Phokeng

Phokeng is a town in Rustenburg of the North West province of South Africa. It is the capital of the Royal Bafokeng Nation. Historically, it was known as ''Magatostad'' among white South Africans.

Etymology

Phokeng gained its name from the Sesotho word for dew, ''Phoka'', hence ''Place of dew''. It is believed to have first been settled in the late 17th century.

History

Phokeng is one of a number of BaTswana towns in the North West Province that were founded by Sotho-Tswana people who had been displaced by years of war in the late 18th and early 19th centuries – first the Difaqane wars caused by the invasion of the Matebele, and then the wars of conquest by the Boers. Just a few years after the wars, the famous missionary and explorer, David Livingstone, visited the Bakwena of chief Mokgatle, and found that in addition to farming and raising cattle, they made ornaments out of copper that they mined and smelted themselves.

The BaTswana people of the area had been living in the area for hundreds of years, but by the mid-19th century, many had been scattered among Boer farms and indentured to work for white farmers. Several chiefs began gathering their old followers around the 1850s and 1860s, asking for donations of cattle to create a fund to purchase land. With the help of German missionaries of the Hermannsburg Mission Society, several chiefs succeeded in buying land and re-establishing villages and chiefdoms. Phokeng was the largest and most famous of these villages in what was then the Western Transvaal. The chief who organized the purchases was named Chief Mokgatle, and the missionary who helped him was named Reverend Penzhorn. In 1908, a very old man who lived in Phokeng told a court how the Bafokeng of Phokeng bought their land:

We were told once that the land in which we lived was white man's land. We were told we ouldbuy from the white man, a white man could take transfer for us. The tribe determined to buy land and all contributed to buy he chief's, i.e., Mokgatle Mokgatle's kraal. Then it was allowed that any petty chief should buy themselves ground. The chief okgatlesaid those who were able to do so could. My father was there and he told me.

By 1900, there were many such villages scattered through this part of the Transvaal, including the Bakwena Ba Magopa villages of Bethanie, Kgabalatsane">la ...