A local resident was “devastated” to find that a piece of history had been desecrated recently.

The grave of Johanna van Rensburg, who was killed during the Voortrekker and Zulu wars, is at the Rensburg Koppie.

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When a local visited the grave site with friends about two weeks ago, he was saddened to find that it had been badly damaged.

“I was devastated to see this, because this is such a peaceful place that holds a lot of history. It is shocking and I will be reporting it to Amafa,” he said.

Amafa aKwaZulu-Natali, commonly known as Amafa, is a provincial heritage resources authority in terms of South Africa’s National Heritage Resources Act.

The grave site that was damaged has a quaint history behind it.

Marthinus Oosthuyse became one of the heroes of the Trek when on February 17, 1838, at the age of 20, he heard gunfire in the direction of the encampments of the Van Rensburg, Pretorius, Loggenberg and Harmse families. He mounted his horse, Swartjie, and galloped off to see what was happening. Approaching the area over a ridge, he could see that the Zulus had attacked the three encampments and driven the families up a rocky ridge, where they were managing to defend themselves.
On seeing Marthinus, one of the Trekkers signalled to him that they were low on ammunition. Marthinus then rode down to each of the abandoned encampments and found powder and ball ammunition. While doing so, he found one of the young Van Rensburg daughters hiding under a blanket in one of the wagons. He picked her up and put her on his horse, but before he could get away, he was attacked by Zulus who dragged her out of his arms and killed her. Marthinus managed to get away and rode through the lines of attacking Zulus. He delivered the ammunition to the families on the koppie, who were able to drive the Zulus off, but they lost all their livestock.
(Sourced from https://www.battlefieldsregionguides.co.za/place/rensburg-koppie/)

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