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Post date: 07/08/2012
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On this site, on September 1854, twenty-eight men, women and children were slaughtered by subjects of the Batlou Chiefs, Makapan and Mapela. Most of them belonged to a party under Field cornet Hermanus Potgieter, who were looking for ivory in Makapan's t Bibliography archive:
On this site, on September 1854, twenty-eight men, women and children were slaughtered by subjects of the Batlou Chiefs, Makapan and Mapela. Most of them belonged to a party under Field cornet Hermanus Potgieter, who were looking for ivory in Makapan's t Bibliography archive:
Archive Import
History: One can only guess at the reasons for these tragic events, but it seems that a smouldering feud existed between Chief' Makapan’s people and Field-Cornet Potgieter. In September, 1854, twenty-eight settler men, women and children met their death in this vicinity at the hands of subjects of the Chiefs Makapan and Mapela. Most of them belonged to a party under Field-Cornet Hermanus Potgieter, a brother of the Voortrekkers leader A. H. Potgieter, who were looking for ivory in Makapan’s territory in the Waterberg. Several people who were in no way connected with Potgieter were also murdered.
The murders took place at three separate places on the same day. First of all, M. A. Venter and his son Willem were murdered at Makapan’s kraal on the present farm Pruizen. This was the headquarters of Makapan who ruled over a conglomeration of tribes mostly of Zulu origin, mixed with Barolong and Basotho. Then A. H. Potgieter and thirteen other men were murdered at Mapela’s kraal, a little to the north of Pruizen. In this case the thirteen men were first put to death and then Potgieter was skinned alive. The only witness of this event was a San servant of Potgieter’s who was fortunate enough to escape. In the third incident a party under Willem Prinsloo was murdered at Moorddrift, while on their way from Schoemansdal to Pretoria. Those killed were Prinsloo with his wife and three children, Jan Breed with his wife and three children, L. Bronkhorst and Flip du Preez.
The murders were later avenged by a Boer commando.
In 1937 the ‘Geloftefeeskomitee’ of Potgietersrust erected a monument between the two camelthorn trees at Moorddrift against which the children are said to have been put to death in 1854. The Historical Monuments Commission provided a neat railing round the monument in 1942.
Visual Description: This simple but important little monument stands under two large camelthorn trees beside the national road 16 km south of Potgietersrust, just where the road used to cross the Nyl River by a drift. It commemorates the murder of a number od settlers in this region.
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