The saga of Gideon Scheepers

Boer Commandant Gideon Scheepers was executed by British forces near Graaff-Reinet during the Anglo-Boer War. His trial and the secret reburial of his body caused long-lasting resentment, writes Mike Burgess.

- Mike Burgess

Commandant Gideon Scheepers's Mauser rifle and a piece of the chair (both in the care of the AngloBoer War Museum in Bloemfontein) on which he was executed by firing squad on 18 January 1902.

In 1978, the Graaff-Reinet Afrikaanse Kultuurraad erected a memorial to Scheepers on the GraaffReinet/Murraysburg road. MIKE BURGESS

The Anglo-Boer War (1899 to 1902) gave rise to numerous actions and events that stoked bitterness between pro-Boer and pro-British communities in South Africa. One of these was the treatment meted out to a 23-year-old Boer commandant, Gideon Scheepers. Scheepers led a highly effective Boer commando in the Midlands of the Cape Colony, and his prowess made him a focus of British forces, resulting in his eventual capture.

He was thereafter subjected to a trial and executed near Graaff-Reinet. After the war, it was discovered that his body had disappeared, and years of extensive searches followed in an attempt to find it.

The naming of farms in the Midlands, including Scheeperskraal, Scheepersdrift and Scheepersrus, after him is testimony to the honour in which he is held by many people.

INTO THE MIDLANDS

Born in Middelburg in the ZuidAfrikaansche Republiek in 1878, Scheepers joined the State Artillery Regiment at the age of just 16. During the war, he excelled as a heliographer and then as a scout for the famous Boer general Christiaan de Wet.