Episode 26 – The Boers begin expanding across the Cape frontier

As we heard last episode, the direction of trekker expansion was largely a function of the nature of the terrain, along with the availability of water and the quality of pasture. What was to take place through the 18th century was a steady growth of loan farms that extended northwards along rivers and eastwards between mountain ranges, or following the coastal lowlands.

The main areas settled before 1720 included the country north of the Berg River around the Piketberg, and to the east of the Hottentots Hollands mountains. Trekboers arrived along the Oliphants River Valley about the same time, along with the upper Breede River and adjacent valleys and river basins. Like the isiXhosa far to the north east, it was the streams and rivers that determined trekboer settlement. These two people were going to bump into each other shortly.

The Dutch settlers pushed eastwards into the coastal areas south of the Langeberg Mountains, then by the 1730s the trekboers were entering the Little Karoo and Swellendam which was settled in 1745.

To the north, the Dutch speaking livestock farmers crossed the arid plain between the Cape Mountains and the Roggeveld escarpment in 1745 and occupied the most accessible portions of the interior plateau. They then headed mainly north or northeasterly into the Hantamsberg which was settled in the 1750s and the Nieuveld in the 1760s.

By the 1760s trekkers were spreading along the summer rainfall area leading to farms being established in the good sites of the Cambedo including Graaff-Reinet. During the 1770s trekboers occupied the areas to the north and east of the Sneeuberg Mountains, along the southeast of the country behind Bruintjes Hoogte. By the 1770s the VOC was trying to stop colonists from expanding further east of the Gamtoos River - but trekboers had already taken out loan farms beyond this dividing line.