This page collates almost 400 years of history in the Valley of Grace and presents the events we’re all familiar with in a slightly different way, using the TIME model.
It sets out the main developments in each of three forms of organisation: Tribes, Institutions, and Markets. It also shows when each form was most dominant, and demonstrates the first signs of a fourth form, Emergent. It brings together what the detailed pages of Valley History present, based on the original missionaries’ diaries:
- Georg Schmidt’s Diary from 1737 to 1744, and
- The Genadendal Diaries from 1792 to 1805.
The page continues to 2038, when Genadendal turns 300. The story doesn’t stop there, and neither does the table.
What the letters in square brackets mean
Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.
- [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record such as a law, a court order, or a heritage register.
- [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from Moravian mission records, including the missionaries’ diaries, and the histories written from them, or from one party’s own documents or statements. They have not been checked against sources that do not depend on them.
- [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
Reading this page
Which form was most dominant in a period, and which column an event is placed in, is the Forum’s interpretation of the history. There is no two-letter tag for these interpretations, because it is merely a theory. Residents might read the same events differently, and the page will change as we collectively interpret the Big History story unfolding in our valley.
The diary entries
Entries marked Diaries come from new English translations in the online Genadendal Diaries repository. They are machine translations that no person has thoroughly checked yet, so they are a guide to what the diaries say and are not quoted here as finished translations. Each entry gives the Utrecht file number and the line numbers, so a reader of the old German or Dutch can check it directly from the original. The diaries were written by the missionaries, and they show the Khoekhoe through the missionaries’ eyes. For an explanation, see The Genadendal Diaries.
How the model works
TIME builds on the work of the American researcher David Ronfeldt, who called his version TIMN.
It asks a simple question of each period:
How did people organise themselves to share work, land, and what they produced?
The model has four forms:
- T: Tribes. People organise through kinship and belonging. What you give and get depends on your family, your clan, and your people.
- I: Institutions. People organise through written rules, leaders with authority, and fixed settlements.
- M: Markets. People organise through exchange at a price.
- E: Emergent. People organise through sharing, commons, and care for the land, linked to similar places around the world. (Emergent because it is still forming.)
Each new form is added to the ones before it, and no form ever comes to a definite ending. The older forms carry on alongside the newer ones, and they keep shaping each other. What changes is which form is most dominant: which one decides most about who gets land, work, and food. See History of the Valley, where the model is first set out.
Summary of when each form was most dominant in the valley
| Dominant Form | Period | Still at work today |
|---|---|---|
| T: Tribes | From the first people until about the 1713 smallpox epidemic | Families, congregations, and neighbourhoods; Khoi and San descendants reclaiming their history and names |
| I: Institutions | From about 1713 to about 1860 | The churches, the schools, the municipality, and Farm 39, which is still held in trust |
| M: Markets | From about 1860 to today | Wages paid in currency, shops, farms, tourism, and property in Greyton |
| E: Emergent | Not yet dominant. Early signals from 2011 | Start of Transition town, COVID pandemic in 2020 |
The dates are the Forum’s interpretation. They mark turning points. In 1713 smallpox killed many Khoekhoe, and more colonists moved onto their land [IC]. In 1854 Greyton’s plots were sold as freehold [IC], and in the second half of the 1800s factory goods began to undercut the mission’s handmade crafts [TBV].
Development in the two villages didn’t move at the same pace. In Greyton, land became property that could be bought and sold from 1854 [IC]. In Genadendal and the mission villages, land has been held in trust since 1858 [MS] and has still not been transferred to residents [IC]. There, markets came to decide wages and prices, while institutions went on deciding who could hold land. From 1950, under the Group Areas Act, the state’s rules also decided who could live where [IC].
The overview
The overview sums up the detailed tables that follow below. Two ways to read the table:
- Read across a row to see how the different forms interacted across a single period.
