Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet

Swellendam and Graaff-Reinet, in South Africa, administrative districts of the Cape of Good Hope under the rule of the Dutch East India Company. Established in 1743 and 1786, respectively, they became centres of a frontier independence movement in the 1790s. With the continuous expansion of colonial cattle farmers, the eastern frontier of Swellendam moved progressively from the Great Brak River in 1743, to the Gamtoos (1770), and finally to the Great Fish and Bushmans rivers...