associated with the voortrekkers and famous enough others chose to name the capital of South Africa after him; but equating him with Washington (skilled general and statesman), Franklin (well regarded diplomat, political thinker, and polymath), and MLK (civil rights) seems a bit far fetched. If you can add some additional information on him and why you believe he is so important, I'd appreciate that.
 
I also note that apparently his most celebrated claim to fame appears to be the battle of blood river, which, uh...

Most of the rest of us settler states *at least* have had the sense to draw down on actively celebrating people whose achievement list boils down to "killed a bunch of the people whose land we were stealing".

Which is far, far, far from fixing everything, but at least, it's not...well, that.
 
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Somehow I doubt the racial structure present in Apartheid sprung into existence in 1948.
If my posts feel like they lack substance, its because I know nothing about this guy and very little about the early history of South Africa. I'm not sure what is to be discussed here beyond someone made a song based off of a quote of his and that you have a high opinion of him.
A quick look at the (rather slim) wikipedia article on him doesn't seem to present him as all that influential. He was closely associated with the voortrekkers and famous enough others chose to name the capital of South Africa after him; but equating him with Washington (skilled general and statesman), Franklin (well regarded diplomat, political thinker, and polymath), and MLK (civil rights) seems a bit far fetched. If you can add some additional information on him and why you believe he is so important, I'd appreciate that.
The song is based off of a quote of his wife's.
Wikipedia has a US/British bias, and doesn't devote enough attention to Boers.
And in fact, the man who wrote out the Retief-Dingaan treaty, Jan Gerritze Bantjes, was multiracial ("Coloured" is the South African word for this group, although apparently it's considered insulting in North America, it is the preferred term in South Africa).
I also note that apparently his most celebrated claim to fame appears to be the battle of blood river, which, uh...

Most of the rest of us settler states *at least* have had the sense to draw down on actively celebrating people whose achievement list boils down to "killed a bunch of the people whose land we were stealing".

Which is far, far, far from fixing everything, but at least, it's not...well, that.
The Battle of Blood River was a response to Zulu aggression and Dingaan's treachery. Piet Retief had been sent as an envoy to the Zulu king Dingaan, who, after signing a treaty with Retief, tricked Retief into attending a "celebration" at his kraal, at which point Dingaan commanded his warriors to murder Retief and his entire delegation. Zulus had also attacked parties of Voortrekkers who were merely passing through the region, smashing the heads of babies against their wagon wheels.
I don't feel any sympathy for Dingaan or his impis - if they didn't want to negotiate with the Voortrekkers, they should have been honest about it, instead of using treachery to kill the Boer delegation.
And the Zulus themselves had, just a few years prior, "stolen" a bunch of land from neighboring tribes, scattering the people far and wide. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
 
Yes, pretty much all our native killers had similar "justification" to their actions.

We're still reconsiderinf honoring them, because invaders whining about the people who were there before them killing the invaders just looks bad.

(That would apply to the Zulus toward the people they conquered, but to the Boer for invading them in turn. Two wrongs is not one right.)
 
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Somehow I doubt the racial structure present in Apartheid sprung into existence in 1948.
The Boers. Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius died in 1853. Apartheid was created in 1948. He had nothing to do with it.
1948 was when National Party PM D.F. Malan of the Union of South Africa introduced a comprehensive legal and systemic framework of consistent and standardized racial segregation and differing statuses and applications under the law called, "Appartheid," (roughly translated from Afrikaans as, "apartness," - which is almost synymous to, "segregation").

HOWEVER, localized and pre-Union (British) colony and (Boer) republic laws, prior to the formation of the Union of South Africa, and provincial laws, afterward, and ad hoc regional de facto legal actions, with no special labels or consistency, created many mandatory segregation situations and differing laws between European-descended and Black African denizens, with the former always being in a privileged status, prior to 1948. In Natal Province, from 1910 to 1948, there was exactly ONE Black man who had the vote, due to how suffrage laws worked, and while he voted every election, his uniqueness was notable. Blacks in the Cape Province from 1920-something to 1948 was White Electors vote on their behalf for White candidates to represent Black Native issues. The Orange Free State and Transvaal Provinces, and the two Boer Republics preceding them, NEVER allowed Blacks to vote. The Constitutional of the South African Republic (which became Transvaal Province, and was the one founded by this vaunted Pretorius fellow, who also became its first State President) specifically used the invocation of, "sanitation and health standards and safety," to justify Blacks having to live on the segregated periphery of ZAR towns.
 
1948 was when National Party PM D.F. Malan of the Union of South Africa introduced a comprehensive legal and systemic framework of consistent and standardized racial segregation and differing statuses and applications under the law called, "Appartheid," (roughly translated from Afrikaans as, "apartness," - which is almost synymous to, "segregation").

