Jeronim Marinkovic who came to this country more than 70 years later chose a different type of life. He, as is known, became a farmer - not an easy profession in those days. However, after marrying, with hard work and perseverance he established his farm "Vrolykheid", which is still very much in existence. Already in 1865 he was writing to the Colonial Secretary to inquire about the acquisition of another farm, for which he paid £31.2.8 as surveying expenses. He and his family prospered and their present status in this country is very much due to the pioneering work of Gerolamo Marinkovic, their great-grandfather, who arrived in Cape Town in 1829, with not much more than a lot of energy and willingness to work hard. This feature was displayed by many arrivals from Croatia in the years to come.
Then there were known and unknown sailors, who plied the seas around South Africa. People like Captain Vicenzo Zibilich, Captain Gabriel Francisco Madenic, boatman Paul Mattowich and others who directly or indirectly made their contributions to this country.
It seems that Nicholaas Mattowich, who in the early 1860s became a dealer in liquors in Cape Town, was the first Croat to have owned an inn (the Blue Anchor Inn) in the Cape Colony and therefore in South Africa.
However, most of the early to mid 19th Century arrivals worked as seamen or, more often, as farm labourers. With the advent of the railways some decided to try their skills there and just about every railway line that was built in South Africa and Rhodesia attracted workers from Croatia.
There were no engineers and clever constructors among them. They just performed the basic work in the best way they could. In doing this they contributed in no small way to the growth of the railways in South Africa. Some time later an Austrian company was asked to do construction work in Cape Town harbour; and almost all the people brought to do the work there were from Croatia.
In his well-known work "Croatians Abroad" (Hrvati Izvan Domovine) the author, V. Holjevac, displayed an early photograph of Croatian workers working in what was believed to be Cape Town harbour.
The South African mining era, which started with the discovery of diamonds in Kimberley, created a situation in which further contributions by the Croats were made possible. One should perhaps ask here: "How much does one value a human life?" Surely in an ordinary sense no price can be attached to it. However, like others, the Croats worked in the Kimberley mines and a number of them left their bones there. Nearly all those who died in the diamond mines were young men aged between 20 and 30. Some of them managed to reach Kimberley Hospital and some died in the mine shafts. Nearly 100 years ago in 1882, Tripo Vucinovic ended his life in an accident in one of the shafts belonging to the famous French Company.
When the gold started to glisten at Pilgrims Rest, Barberton and later on in Johannesburg, they followed the others and went to work there. Perhaps the most prominent of the known early miners was Andrew Lizerevic. He must have come to South Africa well before 1867, as when he died in 1877 in Pilgrims Rest the Imperial Austrian Consulate informed the executors of his Will that Stefano Marco Lizerevic, the deceased's father, had died back home in 1867. His mother had passed on in 1872. He had his own house in Pilgrims Rest and left some mining claims and £150 in cash. He was a "gold digger", a profession unlikely to have originated in Croatia but something that he had acquired in South Africa, He and others like him created the saga of Pilgrims Rest, the saga that heralded the beginning of South Africa's golden future.
The Barberton gold rush came and went and with it, literally, some of the Croats who ventured there. Then came the building of the Eastern Railway Line between Pretoria and Delagoa Bay, and the work-hungry Croats joined the other railway construction workers there.
Some who could not do much else did physical construction work, some made their mark as masons, bricklayers and stone cutters. As small contractors, like the brothers Postic, they built some of the railway stations, They worked there and they lost their lives there. among others, at the age of 37, Ivan Moporic died on March 20th 1891. The place of death was recorded as Komati Spoorweg (Komati Railway).
