A Tapestry Of Woman Lives

The women who lived in the Cape of Good Hope in the 17th century come to life in this series of portraits of extraordinary frontier females. While war, fearful animals, slavery, and the stern policies of the East India Company obliged these women to develop hardy constitutions, demand by a vastly larger male population granted them a peculiar role as both lovers and survivors in the frontier culture: as their menfolk succumbed to lion attacks and illness, they often found themselves moving between several husbands and households.