07/15/2026
Some ancient South African history.
The Girl Who Survived Twenty One Assegai Wounds🦉
Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe was only 12 years old when she became one of the most remarkable survivors of the Weenen Massacre, one of the darkest events of the Great Trek.
She was born on 7 March 1825 in Grahamstown in the Cape Colony to Johannes Frederik van der Merwe and Helena Catharina van der Merwe. Like thousands of other Boer families, her parents joined the Great Trek during the late 1830s, hoping to establish new communities beyond British rule.
Their journey brought them into Natal, where relations between the Voortrekkers and the Zulu kingdom under King Dingane had become increasingly tense. After the killing of Piet Retief and his delegation on 6 February 1838, Dingane ordered attacks on Voortrekker camps across the region.
Before dawn on 17 February 1838, Zulu impis struck several scattered Voortrekker encampments near the Bloukrans and Bushman’s River. The attacks became known as the Weenen Massacre. More than 280 Voortrekkers, many of them women and children, were killed, together with hundreds of servants and labourers travelling with the wagon parties.
Johanna was caught in the attack while sheltering near the Prinsloo family’s wagon. She was stabbed 21 times with assegais. The wounds covered much of her body, but somehow none proved immediately fatal. Believing she was dead, the attackers left her where she lay among the other victims.
When rescuers reached the camp later that day, they found the young girl still alive. Another survivor, Catharina Margaretha Prinsloo, had also endured more than twenty assegai wounds. Both girls were treated with the limited medical care available on the frontier and survived against all expectations.
Johanna’s injuries never fully healed. She remained permanently crippled for the rest of her life, yet she refused to let the attack define her future.
On 3 October 1849 she married Hendrik Frederik Delport in Potchefstroom. Despite her disabilities, they raised seven sons. The family later settled in the Rouxville district of the Orange Free State, where she spent the remainder of her life.
Johanna died on 15 January 1888 at the age of 62 and was buried in Rouxville.
Her story continued to be remembered long after her death. During the 1938 Great Trek Centenary celebrations, one of the commemorative ox wagons was named in her honour. In 1970, the South African Navy commissioned the Daphne class submarine SAS Johanna van der Merwe, also bearing her name. The submarine remained in service until 2003.
Johanna Cornelia van der Merwe’s survival was extraordinary. Few people have endured such severe injuries under similar circumstances and lived for another fifty years. Her life remains one of the best known personal stories to emerge from the Weenen Massacre and serves as a reminder of the hardships faced by many families during the Great Trek.
