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The1820 Settlers were several groups of British colonists who settled in theEastern Cape of theCape Colony under the auspices of thegovernment of the United Kingdom in 1820.
After theNapoleonic Wars, Britain experienced a serious unemployment problem. Many of the 1820 Settlers were poor and the Cape government encouraged them to settle in the Eastern Cape in an attempt to strengthen the eastern frontier against the neighbouringXhosa peoples, and to provide a boost to the English-speaking population of South Africa. The settlement policy led to the establishment ofAlbany, South Africa, a centre of theBritish diaspora in Africa.
Of the 90,000 applicants, 19,000 were approved, but only about 4000 could be transported due to financial constraints. Many 1820 Settlers initially arrived in the Cape in about 60 different parties between April and June 1820. They were granted farms near the village ofBathurst, Eastern Cape, and supplied equipment and food against their deposits, but their lack of agricultural experience led many of them to abandon agriculture and withdraw to Bathurst and other settlements likeGrahamstown,East London andPort Elizabeth, where they typically reverted to their trades.
A group of the 1820 Settlers continued on toNatal, then a part ofZululand, home of theZulu people. At the time,King Shaka ruled the territory with highly trained warriors. Leaders of the Natal settlers requested permission from Shaka to stay on the land. When the king witnessed the settlers' technological advances, permission was granted in return for access to firearm technology.[2] According to genealogist Shelagh O'Byrne Spencer, among 1820 Settlers who moved to Natal were "John Bailie, the founder of East London, and Charles Kestell, after whose son, the Rev. John Daniel Kestell of Anglo-Boer War fame, the Free State town ofKestell is named".[3]
As always, there were exceptions. After 5 months at sea two ships arrived at the Cape of Good Hope from London via Cork, Ireland. Upon feasting their eyes on the promised land, about 200 settlers lay off shore at Simonstown ("Simons Bay") for a week, before being sailed back all the way to Saldanha. From here they were carted to Clanwilliam ("Jan Disselsvlei") and given tiny pieces of land. All but 5 families (Archer, Stone, et al.) were later rescued and moved to the "Eastern Cape". The five remaining families, culturally isolated from the other British Settlers, had to make do and were quickly absorbed by the Dutch/Afrikaans speaking communities. Understandably, some of these English descendants fought against the English in the Anglo Boer wars.[4]
They are commemorated in Grahamstown by the1820 Settlers National Monument, which opened in 1974. A living monument, it hosts plays, musical performances and cultural events, and is supported by the 1820 Settlers Association which was founded in 1920 bySir Walter Stanford and other descendants. It also served as a vehicle "to [attempt to] reverse the downward trend of British immigration to South Africa and redress the growing numerical imbalance between Afrikaners and English by bringing British immigrants, particularly ex-servicemen, into the country as settlers."[5]
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