A Founder's Tale

Imagine being raised on stories about how your family were the true heirs to a billion-dollar fortune – in gold – that had remained unclaimed, drawing interest for more than 200 years.

Apparently, the man who’d left the fortune had been an employee of the Dutch East India Company. A slave-owner, it was said that he’d left a will stipulating that his descendants could only attempt to claim the money 100 years after his death.

Then there was talk of a curse on the money, and that those who’d tried to unjustly claim the money meeting with untimely deaths. Lore had it, that as the descendants of a child born of the liaison between this man and his slave, the family constituted the rightful heirs to the money, and somewhere within the extended family lay the proof.

Yet, several families have similar stories of being the rightful heirs and if only they had the proof, well, they’d be rich of course! Some even shared the man’s name. For more than a hundred years, people have been trying to claim the money. Perhaps it’s already been claimed.

Or maybe it never existed.

My name is Maxine Case. I'm a writer and communications consultant from Cape Town and I first heard about the Bantjes Millions when I was a very young girl. While my podcast experience has been largely behind the scenes so far, I'm looking forward to learning more about this story that captivated me and my family for many generations.

Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast by Ludolph Backhuysen. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.