Our family connections - Ons familie verwantskappe

Bartolomeu Dias (or Bartholomew Dias) a Portuguese navigator sailed south along the coast of Southern Africa as far as the Orange River, was blown out to sea and made landfall at Mossel Bay and Algoa Bay. He erects the first padrão (stone cross) on the South African coast. At the Fish River his men refused to go any further. He returns sailing round the Cape of Good Hope, named by either Dias or his patron, King John II of Portugal for the “great hope it gave of discovering the Indies”.

Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape on the way to India. A Portuguese navigator, he sighted land at St. Helena Bay, doubled the Cape, passed up the coast of Natal at Christmas time and named it Natal, and reached Arab Mozambique. He had discovered a route to India. His patron was the successor to John II, Manuel the Fortunate.

An English admiral, Sir Francis Drake, rounded the Cape on his voyage round the world. He called it “a most stately thing and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth”.

The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or better known as the Dutch East India Company is established in the Netherlands.

Jan van Riebeeck arrives at the Cape in the Drommedaris and sets up a supply station and fortifications for the Dutch East India Company.

French Huguenot refugees arrive after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Simon van der Stel, the Governor of the Cape Colony settles the Huguenot refugees in the present day Drakenstein, Franschhoek and Wellington areas which were beyond the Cape Colony and belonged to the Khoikhoi people.

A population count in the Cape shows that there were 5,510 Europeans and 6,279 slaves in the Cape Colony.

Consequence of signing the Treaty of Paris (3 Sep 1783).

The Dutch East India Company is in financial ruins. 29 January – Farmers expelled the officials of the Dutch East India Company and established an independent government at Graaff Reinet. 18 June - Swellendam follows Graaff Reinet and declares a republic under Hermanus Steyn. The Netherlands is invaded by the French under the leadership of Napoléon Bonaparte. A republic is declared by Dutch revolutionaires and the Prince of Orange flees to England. 16 September – British forces under General Sir James Henry Craig seizes the Cape Colony for the Stadtholder Prince William V of Orange. The republics of Graaff Reinet and Swellendam reject the British and the British army is sent in. The start of free trade was announced.

17 March - The first British settlers arrived in Table Bay, Cape Town on the Nautilus and the Chapman. 1 May - The Albury reaches Cape Town bringing settlers to Albany, South Africa. They arrive in Algoa Bay on 15 May. 2 May - La Belle Alliance reached Cape Town. She brought British settlers to Algoa Bay. 4000 British settlers started arriving in Algoa Bay (Port Elizabeth), they settled in Grahamstown and along the frontier.

In the spring of 1861, tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including state's right versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War.

The South African Republic (Dutch: Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, ZAR), often referred to as the Transvaal and sometimes as the Republic of Transvaal, was an independent and internationally recognised country in Southern Africa from 1852 to 1902.

The Orange Free State (Dutch: Oranje-Vrijstaat, Afrikaans: Oranje-Vrystaat) was an independent Boer sovereign republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province.

The Eureka Diamond was the first diamond discovered in South Africa. It weighed 21.25 carats (4.250 g), and was found by Erasmus Jacobs near Hopetown on the Orange River in 1867. The diamond, cut to a 10.73-carat (2.146 g) cushion-shaped brilliant, is currently on display at the Mine Museum in Kimberley. The discovery of diamonds in South Africa led to the Kimberley Diamond Rush, and marked the beginning of the Mineral Revolution.

In 1881 gold in the Barberton area was discovered by Tom McLachlan who found alluvial gold at Jamestown. However due to the location (the hot lowveld region was rife with malaria) no-one wanted to go there until Auguste Roberts (French Bob) discovered gold in Concession Creek in 20 June 1883. This discovery resulted in a gold rush to the area.

Discovery of the Main Reef in Witwatersrand. Gold rushes to Pilgrim's Rest and Barberton were precursors to the biggest discovery of all, the Main Reef/Main Reef Leader on Gerhardus Oosthuizen's farm Langlaagte, Portion C, in 1886, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the subsequent rapid development of the gold field there, the biggest of them all.

Smallpox outbreaks: The outbreak of smallpox is reported in the Malay Location, Johannesburg and cases of smallpox are discovered in Durban.

An estimated 500,000 people die from the Spanish flu epidemic in South Africa, the fifth hardest hit country in the world.

The Wall Street Crash sets off the Great Depression, the most severe worldwide economic depression in the 20th century.