- Read down a column to follow one form through time.
| Period & Dominant Form | Tribes | Institutions | Markets | Emergent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before 1652: T | Soaqua hunter-gatherers; Khoekhoe herders arrive about 2,000 years ago; Chainoqua and Hessequa kraals under headmen | None in the valley | Cattle as wealth; goods traded far inland | n/a |
| 1652 to 1737: T, with I and M arriving later | Soeswa and Dorha lead the Chainoqua; smallpox in 1713 | The VOC rules the Cape; loan farms from 1714; a company post near the valley by 1727 | Cattle bartered for metal, beads, tobacco, and brandy | n/a |
| 1738 to 1791: I | Magdalena keeps the congregation together for 48 years; the cattle-killing movement of 1788 | Schmidt’s school, 1738 to 1744; a magistracy at Swellendam from 1745 | Work paid in supplies; paper money from 1782 | n/a |
| 1792 to 1805: I | Kraals move to the kloof; captains lead their people | The mission reopens; the company forbids building; the missionaries are ordered out in 1795, and allowed back; boundary stones fix the grazing in 1796 | Harvest wages eaten by debt; a farmers’ boycott, 1795 to 1797; forge, mill, and knives | n/a |
| 1806 to 1853: I | The Caledon Code of 1809 requires a fixed home and a pass | Renamed Genadendal; library, press, and teachers’ college; a home for freed people from 1838 | Wages move from sheep to cash; sterling from 1826; quitrent farms from 1813 | n/a |
| 1854 to 1908: M in Greyton, I in Genadendal | The brass band, first recorded in 1856 | Farm 39 granted in trust for residents, 1858; the church on Church Square, 1891 to 1893 | Greyton’s freehold plots, 1854; factory goods undercut the crafts | n/a |
| 1909 to 1993: M, with I deciding land and place | Families forced from Greyton to Heuwelkroon, probably 1968 to 1974 | The 1909 Act; the college closed in 1926; the Group Areas Act of 1950 | Greyton’s coloured owners forced to sell; trade in Greyton, including the Osman family from 1920 | n/a |
| 1994 to 2010: M | Khoi and San revival begins | Democracy; Theewaterskloof Municipality, 2000; TRANCRAA, 1998 | The Genadendal printing works close, 2003 | n/a |
| 2011 to 2026: M | The Khoi-San Leadership Act, 2019 | Farm 39 not transferred; the Financial Recovery Plan, 2025 | Green Tourism named a Forum priority | Transition Town, 2011; feeding scheme, 2020; Nature Realm and the Forum, 2026 |
| 2027 to 2038: Open | Descendants’ own account of 1738, not yet asked | The proposed Learning Campus | The proposed Heritage Trail and leopard corridor | The yearly survey from 2027; the proposed BioConomy |
Tribes: kinship and belonging
| When | What happened | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| More than 200,000 years ago | Stone tools are made near Riviersonderend, the oldest dated sign of people near the valley [IC] | History of the Valley |
| Thousands of years ago | Soaqua hunter-gatherers live in bands in the mountains and leave rock art [IC]. Decisions are made by the elders of each band [IC]. No one owns the land, and everyone has the right to use it [IC]. | Soaqua, San |
| About 2,000 years ago | Khoekhoe herders arrive with sheep and cattle [IC]. Land is held by the group, and a group’s claim rests on its use of springs and rivers [IC]. The Soaqua move higher into the mountains [IC]. | Khoekhoe |
| Before 1652 | The Chainoqua live in four groups of kraals, some near present-day Genadendal [IC]. Each kraal has a headman, and a camp holds from 20 to more than 100 matjieshuise [IC]. | Chainoqua, Hessequa |
| 1657 to 1663 | Soeswa leads the Chainoqua. The Dutch come to call his people by his name [IC]. | Soeswa |
| 1673 to 1677 | In the war between the colony and the Cochoqua, the Chainoqua side with the Dutch [IC] | Chainoqua |
| 1679 to 1693 | The Chainoqua leader Dorha is the company’s go-between with the Overberg Khoekhoe [IC]. In 1693 the Governor sends him to Robben Island [TBV]. | Dorha |
| Late 1600s | Greyton’s histories say Stoffel Koekson settles his people at Boschmanskloof [TBV] | Stoffel Koekson |
| 1713 | Smallpox kills many Khoekhoe. More colonists move onto the land, and many Khoekhoe who have lost their herds go to work on colonial farms [IC]. | The Cattle Trade |
| 1737 | The clan leader Africo hosts Georg Schmidt (missionary) at his kraal [MS] | Africo |
| 1744 to 1792 | With no missionary and no church building, Magdalena gathers people under the pear tree and reads to them from the New Testament [IC] | Magdalena |
| 1788 | Jan Paerl’s followers in the Swellendam district kill their white livestock and build new huts, expecting the world to end [IC] | Jan Paerl |
