History of the Northern Cape
Encyclopedia
The concept of the Northern Cape
as a distinct geo-political region of South Africa
coalesced in the 1940s when a "Northern Cape and Adjoining Areas Regional Development Association" was formed and the first map featuring the name "Northern Cape" was published. The geographic spread to which the term applied was not fixed until 1994, however, when it attained precise definition as the Northern Cape Province, one of South Africa's nine post-apartheid provinces. Since then there have been boundary adjustments to include parts of the former Bophuthatswana
(transferred from North West Province) adjacent to Kuruman
and Hartswater
. Vryburg and Mafikeng
, in the north eastern extremity of the former Cape Province
- and hence regarded as part of the pre-1994 "Northern Cape" - are excluded, being part, now, of the North West Province.
A History of the Northern Cape, properly speaking, would cover this recent period only. The different regional histories of the area now known as the Northern Cape nevertheless have certain common themes. It is, in the title of an important study by historian Nigel Penn, The Forgotten Frontier in South African history. Part of the history in question is also a pivotal one that heralded the modern era in the subcontinent, revolving on mineral wealth (pre-eminently on the Diamond Fields), industrialisation
, migrant labour
and the compound/hostel system, urbanisation and systematic segregation
. This combination of processes and phenomena has been referred to by historians as the mineral revolution
in South Africa.
"The South African central plateau is unique in the world...in that it supported large numbers of non-farming people who were also prolific makers of stone tools until very recent times. A brief comparison of surveys conducted elsewhere in the world reveals promptly and unambiguously that South Africa is richer in Stone Age remains than any other place on earth."
There was little general appreciation of this as a result of apartheid education: “To look at the history of South Africa [as it is has been taught in our schools]," remarked Prof N.J. van der Merwe, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town, "is to look at human events through the wrong end of a telescope.”
Major sites that have relevance include Wonderwerk Cave
near Kuruman
, Canteen Kopje
near Barkly West, the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre
on the road from Kimberley to Barkly West, sites in the ǀXam and ǂKhomani heartland, particularly rock art sites in the Karoo, and the stone walled ruins at Dithakong
north east of Kuruman.
The role of Louis Anthing in exposing acts of genocide
against the ǀXam people in the Bushmanland/Upper Karoo area after the colonial boundary was extended to the Orange River
in 1847 is reflected in his remarkable letter to parliamonet in 1863. Current research by Jose Manuel de Prada-Samper, Pippa Skotnes and colleagues begins to highlight this episode in South African history.
Premiers of the Northern Cape have been: Manne Dipico
, Dipuo Peters
and Hazel Jenkins
.
Northern Cape
The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of an international park shared with Botswana...
as a distinct geo-political region of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
coalesced in the 1940s when a "Northern Cape and Adjoining Areas Regional Development Association" was formed and the first map featuring the name "Northern Cape" was published. The geographic spread to which the term applied was not fixed until 1994, however, when it attained precise definition as the Northern Cape Province, one of South Africa's nine post-apartheid provinces. Since then there have been boundary adjustments to include parts of the former Bophuthatswana
Bophuthatswana
Bophuthatswana , officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana was a Bantustan – an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity – and nominal parliamentary democracy in the northwestern region of South Africa...
(transferred from North West Province) adjacent to Kuruman
Kuruman
Kuruman is a town with 12,701 inhabitants in Northern Cape province of South Africa, famous for its scenic beauty and the Eye of Kuruman, a geological feature bringing water from deep underground to the surface in the Kalahari Desert....
and Hartswater
Hartswater
Hartswater is an agricultural town serving the northern section of the Vaalharts Irrigation Scheme in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The town was laid out in 1948...
. Vryburg and Mafikeng
Mafikeng
Mahikeng – formerly legally, but still commonly known as Mafikeng – is the capital city of the North-West Province of South Africa. It is best known internationally for the Siege of Mafeking, the most famous engagement of the Second Boer War.Located on South Africa's border with Botswana, it is ...
, in the north eastern extremity of the former Cape Province
Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa...
- and hence regarded as part of the pre-1994 "Northern Cape" - are excluded, being part, now, of the North West Province.
A History of the Northern Cape, properly speaking, would cover this recent period only. The different regional histories of the area now known as the Northern Cape nevertheless have certain common themes. It is, in the title of an important study by historian Nigel Penn, The Forgotten Frontier in South African history. Part of the history in question is also a pivotal one that heralded the modern era in the subcontinent, revolving on mineral wealth (pre-eminently on the Diamond Fields), industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
, migrant labour
Migrant worker
The term migrant worker has different official meanings and connotations in different parts of the world. The United Nations' definition is broad, including any people working outside of their home country...
and the compound/hostel system, urbanisation and systematic segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
. This combination of processes and phenomena has been referred to by historians as the mineral revolution
Mineral Revolution
The Mineral Revolution is a term used by historians to refer to the rapid industrialisation and economic changes which occurred in South Africa from the 1870s onwards. The Mineral Revolution was largely driven by the need to create a permanent workforce to work in the mining industry, and saw South...
in South Africa.
