Visit Dutch South Africa of the early 18^th century, with the first book of Jack Cavanaugh's "African Covenant" series: The Pride and the Passion. (A second book, Quest for the Promised Land, takes place over a hundred years later, and will be discussed in a future article.)

Set in 1715, The Pride and the Passion introduces Margot de Campion, a French Huguenot orphan raised by a Dutch couple since the age of six. Her adoptive mother, Sylvia Fabarez, has secretly taught her to read and write, in Latin as well as the native tongue, and told her many stories, among them Bible stories as well as adventures on the seas. When Sylvia takes ill and dies, her husband (who never liked Margot) goes berserk and accuses Margot of witchcraft. Through a series of heart-pounding adventures, Margot ends up on a Dutch East India Company ship bound for Cape Town, South Africa, boarding with the King's Nieces (orphaned girls being sent as mail-order brides to Dutch colonists) in the belly of the ship.

The story's heroine, Margot is a very independent, assertive woman, in the style of modern book characters and not necessarily typical for the early 18^th century. Similar to some of Cavanaugh's other female characters--for example, Alex (Alexandra) in The Victors, a World War II story--Margot is uninterested in marriage, thinking herself enlightened and "above" that kind of life. She encourages the King's Nieces by telling them stories of strong, independent-minded women of the Bible, such as Abigail and Esther, while neglecting--as will be pointed out to her later on--to tell them other Bible passages about wives submitting to their husbands. Yet Margot quickly wins the reader's heart as she tends to the ailing girls and requests improvements in their conditions; and in the end she wins the ship's captain as a trusted friend, like the father she never knew.

In South Africa, Margot witnesses the beauty of the mountains, with a good view of Table Mountain and the smaller Signal Hill, in contrast to the political and racial backdrop. As she soon discovers, South Africa is full of people of all different ethnic backgrounds, including French, German, and Dutch, as well as slaves (Malaysians from the Dutch East Indies and Africans from Madagascar), and native African tribes such as the Khoi (or Hottentots). Her experiences in South Africa give the reader an inside look at the Dutch government including the Governor's Castle, as well as the slave industry, the mixed-race outcasts (who live "a respectable distance" away and work as smugglers), and the countryside of Dutch farmers.

Margot later meets Jan Van der Kemp, a young Dutch colonist, and his family--father, brother Breyton, and sister Rachel--who live in the countryside at a place called Klaarstroom (clear stream), and quickly becomes friends with Jan and Rachel. Conflicts between father and children, two of whom desire interracial marriages, deepen when the children act on their desires. Can they be reconciled with their father who, like all Dutch Calvinists, holds a covenant view of theology in which the Europeans are God's chosen people and so must not intermarry with the heathen Canaanites?

Throughout this story, as well as its sequel, is the ever-present issue of racism between the European-descended colonists and the native Africans, those enslaved as well as the free-roaming tribal groups. Cavanaugh strikes a careful balance on the race issue, depicting both good and bad individuals rather than stereotypes. True to real life, some are of noble character, such as mixed-race Matthew Durbin, while others prove that the "poor slaves" were not always the innocent victims that some thought them to be. Ndela, for example, an adolescent African slave who has run away many times, is indifferent and callused to the many beatings she receives, and will use anyone in order to gain her own freedom. Another interesting character is Old Knob, a short, elderly Khoi man who lives in a small, dirt-and-dung hut on the Van der Kemp's property and loves to entertain visitors with stories.