| 24 December 1792 | Baas Teunis of the company post at Soetemelksvlei tells the Khoekhoe of the kloof that “a couple of years ago” they heard the world would end, stopped working for the farmers, and slaughtered their cattle, and that more than 50 farmers then threatened to shoot them [MS]. The diary does not name Jan Paerl. Whether it describes the movement of 1788 is not yet known [TBV]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 449 to 539 |
| January to March 1793 | Eight kraals move to Baviaanskloof to learn [MS]. The missionaries record that a house is itself called a kraal and is built in one day, and that people who earn something on the farms bring it home to the kraal to share [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 957 to 1074 and lines 1745 to 2054 |
| March 1793 | A woman beaten by the farmer she served comes to stay “in a kraal” at the kloof. The diarists note that farmers used to come into the kraals and take people away [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 2133 to 2172 |
| July 1793 | A farmer forbids a Khoekhoe man to plough near the Sergeants River, saying the land is his. The Khoekhoe say the land “belongs to the Sergeants River”. The man takes a letter to the Landdrost, and it is settled that Khoekhoe may plough and sow within half an hour’s distance of the river [MS]. In December the missionaries hear that the land is to be granted to a farmer, and write that “this land has belonged to the Hottentots until now” [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 4357 to 4670 and lines 7282 to 7306 |
| 19 July 1793 | The first person baptised at the reopened mission is Anna Maria. She and her sisters are the daughters of Kupido, whom Schmidt baptised as Jonas in 1742 [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 4670 to 4797; Kupido and Willem |
| 1793 to 1805 | Khoekhoe captains, leaders whose title the colonial government recognised [TBV], lead their people in its service and speak for them to it. A captain leads the men called to the Cape in May 1793 [MS]. Captain Stoffel backs a farmer’s complaint against the mission’s cattle in January 1795, for drink and two shillings [MS]. Two captains go to the Cape in January 1796 to complain to the British General about the farmers [MS]. In February 1805 a captain at Baviaanskloof pursues a deserter “as his duty required” [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 3159 to 3225; A363595, lines 13983 to 14071; A363596, lines 3117 to 3137; A363597, lines 1869 to 1881 |
| January 1795 | Sixteen Khoekhoe of the mission walk to the Cape to ask the Commissioner to let them keep their cattle at Baviaanskloof. He refuses. They tell him they mean to stay and not move away again [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 13983 to 14071 |
| 1803 | Independent Khoekhoe kraals are still recorded near Genadendal [IC]. Families arrive at the mission together: 24 people on 24 May 1803, back from “the camp”, probably the military camp near Cape Town [MS]. A young Xhosa man asks to live at the mission [MS]. | Diaries: A363597, lines 25 to 58 |
| 1809 | The Caledon Code requires Khoekhoe people to have a fixed home and carry a pass [IC]. Moving with the herds, as kraals had done, becomes hard under this law. | Khoekhoe |
| 3 January 1855 | When Governor Grey visits, only two residents, Leefregt Ari and Sebastian Hendrik, can still speak the Hessequa language [MS] | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1856 onwards | The brass band gives its first recorded performance at Easter 1856 [MS]. Brass playing spreads through Moravian congregations across the Cape [IC]. | Music of the Valley |
| Probably 1968 to 1974 | Coloured families are forced out of Greyton to Heuwelkroon [TBV]. One account says that before the removals, Greyton’s residents “lived together irrespective of ‘race’” [MS]. | History of Greyton |
| After 1994 | Many South Africans of Khoekhoe descent begin to reclaim their history, languages, and names [IC] | Khoekhoe |
| 2005 | The Mission Museum begins a genealogy project, “The Children of Jonas”, which traces the old Genadendal families through the mission’s registers to Kupido, baptised as Jonas in 1742 [MS] | Genadendal: A Long Walk, Kupido and Willem |
| 2019 | The Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act provides for Khoi-San communities and leaders to be recognised by the state [IC] | Khoekhoe |
| 2023 | SABC2 shows The Khoekhoe Saga, which follows descendants among the Hessequa, the Nama, and the Griqua [IC] | The Khoekhoe Saga |
