1740s in South Africa

Events

1741

Flag of the Dutch East India Company.

• Henri Guillaume Bossau, founder of the Boshoff family in South Africa and great-grandfather of Jacobus Nicolaas Boshoff, 2nd state president of the Orange Free State, arrives in Cape Town from Bayonne, France as locksmith in the service of the Dutch East India Company.

1742

• 25 January — Adriaan Valckenier, Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company, is arrested in Cape Town on sundry charges.

1743

• The Governor-General of the Dutch East India Company, Von Imhoff visits Cape Town.
• Simon's Bay is chosen to be used as a harbour between mid-May and mid-August because of the damage caused by the winter storms in Table Bay.
• A Dutch Reformed Church is established in Roodezand, today known as Tulbagh.

1744

• 5 March — Georg Schmidt, the first Protestant missionary in South Africa, who worked with the Khoikhoi, returns to Europe.

1745

• The Dutch East India Company established a magistracy at Swellendam.
• The Dutch Reformed Church establish a congregation in the Swartland, Malmesbury.

1747

• 22 February — A day of prayer and fasting is held for the elimination of the locust plague from Table Valley.
• 26 October — Swellendam is founded.

Births

• 1746 — George Keith Elphinstone, Commissioner-general of the Cape.
• 1747 — Simon Hendrik Frykenius.
• 1748 — James Henry Craig, Commandant of the Cape.
• 28 August 1748 — Tjaart van der Walt, farmer and field commandant in the Third Cape Frontier War is born in the Roggeveld district of Sutherland, Cape Colony.
• 30 April 1749 — Jacob Abraham Uitenhage de Mist, Commissioner-general of the Cape.

Deaths

• 1743 — Jan de la Fontaine, Governor of the Cape Colony.