One Face in a Million Book 1: Mu Shangaaniana. William Bond
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mainly come from England. Christine had been told that her father had been born in Cape Town and had been raised and educated in Johannesburg, South Africa. His father had emigrated from England to South Africa and had had a successful career as a mining engineer. He had married a woman whose family had emigrated to South Africa from India. Initially, that family had settled in the province of Natal where they had found employment on a large plantation.
Many in race-conscious South Africa would not have approved of an English engineer marrying a woman of Indian descent, but Indira Cartwright had been accepted in some circles because she was a devout Christian. She had lived a rather sequestered life in Johannesburg and had devoted her life to raising their son, Paul, who was their only child. She had nurtured him in the Christian faith and had encouraged him to consider the ministry for his vocation.
Paul had followed that suggestion and become a minister. He also had managerial skills, and in time, he took on administrative duties and became involved with the growth of the church and its missionary efforts in various parts of southern Africa.
During his career, he had married a woman from Johannesburg, but they had had no children. After three years of marriage, she developed cancer and had lost her battle with that disease. Later, church business had occasionally brought him to Mozambique, and he had become acquainted with Mother who headed the mission station at Tavani. They had corresponded with each other for a year or so, and when Paul Cartwright proposed marriage, Mother had accepted, and the two were married at Tavani in February of 1911.
Mother had often acknowledged how much she loved her husband. The happiness that they had envisioned had been exceedingly brief, and Mother had often wondered what their lives would have been like if he had lived. She had said that, if he had lived, it was likely that they would have had more children. She had seen that Paul Cartwright was a kind Christian man with many good qualities, and the fact that he was an Anglo-Indian had been of no concern to her. Later, however, she had come to realize that her decision to marry a man with Indian ancestry had proven to be something of an embarrassment to her daughter.
Because of her fair skin, Christine did not think that she looked much different from the other girls who were attending boarding school in Swaziland. The comment that she was a half-caste who was trying to pass for white had greatly distressed her, and other remarks about her appearance had also been hurtful. She could not change her ancestry, nor could she change certain aspects of her appearance. There had been many times when she had wondered if she would ever be truly accepted at St. Mark’s. She had thought that she would probably continue her education in the United States, but sometimes she feared that she would encounter rejection there as well. It bothered her to think that she might never be able to completely escape from the reputation that had been dogging her. Although she had discussed these problems with Mother, from time to time, she realized that the issue was largely one she would have to handle on her own.
Perhaps, in time, she would escape from the stigma that plagued her at St. Mark’s, but she couldn’t be certain. Perhaps she could pass for white in Africa, but there was no guarantee of this. It seemed that her best chances for escaping her stigma would be to go abroad. Hopefully, in the United States or England, she would be able to get away from the labels that others had placed on her.
As she looked again at her parents’ pictures, she could see that she had her mother’s fair skin and her father’s dark hair and dark eyes. If anything betrayed her Indian ancestry, it was her eyes. Regardless of her ancestry or her appearance, she had to believe that she would find acceptance when she went abroad. She could only pray that she would, in fact, pass for white and that her secret would never be discovered. There was the possibility, however, that she might never escape from the stigmas that plagued her. She feared for the worst, yet she continued to hope for the best. She had tried to follow some of Mother’s advice, for she had advised her to “always act like a lady and never behave in ways that could give others any grounds for insults.” Another bit of motherly advice which Christine had tried to follow was to “simply ignore hurtful remarks.” That, however, was something which Christine had found was easier said than done.
Although the photos that she had been looking at were in black-and-white, Christine knew that the people pictured therein were a variety of colors. Mother and the other missionaries at Tavani were white as were many others in southern Africa. The Shangaans were black, and many others in southern Africa ranged from shades of tan to shades of brown. The pictures in the album represented quite a racial mix!
The assortment of people that she had been looking at reminded her that the southern part of Africa was a melting pot that contained many kinds of people. European settlers had come from places like England, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Germany. Asians had come from India, China, Southeast Asia, and from various islands that are located off the southeast coast of Asia. Many immigrants to southern Africa had come to farm the land or labor in the coastal plantations. Some had come to work in the region’s diamond or gold mines. Many had come for business opportunities or other reasons. The black people or Bantus, as they were often called, were made up of many tribes—some of which had migrated to the southern part of Africa because of the opportunities that seemed to be available in that part of the continent. The Bantus, of course, made up the majority of the population. The challenge of developing southern Africa had essentially been accomplished through the investment of Europeans and the hard work of the Bantus and Asians of the region.
The white minority had gained the upper hand economically, politically, and socially. They had learned that their racial purity was of great importance, at least in South Africa, where the separation of races was well established. In that country, the whites were clearly the privileged race, and it seemed a misfortune to be born anything else. Whites tolerated the other races and liked to keep people of color at a safe distance from themselves. The Bantus, the Asians, and those of mixed races, known as Coloureds, could work almost anywhere, but they were usually expected to live in separate neighborhoods, townships, or homelands.
The underprivileged majority lived as best they could, but a lot of resentment simmered beneath the surface, for they were treated as a lower class of people and they could see that they were being denied many rights and privileges. The Bantu did most of the menial labor, as a rule, and they received the fewest benefits. The Asians tended to have somewhat better jobs, and they seemed to prefer living by themselves. The Coloureds were usually thought of as a lower class of people for they weren’t white—nor anything else! They were apt to be referred to as half-castes or half-breeds, and sometimes they were treated like outcasts.
Oftentimes, those who could tried to pass for white. Those who were able to do so thus gave themselves a chance for a better life. Those who were caught trying to pass for white were apt to find themselves shunned or ridiculed. It was this sort of ridicule and prejudice that Christine had experienced during the past year at St. Mark’s. The teasing had been initiated by Sara, and she and others in the dorm had made her feel the way those in the underclass must feel. She disliked the feeling immensely, and she hated feeling ashamed of who she was.
Would she be able to improve her situation in her last year at St. Mark’s? Or would it, perhaps, stay with her for years? She could only hope that she could leave the problem behind when it came time for her to leave Africa. Regardless of what she would have liked, the fact of the matter was that she was three-quarters English and one-quarter Indian. As a child, such information would have made no difference to her, but her recent experience at St. Mark’s had shown that one’s ancestry could cause reason for some concern in race-conscious regions of southern Africa. Her thoughts about such matters were put aside, however, as she came to the section of the album where her baby pictures were to be seen.
Mother had said that she had been a beautiful baby, and although there were only a few pictures of her as an infant, she felt that she had looked rather cute. She had been born in the health-care facility where her mother was presently working, and she had been named Christine Elaine Cartwright. She had been born in the fall on April 15, 1912. Years later, she learned that she had been born on the same date that the Titanic had sunk. She had learned that the huge luxury ship was making its first voyage from England to America when it struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank in the early hours of April fifteenth. If she remembered correctly, approximately 1,500 lives had been