As leader of the Khoi people, Chief David Stuurman had been exposed to colonial violence throughout his life prior to being sentenced to deportation for resistance activities as the British replaced the Dutch in KhoiSan territory and other parts of what is now South Africa. ‘KhoiSan’ is the collective term to describe the ‘Khoikhoi’ and the ‘San’ Indigenous groups of Southern Africa. Stuurman was one of several KhoiSan convicts transported to the Australian penal colonies and arrived aboard the Brampton in New South Wales in 1823 after being sentenced to seven years’ transportation.¹ And while Australia’s convict history is well documented, the histories of non-white convicts are less well known.

Stuurman (also recorded as Steerman/Sherman/Sturnman) was born around 1773, “50 miles from Cape Town”,² and rose to prominence as Chief of the Khoi people and later became a staunch opponent of colonialism. Because of this prominence, he is recorded within the colonial archives more than the other KhoiSan convicts. It was this resistance that led to his capture and arrest — along with other KhoiSan prisoners — on several occasions. The first was for his involvement in the third frontier war in the Eastern Cape after allegedly forming an alliance with the Xhosa and, despite not being tried for a crime, was banished to Robben Island for “suspicious conduct, living in a Kraal near the boundaries of the Colony”.³ Stuurman escaped and returned to the eastern Cape where he sought refuge amongst the Xhosa. When the fifth frontier war started, in 1819, Stuurman continued to be a threat to the British and he was recaptured and sent to Robben Island, again without charge.⁴ During his time on the island, a mutiny broke out in 1820, when one of the convicts, Johan Smit, “over-powered and disarmed a sentry” stealing armoury and freeing other prisoners. Several soldiers were injured and one was killed during the incident.⁵ About 30 mutineers, including Stuurman, managed to escape before being recaptured and tried.⁶ He was “sentenced to witness the execution” and “to be transported for life to New South Wales” aged 50.⁷ It is impossible to know what impact bearing witness to this violence had on Stuurman — the colonial archive provides no detail on these matters.

While recording his physical description on arrival, colonial officials in Sydney noted that he was “lame of right leg”.⁸ Stuurman was issued with a Ticket-of-Leave in March 1829 in Sydney. The highly respected Khoi leader died the following year, as a labourer, in February 1830.⁹ Here, many unanswered questions emerge: What caused his right leg to be “lame”? Was there a funeral? Was he eulogised? Stuurman appears through fragments within the archive. We can only catch glimpses of him and there are few known records of his experience in his own words. Much of what we know about him in Australia is drawn from colonial archives, which centre white men in positions of power.

Attempting to reconstruct Stuurman’s life exposes the limits and challenges of working with colonial archives. Roberta Joy Rich’s work offers an intervention to this archival violence by centring the man who appears in fragments within the archives. Despite our cultures being threatened, these archival traces offer us an opportunity to rediscover ourselves. Rich’s use of Chief Stuurman’s language here is not simply cultural preservation, but a creation of new archives which centres the Khoi perspective. There is a power in hearing these languages being spoken out loud: like Chief David Stuurman, so many of us came to this continent carrying our languages, and our histories. We did not discard them even though we communicate predominantly in English. They remain a part of our identity and connection to heritage.

In settler colonies, the histories of Black and Indigenous peoples are marked by violent erasure — and erasure that continues within archives. And for Black settlers on colonised lands, locating our own histories within these violent archives is fraught and complicated. While brought here against their will, many people of African descent in colonial Australia were unwillingly part of the colonial project.

These histories are also marked by an enduring grief; grief that is rarely acknowledged and continues to impact these communities. By reimagining Chief David Stuurman’s life as a descendant of the KhoiSan people, Roberta Joy Rich allows us to trace the wounds of colonialism and offer up a liberatory perspective: one which centres this revered hero, celebrates the survival and resistance of Indigenous and Black communities around the world, and affords the safe space to mourn these ancestors. It is also a powerful reminder that despite Empire’s countless attempts at massacring, exiling, and enslaving us, we are still here.