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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | 'We Must Never Forget Where We Come From': The Bafokeng and Their Land in the 19th Century Transvaal |
Author: | Bergh, J.S. |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | History in Africa |
Volume: | 32 |
Pages: | 95-115 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | Bafokeng expropriation landownership colonial history 1800-1899 Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) History and Exploration Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Law, Human Rights and Violence Ethnic and Race Relations |
External link: | http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/history_in_africa/v032/32.1bergh.pdf |
Abstract: | This paper analyses the events, forces, realities, challenges and opportunities with which the Bafokeng community in the vicinity of Rustenburg in the Transvaal (South Africa) was confronted during the course of the 19th century. From the end of the 1830s, the Bafokeng were dispossessed of what they regarded as their traditional land by white settlers. However, after the late 1860s, they succeeded in buying back substantial portions of this land. A number of factors contributed to this success. An important role was played by the arrival of the Hermannsburg missionaries in 1867, and the relationship between the capable 'kgosi' Mokgatle and Paul Kruger, who was later to become president of the South African Republic, and who lived in the vicinity of the Bafokeng. Futhermore, the opportunity to improve their financial position on the diamond fields was of decisive importance for the Bafokeng. But the Bafokeng's 'group pride' and 'history of resilience and self-assertion', encouraged and guided by Mokgatle, must have been even more crucial. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |