S 28°47’58.71, E 23°43’10.41

The Heritage Foundation (HF) has a special interest in all Afrikaans-speaking communities, and recently became involved in a project on the Griquas of Campbell. Campbell is a small town on the edge of the Ghaap Plateau in the Northern Cape, 48 km east of Griquatown. It was first known as Knovelvallei and then Groote Fontein, but later renamed after John Campbell, a missionary who visited the Cape Colony in 1813. Later Cornelius Kok II (brother of Adam Kok II, both sons of Cornelius Kok I), left the Khamiesberg in the Cape Colony to settle in Campbell, together with a following of 500 people. In 1816 he became the first Griqua chieftain of the settlement. Between 1827 and 1831, the missionary John Bartlett built a mission church in Campbell, and in 1960 this building was proclaimed a national monument. Famous explorers like Robert Moffat and David Livingstone both preached in this church. In 2007, the remains of Cornelis Kok II and 34 others Griquas were reburied at the church grounds.

The HF has been involved, funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF), to help rediscover the rich history of this forgotten community since 2013. The HF, in partnership with the Campbell Grounds community, want to help ensure that Campbell’s heritage resources are developed, both in order to stimulate tourism and to ensure the enrichment of local knowledge about the diverse history of the region’s residents.

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