Welcome to a basic information page on Pretoria
Welcome to a basic information page on Pretoria
PRETORIA -THE CITY OF TSHWANE-
History
Around 200 000 years ago Early Stone Age hominids roamed the present city of Pretoria. They hunted and gathered all over the modern-day Pretoria area, from the Union Buildings to the Menlyn Shopping Mall. They danced around fires at night, carved stone tools, and steadily commenced the slow evolutionary process of man from butt-flap-wearing hooligans to suit-and-tie-wearing hooligans.
1 800 years ago the first Iron Age people arrived in the Old Transvaal area, between the Limpopo and Vaal Rivers. They were of the Tswana-speaking tribe. They were soon followed by more Tswana-speaking peoples, as well as, Ndebele speakers. These people settled in the area north and west of the present-day Pretoria.
According to legend, Msi was the first chief of the Pretoria Ndebele tribe, around 1800 A.D. He established this tribe around 300 – 400 years ago. Msi named the river which ran through his large settlement, Tshwane, after one of his sons. Tshwane is the Ndebele word for little monkey or little baboon. Today it is known as the Apies River – an Afrikaans variation of Tshwane.
20 years later, Mzilikazi – a subservient chief of the mighty Zulu King, Shaka – fled before the King’s wrath with a few head of plundered cattle he decided to keep for himself. This exodus occurred during the terrible Difaqane, also known as the Mfecane. This period was characterised by incredible disruption, rapine, plunder, murder and famine. Shaka, maddened with grief for his late mother, Nandi, strived to expand his already large kingdom, and did not let anything or anyone stand in his way. The Tswana people fled from the present-day Pretoria area and left the field wide open for Mzilikazi and his refugees.
Mzilikazi and his entourage, who were called the Matabele, wandered around the South African interior for a while, before finally settling in the vicinity of present-day Pretoria. Two years later Mzilikazi and his Matable were put on their way again by the raging Shaka. Another five years after that, Mzilikazi decided that South Africa was a rough country, and moved to the present-day Bulawayo in Zimbabwe instead.
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