Standerton is a large commercial and agricultural town lying on the banks of the

Vaal River The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Oce ...

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, which specialises in

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...

dairy A dairy is a place where milk is stored and where butter, cheese, and other dairy products are made, or a place where those products are sold. It may be a room, a building, or a larger establishment. In the United States, the word may also des ...

maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

and

poultry Poultry () are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting animal products such as meat, Eggs as food, eggs or feathers. The practice of animal husbandry, raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typ ...

farming. The town was established in 1876 and named after

Boer Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...

leader Commandant A. H. Stander. During the

First Boer War The First Boer War (, ), was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and Boers of the Transvaal (as the South African Republic was known while under British ad ...

a British garrison in the town was besieged by the Boers for three months. General Jan Smuts won this seat during elections and went on to assist in setting up the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

. Standerton is the seat of the Lekwa Local Municipality.

History

Standerton was founded in 1878 on a farm called ''Grootverlangen'' and named after its owner Commandant Adriaan Henrik Stander. The South African Republic's Volksraad approved the formation of a town at the drift in 1876 and proclaimed two years later. It was granted municipal status in 1903. The crossing over the

, now bridged, was known as ''Stander's Drift'' and a hill close to the town was called ''Standerskop'' were also named after Stander. During the

(1880–81), a British unit was besieged by the Boer forces who shelled them from the nearby hill, the former holding out until the end of the war in February 1881.

Great Trek memorial controversy

The town has received nationwide media attention in 2007 and 2008 following the destruction of an important voortrekker memorial. This monument, located near the facade of the municipality building, was constructed by

Afrikaner Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...

s to mark the 150th anniversary of the

Great Trek The Great Trek (, ) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial adminis ...

. The Lekwa municipality's mayor Queen Radebe-Khumalo ordered the structure demolished in April 2007. "That piece of thing means nothing to us. It's just a piece of cement with tracks. I do not even know where it comes from", Radebe-Khumalo declared in a statement quoted by the '' Beeld'' newspaper. The incident led to widespread condemnation by the local Afrikaans community. Jan Bosman, a spokesperson for the Afrikanerbond, claimed that "actions like these undo the spirit of reconciliation as promoted by former president

Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...

and Archbishop

Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop ...

". In June 2007, a joint initiative between AfriForum and

Solidarity Solidarity or solidarism is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. True solidarity means moving beyond individual identities and single issue politics ...

lodged an application to the Pretoria High Court requesting that the mayor offer compensation for damages claimed. A subsequent court order ruled that Radebe-Khumalo and her municipality would pay for the damage and prohibited attempts to remove another statue erected in memory of Anglo-Boer war concentration camp victims. Old Water Fountain and memorial to family who died in the Standerton Concentration Camp

Old Water Fountain and memorial to family who died in the Standerton Concentration Camp

In May 2010, the memorial was rebuilt on its original site.

Sakhile Township riots

The township of Sakhile near Standerton was the site of violent, service delivery riots that led to the Lekwa Municipality mayor Juliet Queen Radebe-Khumalo and other senior municipal officials, being recalled by the

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

in October 2009. The riots included the burning of tyres and blocking some entries to the town.

Economy

Agriculture

The area around the town promotes mixed agriculture with crops such as

sunflower seed A sunflower seed is a seed from a sunflower (''Helianthus annuus''). There are three types of commonly used sunflower seeds: linoleic (most common), high oleic, and sunflower oil seeds. Each variety has its own unique levels of monounsatura ...

s, ground nuts and

potatoes The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

. Poultry and dairy farming is also conducted in the region.

Manufacturing

Standerton Mills

Standerton Mills Pty Ltd was established in 1947. Mainly manufacturing and supplying yarn and woven industrial fabrics.

Education

Infrastructure

Dams

Grootdraai Dam is situated in the upper reaches of the

less than 10 km upstream of Standerton. It has a catchment area of 8,195 km², a mean annual precipitation of approximately 750 mm, a mean annual potential evaporation at the dam site of 1,400 mm and a natural inflow of 580 million m³/a. The full supply capacity of the reservoir is 364 million m³. The Grootdraai dam was completed in 1982.

Notable people

Although Standerton is a rural town surviving mainly on agriculture, it has produced talented people prominent in

n society. * Arnold S de Beer - journalist and academic *

Pieter Hendriks Pieter Hendriks (born 13 April 1970), is a former South African rugby union player who played for the South Africa national rugby union team between 1992 and 1996. Playing career Hendriks represented the South Eastern Transvaal Schools team at ...

- South Africa national rugby team player * Angel Khanyile - member of the

National Assembly of South Africa The National Assembly is the directly elected house of the Parliament of South Africa, located in Cape Town, Western Cape. It consists of four hundred members who are elected every five years using a party-list proportional representation sy ...

. Shadow Minister of Home Affairs * Jaco Kriel - South Africa national rugby team player * Mark Lawrence - retired international rugby union referee. He refereed his first international test match, in 2000, and was chosen to officiate at both the 2003 Rugby World Cup and 2007 Rugby World Cups. * Frans Lourens Herman Rumpff - Chief Justice of South Africa, 1974-1982 * Rooi Mahamutsa - South African football defender for Premiership club Free State Stars F.C. and South Africa. Mahamutsa also played for Orlando Pirates. * Mfundo Ndhlovu - South Africa national rugby sevens team player * JC Ritchie - professional golfer * Gary Van Aswegen -

Rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

player * Constand Viljoen - South African military commander. co-founded the Afrikaner Volksfront (Afrikaner People's Front) and later founded the Freedom Front (now Freedom Front Plus)

References

External links

Interactive Standerton WebsiteLocal Standerton Website
{{Authority control Populated places in the Lekwa Local Municipality Populated places founded by Afrikaners Second Boer War concentration camps