'Aan de Grobbelaarsrivier' - 'n greep uit die vestigingsgeskiedenis van Oudtshoorn tot 1848

Abstract

Although the trek farmers were always on the move, a number of them were permanently settled in the present Oudtshoorn district by the end of the eighteenth century, the agricultural industry they founded promoting greater stability and a growing population. The traditional subsistence economy was converted into a market economy through the transport riding that sprang up between the Oudtshoorn district and the eastern and northern boundary districts. From 1811, when the magisterial district of George was established, and 1812 when a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church took root there, the need for local administration and church authority increased. The first significant development in that direction was the erection in 1838 of the first church on Hartebeesrivier, a farm on the Grobbelaars River. This eventually became the centripetal force which led at the end of 1847 to the establishment of the town of Oudtshoorn on the farm Hartebeesrivier.