There are many significant historical sites in South Africa. Some of the obvious choices include Robben, where so much of our nation's history was nurtured, and the bustling city of Soweto where, in 1976, pupils revolted against the apartheid state.
Struggle Sites
Robben Island is steeped in South Africa’s history.
For nearly 400 years, this island was a place of banishment and isolation. During the apartheid years, Robben Island gained world-status as the ‘home’ of Nelson Mandela (and other political prisoners). Many of the freedom fighters spent more than a quarter of a century on this island. Today, Robben Island symbolizes man’s struggle for freedom and visitors are invited to take the harrowing journey into South Africa’s past by visiting the Robben Island Museum.
Soweto – To truly understand South Africa’s turbulent past, one must visit Soweto. Here you will be shown the bullets in the walls of the Regina Mundi Church and the Freedom Charter will be explained to you as you stand in Freedom Square. You can muse on the young life of Hector Peterson, cut short on 16 June 1976, at the very spot where he was shot, and from where his young friends carried his body straight towards a press camera, and onto the front pages of the world’s newspapers
Constitution Hill - The new home to South Africa’s Constitutional Court is also the site of the notorious Old Fort Prison Complex, known as ‘Number Four’. It was here that thousands of people were brutally punished before the onset of democracy in 1994. Many leading political activists spent time here including Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Ghandi.
Battlefields
Going back to the 17th and 18th Centuries, there was so much conflict, that our country is a veritable patchwork of battlefields, many of which have since been built over or forgotten. But many have not been forgotten, and the best concentration of documented battlefields is in the Zululand area of KwaZulu-Natal. Here you will finds records of both the South African (Anglo Boer) War, and the Zulu wars.
Ghandi and the Passive Resistance Movement
And then there are smaller sites of equal interest. In Pietermaritzburg, you can see a statue of Mahatma Gandhi erected at the spot where he was arrested for riding in a ‘whites only’ train carriage. He later claimed that it was this incident that started his career of passive resistance.
Notable Historic Sites:
- Visit the Apartheid Museum, close to Soweto.
- The District Six Museum in Cape Town.
- Mafikeng – famous for the Boer War siege.
- Mgungundlovu – home of the famous Zulu King, Dingaan.
- Wupperthal – old mission Town in the Western Cape.
- Nelson Mandela Museum, Umtata.
- Afrikaans Language Museum – Paarl.
- Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town.
- Sammy Marks Museum in Pretoria.
- Moffat Mission in Kuruman.
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