GENEALOGY: South African town battles over divisive Swedish ‘colonialist’

JOHANNESBURG. Last year he was placed on history’s garbage dump, but then he was brought back and reinstated through a court decision.

Now it seems as the legendary South African Voortrekker general Louis Trichardt, who’s Swedish ancestor’s name was Trädgårdh and whom the Limpopo town was called after, will finally be laid to rest.

This according to the town Louis Trichardt’s municipal spokesperson Louis Bobodi who said that correct procedures have been followed at the municipality level this time around and that the town will yet again be renamed Makhado. A protest group managed to revert a previous decision through a successful court action.

Now its up to the Limpopo Geographical Names Council to consider if the proposed name measures up to post-apartheid demands and needs. The naming committee proposed Makhado as the name of the town instead of the colonial Louis Trichardt, said Louis Bobodi stated to the South African news agency Sapa.

Mr. Bobodi stated this was necessary as the name Louis Trichardt was “not unifying the community”. Makhado, to the contrary, is the name of an old Venda king during the 1800s who fought the very colonialism Louis Trichardt is said to symbolize. South Africa’s Afrikaans speaking white population wound’t agree on labling Louis Trichardt a colonialist. For them he stood up against the British empire and fought colonialism, by leading the boers during the Great Trek. But for sure it meant he fought for the interests of a white tribe, the Dutch immigrants, that certainly colonialised Southern Africa.

They had come to Africa from the mid 1600’s, some of them had been in Africa for 150 years when they moved further into Africa. Louis Trichardt died from malaria in what was then Lourenço Marques, today Mozambique’s capital Maputo, where he was commemorated with a statue.

He never visited the town bearing his name for another few weeks or months. The voortrekker general’s son however settled there with his family. Trichardt’s ancestors are large landowners back home in Sweden. A 3rd cousin visited the town in the early Nineties.