Houdenbek Farm

Located at the foot of the Koue Bokkeveld Mountains where the second slave uprising of 1825 began. In 1825, at the farm Houdenbek near Ceres in the Kouebokkeveld, there was a slave uprising led by Galant van der Caab, who was a slave of WN van der Merwe, and other slaves and Khoekhoen labourers. They killed four people, destroyed crops and then fled. The group threatened to take over other farms in the area as they believed that the government had promised them their freedom and that their owners were preventing their release. They were caught, found guilty of high treason, murder and armed robbery, and were sentenced and executed in 1826. The place of the gruesome execution of the slaves – where the heads were put on pikes to dissuade the other slaves – is on either side of the road at Koppieslaagte (hence the name) – slaughtered heads. Author Andre Brink captures this uprising and subsequent trial in his novel 'A Chain of Voices'.