Ferreirasdorp (or Ferreirastown)
is an inner-city
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...
of
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
located in Region F of the
City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality
The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality () is a metropolitan municipality that manages the local governance of Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. It is divided into several branches and departments in order to expedite se ...
.
First known as Ferreira's Camp () and later Ferreira's Township, it is the oldest part of Johannesburg.
Sometimes referred to as the "cradle of Johannesburg", it is where the first gold diggings started, and where the first diggers initially settled.
[ The city grew around the mining camp in the Ferreirasdorp area,] and Johannesburg’s Main Street developed from a rough track where the present Albert Street led off towards Ferreira’s Camp. The area, together with Marshalltown was previously home to a large concentration of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. As the community's economic position improved, they mostly migrated to more middle-class Jewish areas such as Doornfontein
Doornfontein ( ) is an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, located to the east of the city centre. It is in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. In the 1930s, it attracted many Jewish immigrants, becoming ...
, Hillbrow
Hillbrow () is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution and crime.
It had a large and active Jewish commun ...
and Yeoville
Yeoville is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F (previously Region 8). Originally intended as a "well-to-do" neighbourhood, it instead developed into a white working ...
.[
The suburb is named after Colonel Ignatius Ferreira, leader of the original group of diggers who settled in this area in 1886.]
History
The suburb's origins lie in the Turffontein farm set up by Colonel Ignatius Ferreira, a Boer
Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
adventurer from Cape Colony
The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
. Ferreira had acquired a dozen claims in the vicinity and opened the reef in a cutting. The ore from both sides had a high gold content. The first tent on the site was erected in 1886, two months before gold digging started in earnest.[
In 1886 Hans Sauer, who combined a medical practice with prospecting on ]Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...
’s behalf, was guided from Ferreira’s Camp to the main group of gold reefs by a son of the widow Petronella Oosthuizen, the owner of a farm at Langlaagte, on which the main gold reefs had first been discovered.
Following reports of new gold finds in the Witwatersrand, Rhodes and Rudd
''Scardinius'' is a genus of freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, Eurasian minnows and related species. The fishes in this genus are commonly called rudds. Locally, the name "rudd" without ...
set off for Ferreira's camp. Already at the time of Rhodes' visit, a little crowd of diggers were at work, and in the week that had passed since Sauer had been away, an Englishwoman had run up a reed and mud building called Walker's Hotel.
Within a fortnight of Rhodes' arrival in July 1886, Ferreira's camp was crowded with tents and wagons from across southern Africa. The tent town eventually became known as Ferreira’s Camp.[ In July, the ]Diamond Fields Advertiser
The ''Diamond Fields Advertiser (DFA)'' is a daily newspaper published in Kimberley, South Africa, founded on 23 March 1878.
The early days
The earliest paper on the Diamond Fields was a weekly called the ''Diamond Field'', published from 1 ...
was already reporting that the population of Ferreira's Town was 300 persons.
Gold was discovered in September 1886. On September 8, 1886, Landrost Carl von Brandis read President Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger, was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and State Preside ...
’s proclamation, confirming the gold fields of the Rand as public diggings. When, in November 1886, a portion of the farm Randjeslaagte had been laid out as a village and named Johannesburg, the Government took over Ferreira's camp and had it properly surveyed and named Ferreira's Township.
The first building to go up in Johannesburg, the Central Hotel, was located in Ferreira’s Camp. The first barber shop in Johannesburg, the first bar, the first pub and the first brothel were all opened in Ferreira's Camp. So were the first circus, Fillis's Circus (in September 1886); the first café, Café Francais (in 1886), and the first school (in November 1886).[ It was also the location of the first bank branch on the Witwatersrand gold fields, when ]Standard Bank
Standard Bank (officially Standard Bank Group Limited) is the largest bank in Africa, as well as the continent's biggest lender by assets.
The company's corporate headquarters, Standard Bank Centre, is located in Johannesburg, Gauteng. The ...
started doing business in a tent in Ferreira's Camp, in 1886. On 11 October 1887, Ferreirasdorp was incorporated into Johannesburg.
