Goedgedacht in the sources
Goedgedacht was the first Dutch Reformed Church mission station in the Soutpansberg, founded by Alexander McKidd in 1863 in the country of Madzhie. Stephanus Hofmeyr took it over in 1865, left it in the war of that year, and found its buildings in ruins; the Kranspoort farm beside it later became the church’s main station there.
What the sources say
Founding. Nemudzivhadi writes that the first church to do mission work in Venda was the Dutch Reformed Church, which started when the Rev. Alexander McKidd established the Goedgedacht station “in the land of Madzhie” in 1863, two years before the Berlin missionaries began at Blouberg (p. 128). Magwira says McKidd, a Scot, received an invitation to the Soutpansberg to work among the Buys people (p. 33) and acquired Goedgedacht and Kranspoort (p. 34). See Alexander McKidd.
Hofmeyr’s account. Stephanus Hofmeyr arrived there in February 1865. He describes a station with limes, naartjies, guavas, bananas and grapes growing; the Buys community, led by the old man Michael Buys, among whom he first worked; fever and locusts; and, in 1865, a threatened attack by an African commando as the Soutpansberg went to war (chs 1, 6). Hofmeyr and his wife left, the houses were left in ruins, and the old station was later burnt; in a later letter reprinted in his book he declined a message from Madzhie asking him to live on the old station again until he was sure of his protection (pp. 40 to 42). Hofmeyr says the family then lived at Noem-Noem-draai, later Bethesda.
Afterwards. Hofmeyr’s later chapters are headed “Back at Goedgedacht” and his letters from the 1870s and 1880s are dated from there, so he returned to it. Magwira says that after a short stay at Goedgedacht Hofmeyr left because of rumours of war and settled at the farm Noem-Noem near Polokwane, where he founded many stations (p. 34); Nemudzivhadi says Goedgedacht was malaria-infested and Hofmeyr moved the station to Kranspoort, near Madzhie’s headquarters (p. 129). See Stephanus Hofmeyr and Kranspoort.
Michael Buys and the call for a missionary
Michael Buys, a leader of the Buys community, told Hofmeyr that he asked a former President for a missionary and that the farmer Cornelis Lottering helped and gave a farm for McKidd; see Michael Buys and Buys community.
Cornelis Lottering
Hofmeyr says the ground for the Goedgedacht station was given by the farmer Cornelis Lottering, whose wife died in the fever of March 1865; see Cornelis Lottering.
Overview article
The Buys congregation is set in context in The Buys people of the Soutpansberg: an overview.
Cautions
The three sources disagree on where Hofmeyr lived in the 1860s and 1870s, and on the relationship of Goedgedacht to Kranspoort. We have not seen a map of the farms. Page numbers for Hofmeyr are those printed in the scan. Magwira’s dissertation is a missiological critique written from the standpoint of the community that was removed, and it leans on the Dutch Reformed Church’s own archive (the “DIV” files in Stellenbosch) as well as on interviews; we have not seen the archive, nor the church’s own account.
Izithakazelo and totem
We have found no confirmed totem or praise poem for this page. If your family belongs to the Kranspoort community or to one of the mission stations in this story and you wish to share its history, we would like to record it, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Stefanus Hofmeyr, Twintig jaren in Zoutpansberg: een verhaal van twintig jarigen arbeid onder de heidenen in de Transvaal (Cape Town: J. H. Rose, 1890), in Dutch; read in the Internet Archive scan (page numbers below are the book’s, as marked in the scan’s text)
- Mphaya Henry Nemudzivhadi, “The attempts by Makhado to revive the Venda kingdom, 1864-1895”, PhD thesis, Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (1998); open access at the North-West University repository (a scanned copy; we read it by OCR, and page numbers cited are the thesis’s printed numbers)
- Mashonelo Anderson Magwira, “Land for mission and mission for land: a missiological reflection of the Kranspoort Mission Station in Soutpansberg within the Vhembe district of the Limpopo Province”, MTh dissertation, University of Pretoria (2016), chapters 2, 4, 5 and 6
See also Stephanus Hofmeyr, Kranspoort, Kranspoort removals, 1955 to 1964, Goedgedacht, Alexander McKidd and Madzhie.
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