Phokeng

Phokeng
Phokeng Phokeng Show map of South Africa Phokeng Show map of Africa Phokeng shown within North West
Coordinates: 25°35′S 27°08′E / 25.583°S 27.133°E / -25.583; 27.133Coordinates: 25°35′S 27°08′E / 25.583°S 27.133°E / -25.583; 27.133
Country	South Africa
Province	North West
District	Bojanala Platinum
Municipality	Rustenburg
Area
• Total	34.28 km² (13.24 sq mi)
Population (2011)
• Total	34,597
• Density	1,000/km² (2,600/sq mi)
Racial makeup (2011)
• Black African	99.1%
• Coloured	0.3%
• Indian/Asian	0.1%
• White	0.1%
• Other	0.4%
First languages (2011)
• Tswana	77.1%
• English	6.2%
• Zulu	3.2%
• Tsonga	2.1%
• Other	11.4%
Postal code (street)	0335
PO box	0335
Area code	014

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

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

Phokeng is one of a number of unusual Tswana towns in the Northwest 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 Tswana 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 [could] buy from the white man, a white man could take transfer for us. The tribe determined to buy land and all contributed to buy [the chief's, i.e., Mokgatle Mokgatle's] kraal. Then it was allowed that any petty chief should buy themselves ground. The chief [Mokgatle] said 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 and Ga-Rankuwa and the Bakgatla village of Saulspoort north of the Pilanesberg mountains.

One thing that made these villages unusual was that they owned the land somewhat in the way white people did. In other words, villages like Phokeng were not just "reserves," but were owned by villagers, although through a system of trusts controlled by the missionaries and the chief. For this reason, when platinum was discovered under the lands of Phokeng, the chiefdom was able to earn some revenue from mining and at one point, the Bakwena Bafokeng of Phokeng were described as one of the wealthiest tribes in South Africa.

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Wikipedia