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Justin Colvin
Mrs. Raymond
UWRT 1103
17 July 2014
New World, New Life
The ancestors of the Colvin Family came from the country of South Africa. South Africa
is located on the southern tip of Africa, the capital city of South Africa is Pretoria. Its the
twenty-fifth largest country in the world, its slightly less than twice the size of Texas
(South Africa). South Africa has the twenty-eighth largest population in the world
at 48,375,645. South Africa contains the countr y of Lesotho in the middle and
almost completely surrounds the country of Swaziland. South Africa has a mostly
semiarid climate except around the coast, which has a subtropical climate. South
Africa is also full of rugged hills and narrow plains. The major diseases in South
Africa are Bacterial Diarrhea, Hepatitis A, and Typhoid Fever as a resident, there is
a good chance that you could catch one of those three diseases (South Africa).
Officially, there are 11 languages in South Africa. English is one of the
official languages. The most used official languages are IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, and
Afrikaans. South Africa became a republic on May 31, 1961. Then on April 27, 1994
the country had declared for its independence from Great Britain and became a free country. On
that same day, April 27, 1994, a new flag was adopted by the Republic of South Africa. The flag
contained the colors black, blue, gold, green, red, white, and yellow. The flag of South Africa
was designed to symbolize unity, so the red, white, and blue was taken from the Boers Republic
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and the black, green, and gold was taken from the African National Congress. The black, green,
and gold also have meanings for being on the flag; black symbolizes the people, green the
fertility of the land, and gold the mineral wealth beneath the soil (South Africa Flag). This
flag represented the people of South Africa to its best ability even though this design of the flag
was created by a government official, Mr. Fred Brownell. Mr. Brownell added the Y design on
the flag to show the "convergence of diverse elements within South African society,
taking the road ahead in unity"( South Africa). South Africa adopted their national
anthem, after they declared for independence in 1994. The first verse of the South
African national anthem is God Bless Africa and the second verse is The Call of Africa.
Enoch Sontonga, a school teacher, wrote God Bless Africa in the language of Xhosa in 1897 as
a hymn. The Call of Africa was a poem written by Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven in 1918. It
took a while for South Africa to officially make the songs their national anthem because they had
to wait to receive the copyrights. The ancestors of the Colvin family went from this country of
the Republic of South Africa to the Arkansas, United States of America.
My ancestors were forced to leave their homeland because of slavery. The British had
invaded South Africa and taken many of them as slaves to bring to the New World. The slaves
travelled to the new world on a ship which had horrible conditions. On the ship, the slaves were
keep under the deck most of the time which had no space nor fresh air to breathe. Ocassionally
would crew members would be able to go on the upper deck and clean. The masters were in full
control of the slave, controlled what the slaves ate, drank, and when they did so (Gestewicki et
al). Slaves had no power over themselves, the masters were like strict mean parents that didnt
allow their kids to do anything without their permission. Many slaves did not react well to the
conditions on the slave ship, so some of them would choose to kill themselves in many different
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ways. One of the most common ways that slaves tried to kill themselves was to try and starve
themselves, but that wouldnt work all of the time because the crew would realize that a slave
wasnt eating and they would use to methods to get them to eat, The first was to forcefully open
their mouths and insert the food. The second method was to torture the slaves until they could no
longer stand the pain. The second method of killing themselves was simply jumped off the ship
to drown into the Atlantic Ocean (Gestewicki et al). The slaves would also jump off the side of
the ship and try to drown themselves in the Atlantic Ocean. I was lucky enough to have ancestors
that fought through adversity and didnt kill themselves due to the pain they were enduring and
the conditions they were living in. This was the way my ancestors were taken from their
homeland, South Africa, and taken to the New World to become slaves in the State of Arkansas.
My great-grandmother, Dorothy Redd, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1928. She
lived in Arkansas until she was twenty-one then she had moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan
because she believed that her kids, including my grandmother Bonita Jones, would receive a
better education in the north. When my great-grandmother moved to Grand Rapids, she became
an influential person in the community because she had started a foster home for children in her
own house and she was also a well-known hairdresser. She did the hair for all of the girls and
women in the community she lived in. She never went to school but she always pushed
education onto my grandmother and her siblings. My grandmother, Bonita Jones, graduated from
high school and received her real estate license a couple of years after graduating high school.
My grandmother had married my grandfather, Roger Colvin Sr., in 1967. They had four children
and their oldest child was my father, Roger Colvin Jr. was born in 1966. My father graduated
from Ottawa Hills High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan and then got his electricians license.
After he received his license, he met the love of his life, Lucretia Mathis. In 1996, they gave
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birth to a handsome young man, Justin Colvin. Then in 1998, Roger and Lucretia tied the knot
and then a year after they gave birth to a baby girl, Erika Colvin. Then tragedy happened in my
family. During the year of 2000, my mom had passed away because she became sick after her
neck surgery. Then four years later, my father passed away in his sleep while he was in Saginaw,
Michigan on a work trip. Now, my parents are lived through my sister and me. Every time we
see a family member we either hear, You look just like your dad or You look just like your
mom. The rest of my family history is being made day by day.

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Work Cited
Gestewicki, Christian, Chris Perry, Nicole Recore, and Alyssa Supranowicz. "The Middle
Passage and Slave Ships." N.p., n.d. Web. 17 July 2014.
"South Africa." Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, 20 June 2014. Web.
18 July 2014.
"South Africa Flag." World Atlas. Graphic Maps, n.d. Web. 16 July 2014.