Bakgatla ba Kgafela ’ s rich history

ACCORDING to their website, Bakgatla ba Kgafela are a sub-group of the Tswana people who are stretched between North West and Botswana.

The history of this clan is punctuated with alliances and conflict, as it was forged during the era of the

difaqane (the scattering) in the early 1800s, when Southern Africa was in social turmoil. By the mid-1800s, the Bakgatla were living in the Pilanesberg area near the site of the present-day Sun City resort, in villages on a large number of farms they had leased from the Boer Republic.

Part of the lease deal was that the Bakgatla would provide farm labour to the Boers and join them on various raids on other tribes.

In the 1870s, Commandant Paul Kruger (later to become Republic of Transvaal President) went to the Bakgatla chief Kgamanyane to demand free labour for a dam he was constructing.

The men were to be harnessed to carts like animals. Kgamanyane refused.

Kruger had him publicly flogged and a large contingent of Bakgatla left the Pilanesberg area for what is now Botswana.

Settling in the Mochudi area, Kgamanyane ’ s son, Linch we, succeeded his father as chief of the clan.

The flogging was never forgotten. The Bakgatla allied themselves with the British in decades to come, including during the South African (Anglo-Boer) War.

After the war, Bakgatla ba Kgafela on both sides of the border lost much of their hard-earned land, but then they slowly began buying back farms, especially around Pilanesberg.

No one realised that in 1924 a massive platinum find would take place on land belonging to the Bakgatla. The area was part of what became known as the Bushveld Igneous Complex, full of massive deposits of chrome and platinum group metals.

The leadership of the Bakgatla ba Kgafela formed joint ventures with various mining groups and now manage their share of the wealth in the interest of their people.

Current traditional leader of Bakgatla ba Kgafela, Nyalala Pilane, rules over about 350 000 people spread across 32 villages.

He conducts his charges through the Bakgatla ba Kgafela Tribal Authority, which is in charge of the Strategic Investment Company.