History of Brits

Brits is a large town situated in North West Province of South Africa, just north of the slopes of the ancient and majestic Magaliesberg Mountains.

It is well known that two million years ago early man originated in this area, a veritable Eden, which until the mid 1800’s was teeming with a wide diversity of game.

From Stone Age times the area has been inhabited on a continuous basis by the local people, and from time to time foreign migrants, many of whom stayed, while others forced by circumstances, moved on!

In 1827 Mizilikazi, having broken away from the Zulus under the reign of Shaka, arrived in the area.

One by one the Tswana groups in the region were destroyed, scattered or subjugated,
and very soon Mizilikazi was able to lay claim to a large kingdom with Magaliesberg at its centre extending from the Vaal to the Limpopo River.

One of the key role players in the history of the area Mohale Mohale was at a stage captured by Mizilikazi  but was later freed when a party of Po returned from their hideout and rescued him, and as his father had been killed in the battle, as the new chief of the Po, he led his people to relative safety to an area south of the Vaal River.

Once again fate had intervened, as in 1823, during a raid on his tribe by the Pedi his grandparents had hidden him in a Kloof, and had they not done so he would most certainly have been killed or captured.

The Magaliesberg was later to be named after a corruption of his name “Magalie”.

In 1828 the a band of Griqua and Korana horsemen led by Jan Bloem and assisted by a regiment seconded to them by the Taung chief Moletsane, raided the Ndebele settlements in the Magaliesberg, while Mizilikazi’s main army was campaigning in the west.

They captured about 3000 head of cattle and the attackers retreated through Olifantsnek, and although the Taung took their share of the spoils and left the area immediately, the Griqua and Korana dallied only to be overtaken by the Ndebele who killed many of the raiders forcing the survivors to abandon their booty and escape on horseback.

With Mizilikazi controlling a wide area the Griqua found that their hunting grounds and trade routes had diminished, and therefore it is not surprising that in 1831 Barend Barends one of Jan Bloems rivals, sent one of his lieutenants Gert Hooyman, on another raid on the Ndebele with a mixed commando of Griqua, Korana and Tswana.

This time the purpose of the raid was to sweep Mizilikazi from the area and the commando had been given instructions not to encumber themselves with stolen cattle.

The commando entered the area though Olifantsnek and split into parties to destroy all the Ndebele basis north of the mountains between the Crocodile and Hex Rivers.

With the main Ndebele force out on raiding parties they again encountered little resistance as Mizilikazi initially hid in the mountains, however unable to overcome their greed and falling into the same trap as Jan Bloem two years earlier, the commando regrouped and camped at the Hex river near Bospoort, with a huge herd of captured cattle.

That night Mizilikazi’s reinforcements arrived and attacked while Hooyman’s men were sleeping, killing all but the handful of men who managed to escape.

It was eventually the Zulus who, in 1832, sent a raiding party into the area and after an inconclusive battle with the Ndebele, had managed to make off with a large herd of captured cattle, that finally convinced Mizilikazi to move further west leaving a void which was soon filled by the Voortrekkers who had started arriving in the area from 1837, and the remnants of the tribes who had been scattered by the Ndebele.

Soon Hekpoort and Skeerpoort were thriving farming communities and it is recorded that as early as 1840 Albertus Venter with his wife and daughter were already farming on the farm De Kroon, in the Brits area.

Not long afterwards they were joined by the Fourie family and on 13 June 1846 the first white baby was born in the area north of the Magaliesberg.

Fourie was to eventually buy Venter’s farm and establish the first permanent homestead that was to become known as the “Ou Werf”

In 1864 the armistice treaty for the Transvaal civil war signed beneath a Karee tree just to the south of Brits

The Brits railway station, built on the property of Johan Nicolaas Brits part owner of the farm Roodekopjes, was opened on 9 July 1906 and soon entrepreneurs started setting up shops on the southern side of the station, which is today known as Tom Street, and is the major part of the Indian area of Brits called Pimindia.

Another significant event in the area was a speech by General Hertzog in 1912 at the nearby De Wildt railway station that led to the formation of the National Party a major player in the history of South Africa until the country’s first totally democratic election in 1994.

Initially when post started arriving at Brits by train the station master was required to sort the mail until 1915, when Heydon Thomas was appointed as the first Postmaster of the little Post Office that was established on the Brits Station, and in due course the first telephone in the area was installed in this building.

By 1918 the first steam driven roller mill, built on the west side of the station, was in operation, and was to serve the community for years to come.

Sargeant Prinsloo commander of the first police station when it came into operation in 1921.

At the outset the area developed with no proper planning, having no running water, however after Louis Karovsky bought the part of Hendrik Christiaan Brits’ farm to the north of the rail road and cut up the area into 940 stands, and this section was proclaimed as a township, in October 1923.

In 1923 the Hartbeespoort Dam, situated less than twenty kilometres south of Brits, on the Crocodile River finally opened, and by 1928 the last of the network of irrigation canals was completed, bringing water to large areas of farmland around Brits, which encouraged the cultivation of citrus, vegetables and grain, the mainstays of the present farming community.

Today with its strong industrial base the town plays an important role in the South African mining industry, as, addition to the large vanadium mine in the district, 94% of South Africa’s platinum is produced in the Rustenburg and Brits districts, which together mine more platinum than any other single area in the world.

Information on early history Courtesy of The Magaliesberg by Vincent Carruthers