1780s in South Africa

Events

1780

• The Fish River is made the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony
• July - The Sultan of Mysore, India declares war on the British
• 16 December - The Netherlands joins the League of Armed Neutrality that is formed by Catherine the Great of Russia to protest British interference with the shipping of neutral nations during the war. Russia, Sweden, Prussia, Denmark, Austria, Portugal and Italy all join
• 20 December - Britain declares war on the Netherlands
• French troops arrive at the Cape Colony to guard it against the English

1781

• American and French soldiers and French naval forces force the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown
• 3 February - British forces captured St Eustatius and neutralises all other Dutch outlets in the West Indies and in Surinam. French and Spanish forces later recaputed the island for the Dutch
• August - The Dutch fleet is defeated at Dogger Bank in the English Channel

1782

• April - François Le Vaillant, French explorer, collector and ornithologist, arrives in the Cape Colony and travels until 1785^[1]
• 30 April - The paper rix dollars is issued for the first time in the Cape^[1]
• Grosvenor, wreck, Pondoland coast of South Africa
• British forces capture the French outpost of Cuddalore in the Indian Ocean, later recaputed back
• The Dutch port of Trincomalee on Ceylon is captured by the British, later recaptured back by the French

1783

• 3 September - The Treaty of Paris is signed ending the war. The Dutch have lost the most from the war

1784

• The French troops departed the Cape

1785

• 14 February - Cornelis Jacob van de Graaff is appointed Governor of the Cape
• 3 May - The Dutch East India Company ship, the Brederode, carrying a cargo of porcelain, tin and spices, runs aground near Cape Agulhas

1786

• The Dutch East India Company established a magistracy at Graaff Reinet

1787

• The Dutch East India Company passed a law subjecting the nomadic Khoikhoi in the colony to certain restrictions

1789

• The start of the French Revolution
• The Dutch East India Company, filled with corruption, becomes financially unstable
• Merino sheep is imported from the Netherlands

Births

• 10 January 1780 - Martin Heinrich Carl Lichtenstein, physician, explorer and zoologist, is born in Hamburg, Germany
• 4 June 1787 - Leopold Marquard, educationist and missionary to Southern Africa, is born in Westphalia, Germany

Deaths

• 23 July 1781 - Martin Melck, the founder of the Lutheran church in Strand Street, Cape Town^[1]

References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Henry Hall, 1859. Manual of South African Geography: Forming a Companion to the Map of South Africa to 16° South Latitude. Cape Town: S. Solomon. p. 161-2.

See Years in South Africa for list of more References