Vereeniging ( locally / f ə ˈ r ɪər n ə x ə ŋ / fə- REER -nə-khəng ; Afrikaans pronunciation: [fəˈrɪənəχəŋ] ) is a city located in the south of Gauteng province , South Africa , situated where the Klip River empties into the northern loop of the Vaal River . It is also one of the constituent parts of the Vaal Triangle region and was formerly situated in the Transvaal province . Vereeniging is the third largest city in Gauteng. The name Vereeniging is the Dutch word meaning "association", although the spelling has since changed to vereniging , with a single e .
23-773: Viljoensdrif is a coal-mining village 8 km south of Vereeniging and part of the Fezile Dabi District Municipality in the Free State province of South Africa . It takes its name from ford ( Afrikaans drif) which was closed to ox-wagons by President Paul Kruger in 1895 to prevent goods reaching the Witwatersrand , thus forcing people to use the Netherlands-South African Railway Company (NZASM)'s Pretoria - Delagoa Bay railroad. Named after
46-716: A coat of arms from the College of Arms in October 1955, registered it with the Transvaal Provincial Administration in October 1957 and with the Bureau of Heraldry in June 1987. The arms were : Sable, on a fess wavy Or a barrulet wavy Tenne, the fess between in chief a thunderbolt between two picks, Or, and in base a steel pipe palewise proper between two cogwheels, also Or . In layman's terms,
69-570: Is Per Pacem ad Industriam ( Through Peace to Industry ). It is currently one of the most important industrial manufacturing centres in South Africa, with its chief products being iron , steel , pipes, bricks, tiles and processed lime . Several coal mines are also still situated in the area, with reserves being estimated at four billion tons. Other mines nearby extract fire- clay , silica and building stone. Vereeniging also has several Eskom thermal power plants that supply electricity to
92-544: Is a township situated between two large industrial cities, Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging , in southern Gauteng , South Africa . Sharpeville is one of the oldest of six townships in the Vaal Triangle . It was named after John Lillie Sharpe who came to South Africa from Glasgow, Scotland, as secretary of Stewarts & Lloyds. Sharpe was elected to the Vereeniging City Council in 1932 and held
115-669: Is currently one of the most important industrial manufacturing centres in South Africa, with its chief products being iron, steel, pipes, bricks, tiles and processed lime. The predominant language in Vereeniging is English followed closely by Sesotho language and Afrikaans . In 1879, George William Stow was commissioned by the Orange Free State government to look for coal deposits in the Bethlehem district With no deposits found he moved northwards to Maccauvlei on
138-685: Is situated at Maccauvlei. All the British soldiers killed in and around Vereeniging during the war were re-buried on this site. Near Vereeniging is the predominantly black community of Sharpeville, Gauteng , the site of the Sharpeville massacre in 1960. Since 1999 its municipal services were provided by the Emfuleni Local Municipality . In 2018 the municipality was placed under administration after years of wasteful practices and poor service delivery. In February 2022 it
161-674: The Second Boer War (1899–1902) was negotiated here by delegates of the South African Republic , the Orange Free State , and the British Empire . During the conflict, a concentration camp was set up in the area by the British in September 1900, and by October 1901 it housed 185 men, 330 women, and 452 children. Conditions at the camp were very poor: drinking water was brought by cart from a fountain (there
184-439: The 6,000 acre Klipplaatdrift farm from Karl August Pistorius in October 1881 for £15,500. This was opposite the farm Maccauvlei . From 1881, coal was taken by ox-wagon to Kimberley, and by 1882 there was so much development around the mining area that a village was surveyed on the two former farms. The Volksraad agreed to name it Vereeniging, a shortened version of the company's name. The Treaty of Vereeniging ending
207-669: The Vaal River and then crossed the river to the Transvaal side. On the farm Leeuwkuil , he found a coal deposit twelve feet thick. But the Orange Free State government believed that the deposit was too far away and there was a lack of transport so turned down the idea of mining there. Stow settled in Kimberley to find a job, where he met Samuel Marks . After hearing Stow's story, Marks saw an opportunity to use
230-467: The coal for energy generation at the Kimberley diamond fields. Marks formed De Zuid Afrikaanshe en Oranje Vrystaatsche Kolen and Mineralen Vereeniging (The South African and Orange Free State Coal and Mineral Association) and sent Stow to purchase the farms where the coal was found. On 25 November 1880 he purchased the 12,000 acre farm Leeuwkuil for £5,000. Marks' agent J.G. Fraser also purchased
253-630: The crowd was peaceful throughout the day, over 70 white officers and men of the South African Police (SAP), 13 of them armed with sub machine guns, fired at point blank range (a distance of three to five meters at most )according to police testimony). They had been ordered to fire by the Officer in Charge. According to official figures released at the time by Prime Minister Henrik Verwoerd's government, 69 Africans were killed and 180 wounded by