HOWEVER, localized and pre-Union (British) colony and (Boer) republic laws, prior to the formation of the Union of South Africa, and provincial laws, afterward, and ad hoc regional de facto legal actions, with no special labels or consistency, created many mandatory segregation situations and differing laws between European-descended and Black African denizens, with the former always being in a privileged status, prior to 1948. In Natal Province, from 1910 to 1948, there was exactly ONE Black man who had the vote, due to how suffrage laws worked, and while he voted every election, his uniqueness was notable. Blacks in the Cape Province from 1920-something to 1948 was White Electors vote on their behalf for White candidates to represent Black Native issues. The Orange Free State and Transvaal Provinces, and the two Boer Republics preceding them, NEVER allowed Blacks to vote. The Constitutional of the South African Republic (which became Transvaal Province, and was the one founded by this vaunted Pretorius fellow, who also became its first State President) specifically used the invocation of, "sanitation and health standards and safety," to justify Blacks having to live on the segregated periphery of ZAR towns.
The first State President of the SAR was Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, son of Andries. Boers were the only people who could vote in their republics, to do otherwise would defeat the entire purpose of trekking away - Boer self-governance. The idea was Boers would govern themselves in their own republics, and Africans would continue their traditional ways in their tribal villages.
Once again, the Boers endured the hardships of the Great Trek so they could rule themselves...giving the vote to a population that outnumbered them would have meant that the Trek was all for naught.
Yes, pretty much all our native killers had similar "justification" to their actions.

We're still reconsiderinf honoring them, because invaders whining about the people who were there before them killing the invaders just looks bad.

(That would apply to the Zulus toward the people they conquered, but to the Boer for invading them in turn. Two wrongs is not one right.)
Except in this case, it was actually justified. Look up that Churchill quote about the dog in the manger. I don't care if the Zulus were "native" (they weren't, in fact, they had recently invaded most of the lands they controlled at the time). They conquered their neighboring tribes, and were, in turn, conquered by the Boers. The Boers tried to live peacefully with them, but Dingaan's treachery precluded that. Had Dingaan's impis not attacked Boer civilians, had Dingaan not murdered Retief and his delegation, there would have been no Blood River. Dingaan brought it all upon himself.
And can anyone really argue with what the "invaders" did? They built modern, first-world nations in what was previously a sparsely-populated wilderness. Does anyone really think the world would be a better place if the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand didn't exist?
 
I think the world should way better if any kind of colonization ever happens.
Way, way, way different, definitely. Objectively better in totality? Like all alternate timeline considerations realistically even attempted to discern through the astronomical number of factors (and not in the simplistic, but necessary for comprehensible portrayal, method in fiction around such a concept), impossible to say...
 
I think the world should way better if any kind of colonization ever happens.
I'm assuming you mean "colonization never happens", the sentence you have written is incoherent, and I had to rely on context clues and my knowledge of your opinions to decipher it, please correct me if I am misinterpreting what you meant.

Without colonization, Western Civilization would be confined to the tiny continent of Europe, much of the world would still be Stone Age tribes, no Boers would exist, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada wouldn't exist, etc...a much worse world.
 
The Chinese and Ottomans would like a word with you.
 
Just realize if the Aztecs manage to survive untill the internet era, we would have human sacrifice videos on Tik Tok.
Human sacrifice, likely, would have, realistically speaking, have been abandoned among the Aztecs on their own as unviable as a practice in the long term, and as the Aztecs had their own internal social and political power shifts and social and cultural advances (after all, human sacrifice was one of those institutions that, at the end of the day, only solidified the power of a tiny political and theocratic elite over the masses).
 
So would the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca. And even the Ethiopians.
I'm not sure how the Ethiopians would fare against Ottoman-backed Adal without Portugese assistance. Still, most other Sub-Saharan states would be better off without European exploitation. Given Africa's geography, it's more likely China or the Ottomans would be global powers.
 
The Chinese and Ottomans would like a word with you.
Neither is a Western civilization, so I don't see why my statement that "without colonization, Western Civilization would be confined to Europe" is wrong. The Chinese, however, are a great civilization, but it seems they were never interested in imperialism, except with regards to areas on their periphery (i.e. Tibet, etc...). They could have settled Australia, but never did.
So would the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca. And even the Ethiopians.
I wouldn't call civilizations that rip people's hearts out as a sacrifice great. Primitive and barbaric, not great.
I'm not sure how the Ethiopians would fare against Ottoman-backed Adal without Portugese assistance. Still, most other Sub-Saharan states would be better off without European exploitation. Given Africa's geography, it's more likely China or the Ottomans would be global powers.
But Africa would still be in the Stone Age if Europeans hadn't helped them, and the Boers would not exist at all. The existence of the Boers alone is enough to make up for whatever "sins" that colonists committed against the local tribesmen.
 
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