The (Orange) Free State

A road trip through the Free State:

Smack in the middle of the undulating emptiness of the Karoo desert, enclosed by towering outcrops with scary names like the Valley of Desolation, Graaff-Reinet looks like a place that has seen a bit of history.

The town was established by Dutch settlers in the late 18th century. Many of the buildings carry the date they were built on the gabling – 1837, 1841, 1852 – just to remind you how long the Afrikaners have been in residence here. They were already well ensconced in 1901, when, according to a monument in the town, several of their young men were executed by the British Army for the crime of wearing khaki in a public place.

Up the main street, flanked by Cape Dutch houses, their verandas freshly whitewashed, their roofs a uniform blue, not much appears to have changed over the years. Walking past the muscular church modelled on Salisbury Cathedral, you half expect to encounter a covered wagon full of determined Voortrekkers making their way north.

But it was a more personal history that was on the mind of one of our party as we arrived in the symbolic heart of Afrikaner land.
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Desolation Valley is appropriately named. An echoing rift of jag-toothed outcrops, it could easily double as Middle Earth or the badlands of Wyoming. With the winter sun setting behind the hills, leaving the eagles to swoop and shriek in a gathering gloaming, it made Death Valley look inviting.

But from the top of the 3,000ft outcrop, the view of Graaff-Reinet was so clear it took us back in time. We could see the old town marked by the bend in the river. The neat clapboard houses, the schools with their trim sports fields, the church with its substantial tower, visible for miles across the desert.

The Free State was one of two Afrikaner republics (modeled on the USA by the Boers) which were defeated by the British during the Boer War and then occupied and turned into colonies of the British Empire. It used to be called the Orange Free State:

The republic's name derives partly from the Orange River (just as the Transvaal Republic was named after the Vaal River), which in turn was named in honour of the Dutch ruling royal family, the House of Orange, by the Dutch settlers under Robert Jacob Gordon. The official language in the Orange Free State was Dutch.
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In 1824 farmers of Dutch, French Huguenot and German descent called Trekboers (later shortened to Boers) from Cape Colony who were seeking pasture for their flocks settled in the country. They were followed in 1836 by the first parties of the Great Trek. These emigrants left Cape Colony from various motives, but all were animated by the desire to escape from British sovereignty.

My mother and my Joubert ancestors came from the Free State.

The Valley of Desolation in the Great Karoo desert: