Travel Guide Mmabatho

Mmabatho, the "mother of the people", is the capital of the North-West Province and has inherited the pharaonic constructions carried out when it thought it was the capital of a free and sovereign state. Bophuthatswana, a bantustan of the Tswana people declared independent in 1977, became part of South Africa in March 1994 after a popular revolution. From the lavish dreams of President Mangope, what remains today is a shell-shaped stadium, a major university and a state-of-the-art radio and television station. Mmabatho is the seat of the ANC-dominated regional government. This small province is well funded by the two largest platinum mines in the world. In 1899, the town made international headlines when Colonel Robert Baden-Powell and his 1,200 men held off the 8,000 Boers of Cronje and then Snyman for 299 days, thanks in part to the creation of a cadet corps for signals and supplies. Baden-Powell had invented the Boy Scouts. Mafikeng was home to the administration of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Botswana, until 1965. The British have always insisted on calling the town Mafeking, perhaps out of monarchical reflex. Mafikeng is today the old quarter of Mmabatho.