Mathabahanga Bengal 1637

Famous for building the Taj Mahal, the Shah Jahan who ruled India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, our protagonist Angela's early life was borne while living under the scourge of his vaunted military might. She is raised under the caste system as a Dalit - untouchable - who were treated as slave-labour with constant flogging and starvation being the generational systemic norm. Bearing two children from being raped while still a teen, and pregnant with her third child, she is captured by Dutch slave-raiders in the Mathabahanga Delta in Bengal and sent to the slave-market in Batavia - modern day Jakarta. As one of its first handful of slaves, after serving as a house-slave for two years in the east, Angela is shipped to the 'Cape of Good Hope' which was still in its infancy in sixteen-fifty-seven. Angela is one of the Cape's most famous slaves who lived well into her seventies and became extremely wealthy and married a famous white man with whom she bore many children. Her offspring are the progenitors of many modern day South African Afrikaner families including the common name of the Bassons. Her life story has been thoroughly researched and is based on the accurate facts of the time.