Qonce

History

For thousands of years, the area was roamed by Bushman bands, and then was used as grazing by the nomadic Khoikhoi, who called the Buffalo River Qonce. Xhosa people lived alongside the Khoikhoi, eventually taking over the land after Queen Hoho lost the war with King Ngqika kaMlawu. King William's Town was founded by Sir Benjamin d’Urban in May 1835 during the Xhosa War of that year. The town stands on the site of the kraal of the minor chief Dyani Tyatyu and was named after William IV. It was abandoned in December 1836, but was reoccupied in 1846 and was the capital of British Kaffraria from its creation in 1847 to its incorporation in 1865 with the Cape Colony. Uniquely in the Cape Colony, its local government was styled a borough, rather than a municipality. Many of the colonists in the neighbouring districts are descendants of members of the British German Legion disbanded after the Crimean War and provided with homes in the Cape Colony, hence such names as Berlin, Braunschweig, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Potsdam and Stutterheim given to settlements in this part of the country. It was declared the provincial capital of the surrounding Queen Adelaide's Province in the 1830s. On 5 May 1877, the Cape Government of Prime Minister John Molteno opened the first railway, connecting the town to East London on the coast and to the Xhosa lands inland and further east. With its direct railway communication, the town became an important entrepôt for trade with the Xhosa people throughout Kaffraria. In 1973, a 108 hectare piece of protected land was established on the outskirts of town called the King William's Town Nature Reserve. On 19 January 1981, a referendum was organized by King William's Town municipality, the result is overwhelmingly against incorporation into the Ciskei.…