Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive (administrative) and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.
Pretoria is contained within the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality as one of several constituent former administrations (among which also Centurion and Soshanguve). Pretoria itself is sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘Tshwane’ in a controversial proposed name change, the status of which is still being decided as of 2010.
The city's original name was Pretoria Philadelphia ("Pretoria of brotherly love"). It gave its name to the PaxPraetoriana, referring to the country's relative stability.
History
The Southern Transvaal Ndebele occupied the river valley, which was to become the location of the city of Pretoria, by around 1600.
During the difaqane in Natal, another band of refugees arrived in this area under the leadership of Mzilikazi. However, they were forced to abandon their villages in their flight from a regiment of Zulu raiders in 1832.
Pretoria itself was founded in 1855 by Marthinus Pretorius, a leader of the Voortrekkers, who named it after his father Andries Pretorius. The elder Pretorius had become a national hero of the Voortrekkers after his victory over the Zulus in the Battle of Blood River. Andries Pretorius also negotiated the Sand River Convention (1852), in which Britain acknowledged the independence of the Transvaal. It became the capital of the South African Republic (ZAR) on 1 May 1860. The founding of Pretoria as the capital of the South African Republic can be seen as marking the end of the Boers' settlement movements of the Great Trek.
During the First Boer War, the city was besieged by Republican forces in December 1880 and March 1881. The peace treaty which ended the war was signed in Pretoria on 3 August 1881 at the Pretoria Convention.
The Second Boer War (1899 to 1902) resulted in the end of the Republic of Transvaal and start of Britishhegemony in South Africa. During the war, Winston Churchill was imprisoned in the Staats Model School in Pretoria but escaped to Mozambique. The city surrendered to British forces under Frederick Roberts on 5 June 1900 and the conflict was ended in Pretoria with the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging on 31 May 1902.
A number of forts were built for the defence of the city just prior to the Second Boer War, though some are today in ruins, a number of them have been preserved as national monuments.
[edit]Union of South Africa
Main article: Union of South Africa
The Boer Republics of the ZAR and the Orange Free State were united with the Cape Colony and Natal Colony in 1910 to become the Union of South Africa. Pretoria then became the administrative capital of the whole of South Africa, with Cape Town the legislative capital. Between 1860 and 1994, the city was also the capital of the province of Transvaal, superseding Potchefstroom in that role.
On 14 October 1931, Pretoria achieved official city status. When South Africa became a republic in 1961, Pretoria remained its administrative capital.