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#1732786794639276-472: The design is a black shield displaying, from top to bottom, a golden heraldic thunderbolt between two picks, a wavy orange stripe edged in gold, and an upright golden pipe between two cogwheels. The crest was a dove of peace perched on two clasped hands; the supporters were a lion and a zebra standing on a grassy base strewn with veld flowers; and the motto was Per pacem ad industriam . Sharpeville, Gauteng Sharpeville (also spelled Sharpville )
299-595: The last ethnic group to leave "Top Location", the last residents being moved to Roshnee in 1974. In 2004, the people of Top Location were compensated for the loss of their properties and land, and an amount of R60,000 per house was paid to all former residents or dependants. On 21 March 1960, the Sharpeville massacre occurred when the PAC ( Pan Africanist Congress ) organized a protest in which black Africans attempted to hand in to police their Apartheid -required pass books which restricted them from going in certain areas. Although
322-513: The major medical centres. These include: Campuses of: The latest annual crime statistics for Vereeniging Police Precinct was issued by the South African Police Service (SAPS) in 2021. The SAPS crime report showed the following information: Vereeniging established a municipality in 1912. By 1931, the town council had assumed an emblem depicting bridge across a river, and two clasped hands. The town council obtained
345-492: The nearby goldmines . In the census of 2001 the population of Vereeniging was recorded as 73,283. Vereeniging consists of 20 suburbs: Since 1999, Vereeniging has been part of the Emfuleni Local Municipality, along with Vanderbijlpark , Sharpeville, Sebokeng and the smaller Three Rivers. Various health services are available in Vereeniging. The majority of these services are located in or near
368-573: The owner of the place, J H Viljoen, who established a ferry in 1857. This Free State location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Vereeniging Vereeniging is situated in the southern part of Gauteng Province, and forms the southern portion of the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeninging (PWV) conurbation, and its neighbors are Vanderbijlpark (to the west), Three Rivers (east), Meyerton (north) and Sasolburg (south). The city
391-577: The police. All of these people were long term residents of Sharpeville. None were "migrant workers." A new book published in 2024 and based on extensive research in police documents held by the South African National Archives in Pretoria has now demonstrated that the "69 killed and 180 injured" was a severe undercount and was in fact a police lie. Using these police documents that were initially created in 1960, 1961, and 1962,
414-418: The position of mayor from 1934 to 1937. The main reason for the establishment of Sharpeville was the relocation of people from "Top Location" to an area away from Vereeniging because it was felt black people were too close to Vereeniging for comfort. Because the project was intended only to relocate residents of "Top Location", and not to house additional people, it did not alleviate the housing shortage. What
437-495: The two authors now show that the number of killed on 21 March 1960 was at least 91 and probably more, and that the number injured, many of them crippled for life, was at least 238. These same records also contain at least 250 witness statements collected from Sharpville residents in 1961 and 1962, all of them given under oath and attested to by the police at the time. The names and ages of all the victims are recorded in this new book by Nancy L. Clark and William H. Worger. Sharpeville
460-402: Was first called "Sharpe Native Township" but it changed to Sharpeville in the 1950s. With the implementation of the apartheid government's Group Areas Act 21 of 1950, it was estimated that over 3.5 million South Africans were forcibly removed from 1960 to 1982. Of the "Top Location" residents, Blacks were moved to Sharpeville, Coloureds to Rus-ter-vaal and Indians to Roshnee. The Indians were
483-611: Was no direct water supply although it was situated next to the Vaal River) and there were only 24 latrines. Most inmates lived in bell-tents but there was a dispensary and a school. The concentration camp was situated where the Mittal Steel plant (Vaal Works) is situated. Today, the Maccauvlei Golf Course is on the opposite side of the Vaal River to where the concentration camp was, and a Garden of Remembrance
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#1732786794639506-415: Was planned as a five-year resettlement project beginning in 1935, in fact, took 20 years. In 1941, 16,000 people lived in "Top Location". The building of the houses only started in 1942. A sub-economic housing scheme was used for Sharpeville. Water was free but 14 houses shared one tap and there were two bathing complexes in the township. By 1946 some of the houses had their own taps and bathrooms. The township
529-450: Was reported that Vereeniging had 14 out-of-service police vehicles for visible policing, and only 20 operational vehicles. In December 2010 and January 2011 the southern part of Gauteng and Mpumulanga experienced a higher than normal rainfall. This resulted in the need to release more water from the nearby Vaal dam . As a consequence, parts of Vereeniging, Three Rivers and the rest of the towns downstream were flooded. The city's motto
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