Rosendal, Free State

Rosendal is a small farming town and arts colony 49 km north of Ficksburg in the Free State province of South Africa which was founded in 1908. It has become a popular tourist destination, known for spectacular scenery, including the surrounding mountains, and is home to a community of artists and small business owners. The town has a number of attractive buildings and early-20th-century homes. There are several art galleries, a (magnificent) antique store, and several small cafes cum restaurants, including one that hosts live theatre.The Eastern Free State was first occupied by indigenous San and Khoi people, as evidenced by the many examples of rock art in caves on the farms surrounding Rosendal. By the early 1800s, a series of highly decentralised Basotho chiefdoms had emerged in the area.  Through the twin pressures of the massive Zulu kingdom’s expansion from the east, known as the Difaqane, and the arrival of the Voortrekkers from the south, the various chiefdoms came together under the leadership of King Moshoeshoe.  Universally praised as a skilled diplomat and strategist, he was able to wield the disparate chiefdoms and refugee groups escaping the Difaqane into a cohesive nation.  There is evidence around Rosendal of sacred places and mountain fortresses used by the BaSotho during this period.Hunters, adventurers and missionaries from the Cape probably already arrived in the area in the 1820s, but Cape farmers only came in large numbers during the Great Trek, from about 1837. As the republic of the Orange Free State expanded various Boer-Basotho wars were fought and the Basotho pushed eastwards across the Caledon river, before a British protectorate, Basotholand, was declared.The town came into being, like many in rural South Africa, when local farmers petitioned for a Church to be built within reasonable distance. Rosendal is 40 and 43 km from Senekal and Ficksburg, respectively, the distance that could be ridden in a day on horse back. A town was laid out in 1911 and declared a municipality in 1914, built upon a farm donated by a widow, Ms Botha, who chose the name Rosendal, "valley of roses".