This blog is based entirely upon an article entitled Christmas at Port Elizabeth from the defunct magazine An African City in 1913. What I have done is to insert comments regarding changes or to emphasize differences between then and now. In some ways it is familiar and in other ways so dissimilar.

Main picture:  Aerial view of Humewood#03 1935

David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone had a mythic status that operated on a number of interconnected levels. As a result, Livingstone became one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era.

Main picture: David Livingstone

South End, its people, its mosques and churches were all sacrificed on the altar of Apartheid. The people were relocated, a settled harmonious community was cast asunder, the buildings bulldozed. All except some places of religion escaped the carnage. Now in an island of destruction they represented no congregation as they had been transported to the northern most part of the metropole.

But survive they did. The Pier Street mosque suffered further threats as it forlornly stood erect in the path of the proposed freeway. It survived its near death experience as the route was amended to skirt the mosque but St. Peter’s Church barely survived as it was vandalised to within an inch of its life.     

Main picture: A wantonly vandalised St. Peter’s Church

In unravelling the history of Port Elizabeth, very little is revealed about the history of black inhabitants of the area, with most problematic being that of the origins of the amaMfengu. For this purpose,  it is assumed that the amaMfengu were those who had broken their allegiance with the amaXhosa chiefly families and decided to enter the Cape Colony and accept the laws and governance of the colonists.

Main picture:   Beach labourers loading a surfboat with wool bales for onward transport to a ship at anchor in the roadstead

Thomas Handfield arrived at Port Elizabeth as a 22-year-old settler from Ulcomb, Kent as part of Richard Daniell’s party. He later acquired land in the Baaken’s Valley on what is today Settler’s Park. In 1898 when the property was for sale, it was stated that the first colonial woolwashery had been located on this estate.

Main picture:   Handfield’s Valley looking towards the sea

In a town’s layout, topography matters and, in Port Elizabeth’s case, hugely important. Two geographical features guided the direction and type of development. These were the Baakens River valley and the steep hill immediately southwest of Main Street. Both factors impinged upon the direction and type of development.

Main picture: The Royal Engineer’s Map of 1810 shows the main roads of the pre-820 Settler era

Historically Piet Retief’s connection with Port Elizabeth and importance as a resident has been wholly misstated. Perhaps due to English dominance of the town, a vision of Retief arose to counterbalance the contemporary narrative. Apart from owning the farm Strandfontein in Summerstrand and several plots in the centre of the hamlet, Retief never actually took up residence in the area.

As Prof. Terblanche concludes in his article entitled “Die feite oor the omstrede Piet Retief” dated 10 March 2009, “Die idilliese prentjie wat mense dus het van Retief wat op sy plaaswoning se stoep gesit en oor Algoabaai getuur het, is eenvodig nie waar nie.”

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