Precolonial history
It has been said:"The South African central plateau is unique in the world...in that it supported large numbers of non-farming people who were also prolific makers of stone tools until very recent times. A brief comparison of surveys conducted elsewhere in the world reveals promptly and unambiguously that South Africa is richer in Stone Age remains than any other place on earth."
There was little general appreciation of this as a result of apartheid education: “To look at the history of South Africa [as it is has been taught in our schools]," remarked Prof N.J. van der Merwe, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town, "is to look at human events through the wrong end of a telescope.”
Major sites that have relevance include Wonderwerk Cave
Wonderwerk Cave
Wonderwerk Cave is an archaeological site, formed originally as an ancient solution cavity in Dolomite rocks of the Kuruman Hills, situated between Danielskuil and Kuruman in the Northern Cape Province, South Africa. It is a National Heritage Site within a servitude ceded to and managed as a...
near Kuruman
Kuruman
Kuruman is a town with 12,701 inhabitants in Northern Cape province of South Africa, famous for its scenic beauty and the Eye of Kuruman, a geological feature bringing water from deep underground to the surface in the Kalahari Desert....
, Canteen Kopje
Canteen Kopje
Canteen Kopje is a spectacularly rich Earlier Stone Age situated outside Barkly West in the Northern Cape, South Africa. It is a Provincial Heritage Site and has an open air trail including information boards...
near Barkly West, the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre
Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre
Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre is a rock engraving site with visitor centre on land owned by the !Xun and Khwe San situated about 16 km from Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. It is a declared Provincial Heritage Site managed by the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust in association with the...
on the road from Kimberley to Barkly West, sites in the ǀXam and ǂKhomani heartland, particularly rock art sites in the Karoo, and the stone walled ruins at Dithakong
Dithakong
Dithakong is the name of a place east of Kuruman in the Northern Cape, South Africa, which had been a major destination for several of the earliest nineteenth century expditions from the Cape to the interior of the subcontinent...
north east of Kuruman.
Forgotten frontier
See:- TrekboerTrekboerThe Trekboers were nomadic pastoralists descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch colonists, French Huguenots and German Protestants. The Trekboere began migrating from the areas surrounding what is now Cape Town during the 17th century throughout the 18th century.-Origins:The Trekboere were...
- /Xam people
The role of Louis Anthing in exposing acts of genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
against the ǀXam people in the Bushmanland/Upper Karoo area after the colonial boundary was extended to the Orange River
Orange River
The Orange River , Gariep River, Groote River or Senqu River is the longest river in South Africa. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean...
in 1847 is reflected in his remarkable letter to parliamonet in 1863. Current research by Jose Manuel de Prada-Samper, Pippa Skotnes and colleagues begins to highlight this episode in South African history.
Diamond Fields
See:- Diamond Fields
- Kimberley, Northern CapeKimberley, Northern CapeKimberley is a city in South Africa, and the capital of the Northern Cape. It is located near the confluence of the Vaal and Orange Rivers. The town has considerable historical significance due its diamond mining past and siege during the Second Boer War...
- Big HoleBig HoleThe Big Hole, Open Mine or Kimberley Mine is an open-pit and underground mine in Kimberley, South Africa, and claimed to be the largest hole excavated by hand.-History:...
- Griqualand WestGriqualand WestGriqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km² that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people - a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, who established several states outside the expanding frontier...
- De BeersDe BeersDe Beers is a family of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors. De Beers is active in every category of industrial diamond mining: open-pit, underground, large-scale alluvial, coastal and deep sea...
- Cecil Rhodes
- Barney BarnatoBarney BarnatoBarney Barnato , born Barnet Isaacs, was a British Randlord, one of the entrepreneurs who gained control of diamond mining, and later gold mining, in South Africa from the 1870s.-Background:...
Conquest and Resistance
See:- KousopKousopKousop , birth date unknown, killed in a battle at Slypklip, Vaal River, near Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, on 6 July 1858, was the leader of a group of San or Khoe-San who inhabited the area between the Modder, Riet and Vaal Rivers, western Orange Free State, in the mid nineteenth...
- Kgosi GalesheweKgosi GalesheweKgosi Galeshewe was a chief of the Tlhaping tribe in South Africa. The Kimberley township of Galeshewe as well as a South African Navy fast attack craft is named after him....
- Phokwane
- Langeberg Campaign
Anglo-Boer War
See:- Second Boer WarSecond Boer WarThe Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
- Siege of KimberleySiege of KimberleyThe Siege of Kimberley took place during the Second Boer War at Kimberley, Cape Colony , when Boer forces from the Orange Free State and the Transvaal besieged the diamond mining town. The Boers moved quickly to try to capture the British enclave when war broke out between the British and the two...