As the city expanded, Ferreirasdorp quickly degenerated into a slum. By the 1890s, the western side of Commissioner street, where the Johannesburg Central Police Station
The Johannesburg Central Police Station is a South African Police Service police station in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa. From its unveiling in 1968 until September 1997, it was called John Vorster Square, after Prime Minister B.J. Vorst ...
is now located, had developed a reputation for its brothels and the gangs that controlled them. The name Ferreirasdorp itself ultimately became "synonymous with practically everything that is vile and violent" about Johannesburg.
By the turn of the century, many contemporary sources referred to the western part of Ferreirasdorp as the 'Cantonese quarter'. The area became home to a large coloured
Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...
community, and in 1898 a site was set aside for a church ( St. Alban’s Anglican Mission Church) to service the coloured Anglican community. In 1925, the Communist Party of South Africa opened a school offering night classes to blacks, but it was closed during the party purges of the 1930s. In the 1960s, under the Group Areas Act
Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a syste ...
, the coloured community was forcibly moved.
Jewish community
In the late nineteenth century, a significant number of Eastern European Jewish immigrants settled in the area and neighbouring Marshalltown. The community was mostly impoverished and the Adath Ysroel Orthodox Synagogue was built to meet the spiritual needs of the burgeoning community in the district.[The Jewish Community of Johannesburg, 1886-1939: Landscapes of Reality and Imagination]
University of Pretoria. December 2004 It was uncommon for the district's Jewish residents to work as miners, but most provided goods and services to the nearby mines.[ The district was also a point of interaction between the impoverished Jewish immigrants and the poverty-stricken black mine-workers.][
The economic situation of much of the Jewish residents improved, as they became shopkeepers and artisans. This allowed these residents to leave the poor conditions of the district and migrate to middle-class Jewish areas such as ]Doornfontein
Doornfontein ( ) is an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, located to the east of the city centre. It is in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. In the 1930s, it attracted many Jewish immigrants, becoming ...
, Hillbrow
Hillbrow () is an inner city residential neighbourhood of Johannesburg, Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is known for its high levels of population density, unemployment, poverty, prostitution and crime.
It had a large and active Jewish commun ...
and Yeoville
Yeoville is an inner city neighbourhood of Johannesburg, in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. It is located in Region F (previously Region 8). Originally intended as a "well-to-do" neighbourhood, it instead developed into a white working ...
.[
]
Heritage sites
A number of cultural heritage sites are present in the area:
* The location of the Ferreira’s Camp, i.e. the area bounded by Commissioner
A commissioner (commonly abbreviated as Comm'r) is, in principle, a member of a commission or an individual who has been given a commission (official charge or authority to do something).
In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to incl ...
, Ferreira, Alexander and Frederick Streets.[
* The location of the Ferreira’s wagon (apparently in the vicinity of today's Wesleyan Girls Hostel).][
* Ferreira’s Mine stope, preserved within the ]Standard Bank
Standard Bank (officially Standard Bank Group Limited) is the largest bank in Africa, as well as the continent's biggest lender by assets.
The company's corporate headquarters, Standard Bank Centre, is located in Johannesburg, Gauteng. The ...
precinct as one of Johannesburg’s first sub-surface digging mines.[ Standard Bank was the first bank to establish itself in Johannesburg, in October 1886.] In 1986, exactly one hundred years after the mine (and Standard Bank) started in Johannesburg, Standard Bank built its head office over this mine.[
* St. Alban's Mission Church, founded in 1898 to serve the local Coloured Anglican community, designed by F.L.H. Fleming.][
* Chancellor House, where Nelson Mandela and ]Oliver Tambo
Oliver Reginald Kaizana Tambo (27 October 191724 April 1993) was a South African anti-apartheid politician and activist who served as President of the African National Congress (ANC) from 1967 to 1991.
Biography Childhood
Oliver Tambo was ...
had their first law practice.[
]
References
External links
History of Ferreira's Dorp
{{City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, selected=regf
Johannesburg Region F
Populated places established in 1886
Jews and Judaism in Johannesburg