friends and allies; according to Ms. Sarah Heckford's memoir, "A Lady Trader in the Transvaal," the Boers would move into the bushveld to visit their Sotho-Tswana neighbors during the winter in what Heckford described as a big picnic. According to oral testimony by Tswana headmen recorded around the turn of the 20th century, many individual Boers formed close friendships with prominent individual Tswana headmen and chiefs, especially for the purpose of forming hunting parties to gather ivory and other products from further north. Subsequently the Boers began settling in the valleys of the Magaliesberg Range and in the bushveld north of the Magaliesberg, and turned the region into some of the most productive farmland in South Africa, while displacing their former allies, confining them to locations and reserves.
The area saw some heavy fighting during the Second Anglo-Boer War. The Boers, being extremely familiar with the mountains, used secret pathways across the mountains to launch guerrilla attacks on the British soldiers. In response, the British forces builtblockhouses on top of the mountains in order to restrict the movement of the Boer forces; ruins of these structures are still to be seen on the mountain.
Control of the Magaliesberg Mountain Range was of great importance to both the Boer and the British forces, especially the two routes between Pretoria and Rustenburg, which crossed it at Silkaatsnek and Kommandonek, respectively. As a result many battles, such as the battles of Buffelspoort, Nooitgedacht and Olifantsnek were fought in the area.
After the war, farms in the area were reoccupied and farming was resumed, tobacco and citrus being particularly successful.
In 1923 the Hartbeespoort Dam, situated in one of the valleys of the range, was completed. It became a popular holiday and weekend destination for the inhabitants of Johannesburg and Pretoria, and the villages of Hartbeespoort and Kosmos developed as a result
