Just a few years after the wars, the famous missionary and explorer, David Livingstone, visited the Bakwena of chief Mokgatle, and found that in addition to farming and raising cattle, they made ornaments out of copper that they mined and smelted themselves.

Several chiefs began gathering their old followers around the 1850s and 1860s, asking for donations of cattle to create a fund to purchase land.

With the help of German missionaries of the Hermannsburg Mission Society, several chiefs succeeded in buying land and re-establishing villages and chiefdoms.

He wrote a memoir entitled Autobiography of an Unknown South African; the first chapters of the book contain a very detailed description of what it was like to grow up in the village in the late-early 20th century.

He describes wearing traditional clothing made of animal skins, walking far off into the veld herding cattle for his father and uncle and working for neighbouring white farmers.

The England national football team was based in Phokeng during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.