Episode list

It's the year 1838. Pieter de Witt, a young man and progeny of the nation that will later be called the Afrikaner, finds himself in trouble with the British forces of the Cape Colony. Accused of "hunting without a licence", he is arrested. He escapes and flees to the North to search for his own Canaan, along with thousands of other trekkers. Along the way he meets an English missionary and the two become involved in a heated struggle between a Mpondo girl and her fiancé who wants to murder her because of her love for another man. Pieter unwittingly becomes involved in the dispute and and is soon back on the road to Canaan with Eerste (First), his "first" servant, a few steps behind him. En route he also finds himself a wife and so the three of them eventually arrive in the area close to Weenen, where Pieter measures out his farm, and christens the land Donkerland.

The year 1840. Pieter, his wife Magriet and Eerste have been on their newly established farm, Donkerland, for more than a year now. Magriet is pregnant with their first child - the first of the next generation. Mpande, brother of Dingane, directs a request to the Boers to help him to defeat Dingane and remove him from the equation. In return, all the Boers that help will be richly rewarded with cattle. Pieter is hesitant to leave his pregnant wife alone on the farm, but this is his chance to finally establish Donkerland's herd properly. Pieter joins the commando under the command of Andries Pretorius. Magriet and Eerste, supported by their neighbour, Lenie, remain on Donkerland alone. But three women, alone in the wilderness, are an easy target...

Forty-one years later. The year 1881. The time is just before the battle of Majuba, during the 1st Anglo Boer War. Pieter's eldest son, Jakob, born in 1840, is now an adult with a family of his own - his wife Magdalena and his two children, Frederik and Thea. The patriarch, Pieter de Witt, now in his sixties, is also still there. Jakob and Frederik return from the battle of Schuinshoogte, satisfied that the Englishmen have finally learnt their lesson. Young Frederik's blood runs hot with the excitement of his first fully-fledged battle and he has a helmet as a trophy of the first English soldier that he shot. But old man Pieter is opposed to the war: "The English always come back," is his warning to Jakob. Shortly thereafter the commandos are called back to Majuba. Only one Boer soldier fell in battle at Majuba.