Swellendam
Swellendam, which is situated in the area known as the Overberg, has many architectural and historical attractions. It was established by the Dutch Governor Hendrik Swellengrebel and named after him and his wife (nee Helena ten Damme) in 1743, it has too a fine collection of Cape Dutch houses, whitewashed, thatch-roofed, with sash windows. The Drostdy (Old Magistrate's Court) is today a distinguished museum of the Dutch period (1652 - 1806). Behind it is Mayville, similar in style, making for a complex of good buildings.
The early farmers in the district used the surrounding mountain peaks as natural sundials calling them Ten O'clock, Eleven O'clock, Twelve O'clock and One O'clock. From the start the local burgers were an idiosyncratic bunch, living as they did on the frontier of the Cape Colony. When they became too difficult to control from Stellenbosch, the Dutch East India Company appointed a Landdrost, or administrator, in 1745 and Swellendam's establishment as South Africa's third oldest town followed.
Nonetheless, the burgers eventually rebelled against the Dutch governor and declared a Free Republic on 17 June 1795. As luck would have it this coincided with a British fleet attacking the Dutch colony at the Cape. The burgers then loyally rallied to the overall Dutch defence, sending a mounted force, and arrived just in time to join in the Dutch surrender to the British after the defeat at Muizenberg. Their independence had lasted only 91 days. Those events give the exhibits in the Drostdy Museum a special interest, since the building dates from 1746 - though later it was enlarged - and was taken over by the Burgers. It stands at the end of the wide Swellengrebel Street, planted with ancient oaks. This story also illustrates the propensity for individualistic political action still so much a part of the modern Afrikaner.
The early farmers in the district used the surrounding mountain peaks as natural sundials calling them Ten O'clock, Eleven O'clock, Twelve O'clock and One O'clock. From the start the local burgers were an idiosyncratic bunch, living as they did on the frontier of the Cape Colony. When they became too difficult to control from Stellenbosch, the Dutch East India Company appointed a Landdrost, or administrator, in 1745 and Swellendam's establishment as South Africa's third oldest town followed.
Nonetheless, the burgers eventually rebelled against the Dutch governor and declared a Free Republic on 17 June 1795. As luck would have it this coincided with a British fleet attacking the Dutch colony at the Cape. The burgers then loyally rallied to the overall Dutch defence, sending a mounted force, and arrived just in time to join in the Dutch surrender to the British after the defeat at Muizenberg. Their independence had lasted only 91 days. Those events give the exhibits in the Drostdy Museum a special interest, since the building dates from 1746 - though later it was enlarged - and was taken over by the Burgers. It stands at the end of the wide Swellengrebel Street, planted with ancient oaks. This story also illustrates the propensity for individualistic political action still so much a part of the modern Afrikaner.
posted by African Luxury Train Destinations at
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