Abstract
This study explores the history of health and healing in the Vryburg district of South Africa, from the late 19th century, and leading up to the crucial era of the 1930s and then taking the reader right to the end of 1970s. The final section looks at some of the ramifications into 1980s to the post-Apartheid era. The work is situated within the broader context of colonial, segregated and Apartheid health and medical structures. While much of South Africa’s medical historiography has focused on major urban centres, such as Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg and Durban, this research addresses a significant historiographical gap by examining how smaller, rural communities like Vryburg engaged with healthcare systems shaped by race, politics, and socio-economic inequality. Using a socio-medical historical approach grounded in qualitative archival research, the thesis investigates the establishment and evolution of the Vryburg District Hospital built on missionary medical initiatives in a region shaped by traditional Setswana healing practices. While these practices are acknowledged, the focus remains primarily on biomedical healthcare due to the relative availability of sources. The study reveals that healthcare in Vryburg was deeply intertwined with the politics of segregation and exclusion. From early missionary medicine, that imposed Eurocentric beliefs, to the Apartheid-era hospital systems, that institutionalised racial hierarchies, health care in the district reflected and reinforced broader patterns of social injustice. Despite systemic marginalisation, Batswana communities demonstrated resilience and agency—adapting indigenous healing traditions, negotiating for improved facilities, and eventually mobilising in resistance during the 1970s. The research further highlights the both the coexistence and often the tension between biomedical and traditional healing systems, the racialised distribution of medical resources, and the community’s ongoing struggle for equitable healthcare. By tracing Vryburg’s medical past from its precolonial foundations through the Apartheid period, this thesis contributes to decolonising South African medical historiography and deepens understanding of how health, identity, and power intersected in one of the country’s overlooked rural districts.