Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(S.Afr.) stubborn.

1949		Partridge DU 321/1: Hardegat. Stubborn [...] late C.19–20.
1966		J. Bennett Hawk Alone 205: He was independent then and hardegat and people did it his way or not at all.
1983		Frontline Feb. 33: The people who seek seriously to talk turkey about how to come to terms with a truly race-free South Africa, have no need to feel irrelevant. Let them consider the mess that the hardegat option wrought to the north of us; and be fortified [DSAE].
1990		P. Hotz Muzukuru 297: Russia was just the kind of hardegat bastard who would turn a comrade in.
2003		M. du Preez Pale Native 57: I often answered that perhaps I was one of the few who remained true to their original hardegat [stubborn] Afrikaner roots.