History of Bloemfontein
While for Brits the requirements were sufficient water and fertile soil, it was Major Henry Douglas Warden, the British Resident in Griqua territory, who in 1846 chose to settle in the centrally situated spot in the vast, dry plains, due to the absence of horse sickness, the spacious open country and the close proximity of the main route to Winburg. Recently Bloemfontein has received a new Sotho name: Mangaung – meaning "place of the cheetahs".
The Bloemfontein Municipality dates to 1850 when Messrs Rex, Fichardt and Holm were appointed temporary councillors following demands in a petition from 26 home-owners. They were to have the right to control the affairs of the town, and the necessary regulations were laid down.
The Bloemfontein Convention, whereby the area between the Orange and the Vaal Rivers gained independence, was signed in 1854, and the Republic of the Orange Free State was born.
Josias Hoffman was elected to serve as its first president. From here on the city progressed in leaps and bounds, and in 1890 the railway line between.
Bloemfontein and the Cape was completed. It was only later that the extensions to the Transvaal and Natal lines were completed.
During the Anglo Boer War, M T Steyn was President of the Republic of the Orange Free State, as it was known at the time. In 1880 Bloemfontein became a municipality, with Robert Innes elected as the first mayor. Bloemfontein’s status was considerably enhanced in 1919, when it was named the judicial capital of the Union of South Africa, and even more so when it finally acquired city status in 1945. It was the discovery of gold and the subsequent exploration of the goldfields in the northern region, which shifted the city’s development from that of an agricultural settlement into the steadily thriving commercial and industrial city it is today.
Bloemfontein is 670 km from Port Elizabeth, 1004 km from Cape Town and 398 km from Johannesburg. Bloemfontein is famous for its history: it was founded in 1847 by a British major, and for 40 years it was the largest town north of the Orange River, until Johannesburg was founded in 1886. In 1854 Bloemfontein became the capital of the independent Boer Republic of the Orange Free State, which was named after the royal House of Orange of the Netherlands. The Women's Monument which commemorates the 26 000 women and children who died in the British concentration camps, and the adjacent Anglo-Boer war museum, receives 15 000 visitors annually. For those interested in military history there are 2 other military museums and many famous battlefields to visit in the area.
Main article: Sand River and Bloemfontein conventions
(1852 and 1854, respectively), conventions between Great Britain and the Voortrekkers, or Afrikaners who made the Great Trek in South Africa; it guaranteed their right to govern themselves without the interference of Great Britain. These conventions reversed Sir Harry Smith's policy in 1848 of annexing the trekker republics in the interior of South Africa. Though the conventions contained...
.Andries Pretorius. The British proved unable to build an orderly administration, however, and conflicts with the Sotho convinced the British to withdraw in 1854. On February 23, 1854, under the Bloemfontein Convention, the British relinquished their sovereignty, and the local Boer settlers formed the independent Orange Free State.
...a part in public life as a local field-cornet, a post in which civil and military duties were combined. In January 1852 he was present when the Transvaal leader, Andries Pretorius, concluded the Sand River Convention with representatives of Great Britain, by which the independence of the Afrikaners (Boers) north of the Vaal River was recognized. He took part in 1855–56 as member of a...
southern Africa
Faced with these unprofitable conflicts, the British temporarily withdrew from the southern African interior, and the Transvaal and Orange Free State Boers gained independence through the Sand River and Bloemfontein conventions (1852 and 1854, respectively). Both Boer groups wrote constitutions and established Volksraade (parliaments), although their...
