Piet Potgieter

Pieter Johannes "Piet" Potgieter (born December 24, 1822 in Commando Drift, Cradock District , Cape Colony ; † November 6, 1854 in Makapansgat , Transvaal ) was a Voortrekker leader.

Career

Piet Potgieter was born in 1822 as the second son and sixth child of Elisabeth Helena Botha (1795–1841) and Andries Hendrik Potgieter (1792–1852) on the Commando Drift farm in what is now the Eastern Cape Province . In order to evade British rule, the Potgieters left the Cape Colony with many other Boers in 1835 and moved to the later Transvaal. In Potchefstroom Potgieter married Elsje Maria Van Heerden (* 1824), daughter of Carel Sebastiaan Van Heerden (* 1799). The couple had four daughters and three sons. Their son Pieter Johannes was born on January 19, 1855 after the death of his father.

In 1853 Potgieter was elected as the successor to his late father as general commander in the northern part of the Transvaal. In 1854 he took part in the punitive action against Mokopane , the chief of the Tlou tribe from the Ndebele people . He commanded 150 men. He was personally affected by this conflict: In August 1854, his uncle Field Cornet Hermanus Potgieter , a member of the Volksraad von Transvaal, visited the local chief Mokopane in order to persuade him to make concessions for the ivory trade and general hunting rights. Significantly, the Transvaal Volksraad had previously passed a law banning bartering with local people and fined £ 37.10 for violations . The aim of the law was to keep peace. His uncle's actions clearly violated this law. As a rough resident of the border region, he was prone to violence. During an argument, one of Mokopane's sons ridiculed his uncle, who shot him on the spot. This incident and others of a similar intolerance in turn led to acts of violence by Mokopane and his people. In September 1854 they killed at least 28 settlers, including women and children, in three attacks. Among the first to die was his uncle, who was pinned to the ground and skinned alive. A place where a family of Treckburen was killed is now known as Moorddrift .

During that time, Mokopane joined six other tribes. Together they systematically plundered the neighborhood: from isolated farms on Soutpansberg and Waterberg to Rustenburg in the south . As a result of these events, the settlers began to flee to the south. To put an end to the hustle and bustle of Mokopane, Potgieter and his people marched on Mokopane's kraal , which was not far from today's city of Mokopane and north of Mahalakwena Drift (today's Moorddrift ). With the support of Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, they were under 550 men. Even English people like William Hartley from Magaliesberg and Dr. Way from Smithfield in Orange Free State joined them. Mokopane and his people were eventually pushed into a narrow valley, where they holed up in a series of caves ( Makapansgat ). The Voortrekkers couldn't get in. So they decided to blast the tops of the mountains with dynamite to block the entrances and bury Mokopane and his people under rubble. However, the project failed. So they decided to starve her out. Anyone who tried to leave the caves was shot. To ensure this, fires were lit during the night and every entrance was continuously guarded. The siege of the caves began on October 25th and lasted until November 21st, 1854. During this time, several shots from the caves were also targeted. On November 6, 1854, Potgieter was fatally wounded by a bullet while he was standing next to Paul Kruger . He died instantly. In response, 1,500 trees were pulled in front of the cave entrances to block them all. After many days of starvation and half-mad with thirst, people, including women and children, began to crawl out of the caves. The stench from inside the caves had become unbearable. Anyone who came out was shot immediately. More than 1000 people were killed in this way. Most of the tribes in and around the area under Chief Mokopane were destroyed.

Honors

The town of Potgietersrust bore his name in his honor from 1858 until it was renamed in 2003.

literature

• Stapleton, Timothy J .: A Military History of Africa , Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, 2013, ISBN 9780313395703 , pages 246-250
• Theal, George McCall: History of South Africa Since September 1795 , Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 9781108023665

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Piet Potgieter on the South African History Online website
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Piet Potgieter on the Ancestry.com website
3. ↑ Commando Drift - Get A Map.net
4. ↑ Mokgatle, Naboth: The Autobiography of an Unknown South African , University of California Press, 1971, ISBN 9780520029033 , pp 37f
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Piet Potgieter on the LiveJournal.com website
6. ↑ Elsje Maria Van Heerden on the Ancestry.com website
7. ↑ ^{a b} Zeederberg, Harry: Veld express , Timmins, 1971, p. 62
8. ^ ^{A b c d e} Webster, Roger: The Illustrated at the Fireside: True Southern African Stories , New Africa Books, 2003, ISBN 9780864865588 , pp. 56f
9. ↑ ^{a b} Mogalakwena Municipality Website
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Moorddrift Monument on the website of Tia Mysoa
11. ↑ Commandant-Generaal Pieter Johannes Potgieter ( Memento of the original of August 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF document)