TOPIC:

Well I have just read that Slapkranz was the former name of Surrender Hill, which fits with the last information you posted Dave.

Now I'll have to look at the farms around there, because one is likely to have once been called De Jaggers farm.

Hi Ian,

I hope that this is some relevant information that you can use for your research. An extract from 'A Gazetteer of the Second Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902' by Huw M. Jones and Meurig G. M. Jones.


Trev

Thank you Trev, that is most helpful.

I found a website and blog of the family associated with the farm Verliesfontein and have asked if they know of De Jagger's Farm.

For anyone interested the website is downrabbitholes.com.au

I have reached out to Elne Watson, a boffin with Boer War-period maps and farms and will revert once I have an answer from her Ian.

Thank you Rory, that is much appreciated.

I have also had a reply from the owner of the website I mentioned and he has also offered to help.

To me, it appears that De Jaggers/ De Jagers Farm could be somewhere in-between Fouriesberg and Surrender Hill.

The concentration camp records list numerous farms to the families of the name de Jager. But there is only one Slaapkranz / Slaapkrans (name means "Sleepy crag"), a farm in the Bethlehem district, owned by E C Bezuidenhout. It was burnt for "harbouring Boers".
There were two Boers living on Slaapkrans; they were taken into concentration camps at Bethlehem and Bethulie. Both perished: Gert Heyns, 40, of pneumonia; Johanna Robert, 19, of bronchitis.

The War Museum of the Boer Republics database lists 3 farms named Slaapkrans, all in the Bethlehem district. It's probably the same farm divided up; the farm(s) belonged to Hendrik Stephanus Bezuidenhout, Herman Johannes Krantz and Johannes Hendricus Scheepers.

There were 7 Cape rebels, all convicted of, and sentenced for, high treason, who gave their address as Slaapkranz. They were Cornelius Roets, Jan Roets, Johannes Roets, Marthinus Roets, Mathys Roets, Erasmus Smit ( son) Stephanus Smit. I would be interested to know if these 7 men were shot.