On this Day in History
Learn what happened on this day in our country's history
Sunday, 28 February 1706
Magistrate Starrenburg arrested Adam Tas because of the role he played in drawing up a petition for the Cape burghers against the incumbent Governor W. A. van der Stel and other farming officials.
The Tas petition was submitted to the Lords Seventeen, the governing body of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in Amsterdam.
Tas and his fellow free burghers were protesting against the corruption and extravagant lifestyle of Van der Stel and the fact that abuse of power by officials led to unfair competition with burghers.
From documents in the desk of Tas, Van der Stel established the nature of complaints against him and also the names of the dissatisfied burghers.
Though several more burghers were arrested and punished, they were victorious at the end, when the Lords Seventeen in October 1706 categorically prohibited officials to own land or to trade.
Tuesday, 28 February 1956
Following years of struggle in courts and abortive parliamentary attempts to pass the Separate Representation of Coloured Voters Bill, the act was passed after enlarging the Senate and the Appellate Court.
It removed Coloured voters from the common voters roll in the Cape and placed them on a separate roll.
The Cape was divided into four electoral divisions and the Coloureds received the right to elect one White representative for each of these constituencies.
After a long and bitter struggle lasting six years, the government had achieved its aim.
Thursday, 28 February 1980
On 28 February 1980, Makhwenkwe Harrison Butshingi died in Orlando West, Soweto.
Butshingi was born in the Transkei in 1906, and moved to the Transvaal in 1925 to become an insurance company agent.
During the 1940s and into the 1950s, he became involved in the Transvaal worker’s unions.
Butshingi was President of the South African Cricket Board from 1956-1970, and a community leader in various capacities.
Thursday, 28 February 1980
Religious leaders were among the foremost and vocal opponents of the Apartheid regime.
Acting out of conscience and under the banner of religion, however, did not shield these individuals from the wrath of the Apartheid Authorities.
Many clergy often suffered the same fate as the persons whose cause they championed.
This was the case with the Reverend David Russell, of Cape Town, who after defying a banning order, was sentenced to a three and half year’s prison sentence, with two and half years being suspended on the 28 February 1980 for defying a banning order.
Russell, attending an Anglican Church synod, infringed his banning order.
For this he was taken to Pollsmoor Prison.
Russell was released on R500 bail on the 4 March pending the outcome of an appeal lodged on his behalf by his lawyers.
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