Graaff-Reinet

Province

Graaff -Reinet is a 26 585 inhabitants (as of 2011; census ) A city in the Camdeboo Municipality, Cacadu District, Eastern Cape Province in South Africa.

Geography

The city is located in the Karoo at the foothills of Sneeuberg Mountains and is surrounded by a loop of the river on three sides by the Sundays River. Near the town, the Valley of Desolation is ( German: "valley of despair ").

The town itself owns more than 200 monuments, most buildings in the Cape Dutch and Victorian style.

Graaff- Reinet is an important commercial and trading center. Important economic activity is livestock (mainly sheep and ostrich farming ). The city is also a center of the South African wine industry.

History

The city was founded on July 19, 1786 by the authorities of the Kapholländer, so under the authority of the Dutch East India Company, and is therefore to Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Swellendam is the fourth oldest town in South Africa. It was named in honor of the Dutch Governor Cornelis Jacob van de Graeff and his wife Hester Cornelia Reinet. The Dutch Reformed Church in Graaff -Reinet was established in 1792. Honoratus Maynier 1793 Landdrost of Graaff -Reinet. He tried peace between European farmers and the Xhosa after the end of the second border war - restore - which was 1789 broken out. The Boer settlers in Graaf -Reinet rebelled in 1795 against the Dutch East India Company and founded the Republic of Graaff -Reinet. She was first Boer Republic. January Theodorus van der Kemp of the London Missionary Society and other missionaries were attacked by Boers in 1801 from the region. The Boers were opposed to the missionaries, who wanted the Khoikhoi "educate" and convert them to Christianity. The Parsonage Parish Mission founded the first private school for non-white children. The Drostdy building was completed in 1806.

On 4 August 1847, Graaff- Reinet a public library. On 30 May 1851, the first local newspaper The Graaff-Reinet Couran appeared. The second newspaper The Graaff- Reinet Advertiser was launched in 1860; This journal is still published today. 1879, the city was connected to the railway network. The first train from Port Elizabeth arrived on 25 August, 1879. In the 19th century the area was around the city scene of numerous battles between the Boers and the Khoisan. 2001, the railway line was closed. The Karoo Nature Reserve located outside the city in 2005 under the name " Camdeboo " 22 National Park in South Africa.

Sons and daughters of the town

  • Andries Hendrik Potgieter (1792-1852), Afrikaner politicians
  • Andre Geddes Bain (1797-1864), geologist
  • Marthinus Wessel Pretorius (1819-1901), first president of the South African Republic
  • Francis Guthrie (1831-1899), mathematician and botanist
  • Harry Bolus (28 April 1834-25. May 1911 ), botanist
  • Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe (1924-1978), first president of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC )
  • Antony Edward Rupert (1916-2006), South African entrepreneur and billionaire, co-founder of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
  • Carla Swart (1987-2011), cyclist
Cacadu District Municipality Camdeboo Local Municipality Victorian architecture Salisbury Cathedral Seneschal in Scandinavia Xhosa people Boer Republics Robert Sobukwe Anton Rupert
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