Rietvlei Nature Reserve – a treasure trove of history
Graves have been restored at the Rietvlei nature reserve.
On the windswept plains of Rietvlei nature reserve where Blesbuck and Black Wildebeest peacefully roam, is tucked away on a little hillock the lone graves of founding father pioneers of Pretoria and Rhodesia.
Time and years of wind and rain has already chipped away some of the corners of the tombstones and obliterated the letters on the epitaphs of others. For the sightseer, who inadvertently stumble upon these graves, it is like opening a page in history.
Much has been said about the great trek of the Voortrekkers, opening up the dark interior of Southern Africa and establishing a thriving Western civilisation, but little thought has been given of how Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia, ties in with Rietvlei nature reserve.
The first Voortrekkers arrived in the Rietvlei area with the Andries Hendrik Potgieter trek in December 1836. Among them were Daniel Jacobus ‘Swartkoppies’ Erasmus and his wife Cornelia Susana. They had 10 children. Their eldest son was Daniel Elardus Erasmus who marked out the farm Doornkloof next to the Hennops river in the present day Irene in 1841.
Daniel died in 1875 and his son, Michiel Christiaan Elardus, born on 11 September on the farm Doornkloof, took over part of the the farm ‘Rietvlei’ where he died at the age of 46 as a wealthy man on 8 June 1895.
Michiel Christiaan Elardus married Anna Susanna Opperman in 1869 and together they raised eight children on Rietvlei.
In this tucked away corner of the nature reserve the forgotten grave next to his, gives a glimpse of a trek which started in May 1892 led by Thomas Moodie, a maize and wheat farmer of the district Bethlehem in the Free State.
This was part of Cecil John Rhodes’ thrust of occupying Manicaland by establishing a European settlement in an untamed country. Rhodes asked George Benjamin Dunbar Moodie to organise a trek into the hinterland.
Cecilia Moodie, born 20 August 1842 and died 10 November 1905, was married to Thomas ‘Big Tom’ Moodie in Smithfield on 24 August 1863. Thomas Moodie was the second son of laird Thomas Binjamin Moodie of Melsetter in Scotland.
Her grave site tells the story. In 1892, Cecilia and her husband, also named Thomas, joined the Thomas Dunbar Moodie trek to the Eastern Highlands of Rhodesia. After the death of her husband in 1894, Cecilia returned to the farm Rietvlei, of her daughter Johanna and her son-in-law Daniel Elardus Erasmus (son of Michiel Erasmus).
The Thomas Dunbar Moodie trek consisted of a party of 29 families being 37 men, 31 woman, 17 wagons, 350 horses and cattle. Surprisingly enough, most of the people participating in this trek were of Afrikaner descent.
The Moodie trek experienced many hardships, such as foot-and-mouth disease and resentment among themselves. So much so, that the party split into two groups at Fort Victoria.
The one party, which eventually reached the Chipinga area and establish the town Melsetter, comprised 14 men, four women, three small children and seven wagons. The other party eventually settled as an Afrikaans speaking community at Enkeldoorn in Southern Rhodesia.
For years, these graves have been neglected and been forgotten in the yellow pages of history. That was until two years ago when the management of Rietvlei nature reserve realised the significance of these graves and resolved to restore them.
Today, the graves are neatly enclosed with palisade and three notice boards give a brief synopsis of the history.
Thomas Moodie was married to nee Cecilia Jacomina Robbertse. The couple had three daughters and seven sons.
The couple’s eldest son, Jan Hendrik Robbertse remained in South Africa. The second daughter, Johanna Maria, married Daniel Elardus Erasmus of the farm Rietvlei. Thomas Dreyer Moodie, born 1874, the third son of Thomas and Cecilia, returned to South Africa with his widowed mother Cecilia in 1896 and married Susanna Margaretha Erasmus, sister of Daniel Elardus Erasmus of Rietvlei.
Cecilia, one of the first pioneers of Rhodesia lived till her death in 1905 on the farm of her son-in-law.
But there is more. Concealed between the gentle slopes, there are the historical site of an old farmhouse and outbuildings that survived and which was restored in the late 1980s.
Also to be found are a stone rampant and readouts where the British forces are said to have installed a field gun during the occupation of Pretoria during the Anglo Boer War as well as the foundation of a zinc blockhouse dating from the same period.
Rietvlei nature reserve was bought by the government on 2 September 1929 and proclaimed as a nature reserve.
It also bears testimony of one of the most dreadful times in South Africa’s history. During the depression in 1934 it was the saving grace for many poor and destitute South Africans willing to do any work just to survive.
Rietvlei dam, built during the great depression, was completed in 1934. Manual labour was mainly used for constructing of the dam wall and surrounding brickwork. During those difficult years, labourers were only too grateful to receive a fixed income of four shillings a day. Mule carts were used to move the soil on the site where the dam wall was built.
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