Jacobsdal is a small farming town in the Free State province of South Africa with various crops under irrigation, such as grapes, potatoes, lucerne, and groundnuts.

[citation needed] It is a small attractive town on the Riet River, and in the 19th century it was near the boundary between the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony.

Its district boundaries date back to 1834 when the Cape Colony negotiated with the Griqua Captain, Andries Waterboer.

However, in 1871 the Orange Free State republic's government received £90 000 from the British Crown in compensation for the land taken.

[4] Jacobsdal saw plenty of military action during the Second Anglo-Boer War of 1899–1902 because it was close to the two strategic towns of Kimberley and Mafeking.

20 km north west of Jacobsdal lies the Magersfontein battlefield where in December 1899 General Piet Cronjé blocked Lord Methuen's advance on Kimberley.

The British retaliated by burning down twenty houses and interning all the town's women and children in a concentration camp in Kimberley.