Northern Cape South Africa

Founded as Number 2 location in 1878, Galeshewe is Kimberley’s oldest township and forms part of the Sol Plaatje Municipality.

It has a rich and sometimes tragic history, in addition to being a vibrant hub of contemporary arts and culture. It is the perfect place to visit for fascinating insights into the early days of the Kimberley diamond rush, as well as the area’s resistance to colonialism and apartheid.

In the late 1800s, Kimberley was awash with diggers, prospectors and migrants from all over the globe. Among them were black African mineworkers, who often lived in inhumane conditions in Number 2’s labour compounds.

Intellectual, academic, writer and founding African National Congress member Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, after whom the municipality is named, gave his last public lecture in Number 2’s Abantu Batho Hall (the “People’s Hall”), now called the Galeshewe Centre, in May 1932. 

In 1952, Number 2 and its surrounds were officially renamed Galeshewe, after Kgosi Galeshewe of the Batlhaping people, who led the Phokwane Rebellion against the British colonial government in the 1870s.

Pan Africanist Congress leader and anti-apartheid hero Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe spent the last years of his life in Galeshewe, practising as a lawyer, after being released from prison in 1969. 

The township is home to a monument to the Mayibuye Uprising, which started in November 1952 in protest against “whites-only” public benches, leading to riots in which 13 people were killed and 78 others wounded by the police.