The 1820 Settlers By Lynne Bryer & Keith S. Hunt

All Books are second hand

The 1820 Settlers – Lynne Bryer & Keith S. Hunt

In 1819 some 4 000 British emigrants set sail for a district called Albany in the remote Cape Colony at the southern tip of Africa. The settlers were a mere handful among the thousands of emigrants leaving Britain for America and Australasia. But at the Cape their impact was both immediate and far-reaching. Overnight they altered the balance of population in Southern Africa and before long they began to agitate for the rights they were accustomed to as Britons.

They had come expecting a paradise of milk and honey. The reality was completely different, yet overwhelmingly they rose to the challenge and created a new life for themselves in an underdeveloped colony. They were to play a vital role in frontier affairs, and their concentrated presence in Albany led to a rapid anglicisation of the Eastern Cape that persists still. Their criticism of an outdated colonial system led to judicial and constitutional reform. In the end, they moved out and away – to sheep country in the Karoo, to the new colony of Natal, to the Boer republics and the diamond mines and goldfields of a rapidly changing Southern Africa.