Abstract
The vicissitudes of the Griqua people in nineteenth-century South Africa have been characterised variously as a ‘tragedy’ and an ‘injustice’.1 Although once a significant factor in the internal politics of the country, their history is little known in modern South Africa and rarely studied by historians. Because of their peregrinations, documents about them are scattered all over the country, often in the most unexpected places. In this article, a recent discovery of a hand-written journal by Nicolaas Waterboer, the last Griqua kaptyn (captain), is presented. Although historians have known that he visited Griqualand East shortly after its establishment, it is now possible to have a first-hand account by a sympathetic observer who intimately knew the people involved and their history. This is a rare opportunity to hear the voice of an African indigene describing the history of his own people and proffering his own motivations.