DC22/NAMM/0059

The significance of Pieter Mauritz Retief or Piet Retief as he is commonly referred to, he was a Voortrekker leader, particularly during the phase of the Great Trek. The town of Pietermaritzburg was named after Piet Retief and Gert Maritz: “On 23 October 1838, Erasmus Smit noted in his diary that the town would be named in honour of leaders Pieter (Piet) Retief and Gerrit (Gert) Maritz.” The statue of Piet Retief was made by Coert Steynberg and was unveiled by Mabel Jansen and was part of the, “centenary memorial promised the town by the SVK, set up on a 1.8 metre base covered by ‘rockery in the form of a small koppie planted with indigenous Drakensberg and other plants.” The SVK being the Sentrale Volks Monument Komitee (Central People’s Monuments Committee). The statue was inaugurated 5 April 1961. The statue now forms part of the Voortrekker Complex at uMsunduzi Museum, which was created in 1912 to commemorate the Voortrekkers.References
Henning, E. E., ‘The Cultural Significance of the Church of the Vow in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal,’(M.A. thesis, University of Pretoria, 2014).
Rankin, E., and Schneider, R. M. From Memory to Marble: The Historical Frieze of the Voortrekker Monument Part II: The Scenes (Germany: De Gruyter, 2020). 
‘Msunduzi Museum,’ Available from: https://www.msunduzimuseum.org.za/ accessed 2 June 2021.