- Battle of MagersfonteinBattle of MagersfonteinThe Battle of MagersfonteinSpelt incorrectly in various English texts as "Majersfontein", "Maaghersfontein" and "Maagersfontein". was fought on 11 December 1899, at Magersfontein near Kimberley on the borders of the Cape Colony and the independent republic of the Orange Free State...
- Battle of Modder RiverBattle of Modder RiverThe Battle of Modder River was an engagement in the Boer War, fought at Modder River, on 28 November 1899...
Struggle History
See:- KousopKousopKousop , birth date unknown, killed in a battle at Slypklip, Vaal River, near Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa, on 6 July 1858, was the leader of a group of San or Khoe-San who inhabited the area between the Modder, Riet and Vaal Rivers, western Orange Free State, in the mid nineteenth...
- Kgosi GalesheweKgosi GalesheweKgosi Galeshewe was a chief of the Tlhaping tribe in South Africa. The Kimberley township of Galeshewe as well as a South African Navy fast attack craft is named after him....
- Sol PlaatjeSol PlaatjeSolomon Tshekisho Plaatje was a South African intellectual, journalist, linguist, politician, translator, and writer. The Sol Plaatje Local Municipality, which includes the city of Kimberley, was named after him.-Early life:...
- Z.K. Matthews
- Frances BaardFrances BaardFrances Goitsemang Baard was a South African trade unionist, organiser for the African National Congress Women's League and a Patron of the United Democratic Front, who was commemorated in the renaming of the Diamantveld District Municipality as the Frances Baard District Municipality.-Background...
- an activist and trade unionist in Port Elizabeth and later with the UDF, born in Kimberley. - Robert SobukweRobert SobukweRobert Mangaliso Sobukwe was a South African political dissident, who founded the Pan Africanist Congress in opposition to the apartheid regime. In 2004 Sobukwe was voted 42nd in the SABC3's Great South Africans....
- Phakamile MabijaPhakamile MabijaPhakamile Mabija was an African anti-Apartheid activist, and member of the Anglican Nomads Educational Group, who was detained by the South African Police on 27 June 1977 for alleged involvement in an incident when African and Coloured commuters stoned public transport during a bus boycott in...
- In the 1980s the Northern Cape contributed in a relatively limited way to the struggle for a democratic dispensation in South Africa, it has been suggested. One study attributes this primarily to geographic and demographic factors: the province (as defined in 1994) covers some 30 percent of the country but has the smallest population, which stood at 840 000 people in 1994, representing just 2,1 percent of South Africa’s total population. With a density of 2.3 persons per square kilometre, political mobilization was constrained except in the major centres of this vast tract of the country. That Afrikaans was first language to two thirds of the people (the dominant group, at 52 percent, were ‘Coloureds’) could have been a significant further factor. Leaders who arose at this time in Kimberley included two future PremiersPremier (South Africa)In South Africa, a Premier is the head of government of one of South Africa's nine provinces. The Premier of a province plays for that province a role similar to that played by the President for the country as a whole.-Election:...
of the Northern Cape, Manne DipicoManne DipicoManne Emsley Dipico, first Premier of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, was born in Kimberley on 21 April 1959. He was appointed Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa in 2006...
and Elizabeth Dipuo PetersDipuo PetersElizabeth Dipuo Peters, born on 13 May 1960, is the Minister of Energy of the Republic of South Africa , in the Zuma administration, having served as successor to Manne Dipico as the second Premier of the Northern Cape Province, 22 April 2004 to 10 May 2009...
.
Post-1994
The Northern Cape as it is now known came into being in 1994. Boundary adjustments resulted in the addition of certain parts of North West Province.Premiers of the Northern Cape have been: Manne Dipico
Manne Dipico
Manne Emsley Dipico, first Premier of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, was born in Kimberley on 21 April 1959. He was appointed Chairman of the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa in 2006...
, Dipuo Peters
Dipuo Peters
Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, born on 13 May 1960, is the Minister of Energy of the Republic of South Africa , in the Zuma administration, having served as successor to Manne Dipico as the second Premier of the Northern Cape Province, 22 April 2004 to 10 May 2009...
and Hazel Jenkins
Hazel Jenkins
Hazel Gertrude Jenkins is a South African politician and Premier of the Northern Cape Province.-Background and political career:Aged 49 at the time that she assumed office as Premier, Jenkins had been the Mayor of the Pixley ka Seme District Municipality, at De Aar in the Karoo...
.
Resources on the history of the Northern Cape
See:- McGregor MuseumMcGregor MuseumThe McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa, originally known as the Alexander McGregor Memorial Museum, is a province-aided museum established in 1907.- Overview :...
- Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art CentreWildebeest Kuil Rock Art CentreWildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre is a rock engraving site with visitor centre on land owned by the !Xun and Khwe San situated about 16 km from Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. It is a declared Provincial Heritage Site managed by the Northern Cape Rock Art Trust in association with the...