South Africa Voortrekker Monument Opning in 1949

SOUTH AFRICA’S POSTAL AUTHORITIES issued a set of three bilingual stamps in 1949 to commemorate the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument, a project initiated by Afrikaner nationalist cultural organisations and supported by the political opposition but funded largely by the United Party government. Although it had Afrikaner leadership, the UP sought to accommodate the aspirations of all white citizens in its definition of South Africa.

The Monument commemorated the Great Trek, the name given to the emigration from the Cape Colony by groups of boers (farmers) that sought to escape British rule in the 1830s-40s. The narrative of the Great Trek invented a heroic past in which the Voortrekkers (pioneers) were honoured as a people called to fulfil God’s will as his chosen people, destined to bring civilisation and Christianity to the southern tip of Africa. Nationalist Afrikaners claimed direct descent from the Voortrekkers.

The blue stamp with a 3d. value has three panels that form a triptych comprising (from left to right): a Voortrekker woman and child giving thanks to the Almighty, a bible and a candle, and a Voortrekker horseman. The woman wears traditional attire, most notably the kappie (bonnet), which had become the standard signifier of the traditional Afrikaner woman by the 1920s. This image resonated with the volksmoeder (mother of the nation) discourse which linked the idealised Afrikaner woman with virtue and suffering but also with the strength and determination to triumph. The candlelight signifies the light of God’s word illuminating the darkness of Africa. The horseman suggests the traits of fortitude and perseverance shaped the Voortrekker men as frontiersmen who settled the land in the face of much adversity and the distrust of the indigenous peoples.

This  official First Day Cover from South Africa to the USA also featured (1d and 11/2d) stamps commemorating the inauguration of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. The postmark cancellation originated from Pretoria, South Africa.

Source: Baines, Gary. ‘‘Propagating Afrikaner Nationalism: The Voortrekker Stamps as Icons of an Ideology, 1934-48’, Nations & Nationalism, 1-17 (2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12938