In October 1656, Groote Catrijn killed her former lover, Claes van Mallebaerse – a fellow enslaved person – in Batavia. Groote Catrijn was born around 1631 in Palicatta (Pulicat, India), a VOC textile trading post. Groote Catrijn was condemned to death for the murder. (1/7) But she was pardoned by the Governor-General of Batavia, who commuted her sentence to life banishment to the Cape of Good Hope. He ruled that her killing of Claes was committed in self-defence. On 21 February 1657, she arrived at the Cape, after a journey of near 3 months. (2/7)

Sathima Bea Benjamin passed away in August 2013. She was born in 1936 in Claremont. Her father was from St. Helena, and her mother had roots in Mauritius and the Philippines. Her family life was disrupted by the declaration of her birth-place as a ‘white area’. (1/7) Benjamin is rarely mentioned in the pantheon of South African jazz artists. For some she was not “African” enough to be marketable, and for others too different to be taken seriously as a great jazz vocalist. (2/7)

Johnny Gomas was born at Abottsdale mission station, Malmesbury district (1901). In 1911, he moved with his mother to the Malay Camp, Kimberley. In 1915, he was apprenticed as a tailor. He joined the Clothing Workers' Industrial Union and the International Socialist League. (1/5) Gomas joined the African National Congress in 1918 – the first “Coloured” man to do so. In 1928, after a protest against the killing of a Black man who had no pass, in Paarl, Gomas served 3 months in jail. In 1928, he was elected Vice President of the Western Cape ANC. (2/5)

In 1961, a Coloured journalist, Joseph Louw, and Pamela Beira, a White woman, were arrested under the Immorality Amendment Act of 1950, which banned sex between "Europeans" and Black people (African, Coloured or Indian). Beira fled the country before standing trial. (1/6) On 24 February 1962, Louw was found guilty and sentenced to 6 months in jail. After his release, he left South Africa for Tanzania. Shortly afterward he was awarded a scholarship to the USA. He graduated from Columbia University in 1967. (2/6)

The story of Goedverwacht (near Piketberg) begins with an enslaved woman, Maniesa, originally from Bengal, India. She was held in slavery by Hendrik Schalk Burger. Burger was a widower whose children had abandoned him in his old age.

#AColouredTapestry (1/4) Before the emancipation of slaves in 1838, Burger asked Maniesa and her children to stay on the farm to look after him until his death. He bequeathed the farm to Maniesa and her children. With his death, his own children contested the will. (2/4)

Autshumao (AKA Herri die Strandloper [beachcomber]) was a Khoe chief. Around 1630, he agreed to accompany a visiting ship to Bantam in Java where he learnt much about Europeans, including their languages, such as English and Dutch. (1/10) On 6 April 1652, Jan van Riebeeck was received at the Cape by the Autshumao and his people. In the 8 months after van Riebeeck’s arrival, he built a fort on top of Autshumao’s settlement. (2/10)

Dulcie September was assassinated on 29 March 1998 in Paris. She was born in 1935 in Maitland. She attended Athlone High School and completed her Teacher's Diploma at the Wesley Training School in Salt River in 1955. #AColouredTapestry (1/6) Together with Neville Alexander, Fikile Bam, Marcus Solomon, and others, she formed a study group known as the Yu Chi Chan Club. Yu Chi Chan Club was disbanded at the end of 1962, to be replaced by the National Liberation Front (NLF). (2/6)

Zwarte Maria Evert was the first owner of the farm that later became Camps Bay. She was born at the Cape in 1663. Her parents arrived at the Cape in 1658 as part of a group of 220 enslaved people taken from what is now Benin. (1/6)

#AColouredTapestry Her father was given his freedom in 1659; the first male slave to be freed. He bought her and her mother’s freedom in 1671. He had been granted a plot of land, where he lived and ran a garden. (2/6)

The South African Council on Sports (SACOS) was founded on 17 March 1973. It fought for non-racial sport under the leadership of Hassan Howa and lobbied for apartheid South Africa's expulsion from international sport. (1/5) Hassan Howa was born in 1922 in Cape Town to a Christian Coloured mother and a Muslim Indian father. He matriculated from Trafalgar High School. He was an amateur cricketer and was a founder of the SA Cricket Board of Control (SACBOC). (2/5)

#AColouredTapestry

Peter Clarke was a visual artist, writer and poet. His career spanned more than 6 decades and his work was exhibited and honoured on 6 continents. Peter passed away on 13 April 2014 in Ocean View. (1/5) Peter was born on 2 June 1929 in Simon’s Town. His mother was a domestic worker; his father was a dockyard worker. Though they didn’t earn much, his parents supplied him with pencils, crayons and paper on which to practise his art. (2/5)

David Stuurman was a Khoi chief who fought against Dutch and British colonial rule between 1799 and 1819. He is the only person to have successfully escaped from Robben Island on two occasions. (1/7)

#AColouredTapestry He resisted colonial rule as indigenous people were dispossessed of their land and forced to work on farms. He also opposed the conscription of the Khoi into militias that were created to defend the colony and to attack San and amaXhosa. (2/7)

Tohira Kerrike (also spelt Kherekar) has been selling flowers at Silwood Centre in #Rondebosch for the past 45 years. She talks about her childhood in "Untold Stories: Memories of growing up in a different era," a book by @CTchildhood. (1/14) Her family owned a small farm in #Constantia at the top of Ladies Mile Road. On the farm, they grew vegetables and #flowers. Her mother sold the flowers that were grown on the farm. Tohira started helping her mother with the selling of flowers. (2/14)