Historically the arrival of the 1820 Settlers obscures the fact that Algoa Bay, as the outpost was then called, had already been settled; by not many, however. In total there were no more than a dozen farms, but they covered the whole area from Cape Recife to the Gamtoos River and they were occupied by Dutch speaking Afrikaners. Amongst this hardy band of Trek Boers was Thomas Ignatius Ferreira. Of Portuguese extraction, his father is the progenitor of the vast Ferreira family in South Africa.
Ferreira settled in Algoa Bay 44 years prior to the arrival of the 1820 settlers and was banished from the area 17 years before the settlers arrival.
Main picture: 1803 Gesigt van Fort Frederick en Algoa Baai by Willem Bartolome Eduard Paravicini Di Cappelli
Continue reading