NORTH WEST PARKS & TOURISM BOARD
Associations in Mafikeng

Pre-European history included conflicts between the local Tswana people and the migrating Ndebele people who left Zululand under their leader Mzilikasi to get away from the tyrany of Shaka. Some of ancestors of these people still live in North West. In 1895 the Jameson raid was launched from Mahikeng, another historic town in the North West. The aim of the raid was to topple the government of President Kruger, in the then South African Republic. Plaatje was later to become one of the founding fathers of the South African Native National Congress, the forerunner of the African National Congress, in The first phase of the Anglo-Boer War lasted less than a year and was followed by two years of guerilla warfare. During that phase more engagements took place in the then Western Transvaal than in any other part of the country. These battles were spread evenly across the old Western Transvaal, now the Eastern half of the North West Province. During the leadership of BJ Vorster the implementation of the Homeland Policy lead to the incorporation of a large part of modern day North West into a homeland called Bophuthatswana, over which Lucas Mangope presided. The country was finally reincorporated into the North West Province under the new dispensation of the new Republic of South Africa in 1994.