| Today | Many people of Khoekhoe descent in the valley belong to coloured communities, and some also identify as Khoi or KhoiSan [TBV] | Khoekhoe |
Institutions: rules, authority, and fixed settlements
| When | What happened | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| 1457 and 1727 | The Unitas Fratrum, the Moravian Church, is founded in Bohemia, and renewed at Herrnhut in 1727 [IC]. From 1732 Herrnhut sends craftsmen overseas as missionaries [IC]. | Moravian Church |
| 1652 | The Dutch East India Company (VOC), a chartered company with the right to govern, sets up a station at the Cape [IC]. The Dutch Reformed Church comes with it [IC]. | Dutch East India Company, Dutch Reformed Church |
| 1714 and 1727 | The company lets loan farms in the interior [IC]. By 1727 it farms timber and cattle at a post between present-day Greyton and Riviersonderend [IC]. | Land as Property |
| 1738 to 1744 | Georg Schmidt settles at Baviaanskloof on 23 April 1738 and starts a school [IC]. After he baptises five people in 1742, the Dutch Reformed ministers object, and he leaves in 1744 [IC]. | Georg Schmidt |
| 1745 | The company sets up a magistracy at Swellendam [IC] | Dutch East India Company |
| 1777 | The company officially backs a policy of wiping out the San on the northern frontier [IC] | San |
| 24 December 1792 | Three missionaries reopen the mission [IC]. Baas Teunis of the company post tells the Khoekhoe that the government has sent them teachers and will protect them while the teachers stay, and that no farmer may punish a Khoekhoe person without reporting it to him [MS]. | The Missionaries of 1792; Diaries: A363595, lines 449 to 539 |
| 4 March 1793 | Formal lessons begin with 25 adults. The school has run ever since, and is now L.R. Schmidt Primary [MS]. | L.R. Schmidt Primary School |
| May and June 1793 | Fearing the French, the government calls farmers and armed Khoekhoe men to guard the Cape [MS] | Diaries: A363595, lines 3159 to 3479 |
| 1793 | The first 135 soldiers recruited at the mission, called pandours, are stationed at Rietpoel near Cape Town [MS] | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| January 1795 | Commissioner Abraham Josias Sluysken, head of the company’s government, orders the Khoekhoe who came to the mission with their cattle to take them back where they came from [MS]. He tells Marsveld he is overrun with complaints from farmers that Khoekhoe who are taught “would get behind their secrets” [MS]. He has also forbidden the missionaries to build “anything at all, even a goat shed” [MS]. By April the order is largely withdrawn [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 13680 to 13806; A363596, lines 863 to 899 |
| July and August 1795 | Rebel burghers of Swellendam, who call themselves the Nationals, turn against the school [MS]. On 29 July an order from Commandant Bisani tells the missionaries to leave within three days, and they go to the Cape [MS]. A leader of the Nationals later tells them the Nationals do not recognise Bisani [MS]. On 7 August the Commissioner tells them they may go home [MS]. | Diaries: A363596, lines 1830 to 2146 and lines 2219 to 2270 |
| August and September 1795 | The company orders every Khoekhoe man who can be found to the Cape to fight the British [MS]. Britain takes the Cape in September [IC]. | Diaries: A363596, lines 2455 to 2513 |
| 1796 | Under British rule the missionaries may build. A chapel is consecrated [IC]. | Moravian Church |
| 1796 | In July a letter from the British Governor, Major-General Craig, says the mission’s pasture is to be enlarged and its boundaries fixed with stones, and that cattle found beyond them will be taken [MS]. On 23 September the Landdrost of Stellenbosch reads the boundaries to the missionaries. They say the Khoekhoe have been given a large but barren veld, and the best grazing has been kept back. He agrees, but says land cannot be taken from those who bought it and pay taxes on it [MS]. | Diaries: A363349, lines 16215 to 16238 and lines 16585 to 16653 |
| 21 September 1796 | The Landdrost of Stellenbosch has the Khoekhoe of the mission set out their complaints against the farmer Gildenhuijs in his presence, and writes them down. They say the farmer beat their children and threatened to shoot their cattle [MS]. | Diaries: A363349, lines 16585 to 16621 |
| 1795 to 1804 | The mission counts its people. Its congregation grows from 65 at the end of 1795 to 136 at the end of 1797 [MS]. By December 1803, 1,060 people live at Baviaanskloof in 213 houses, and 1,093 in 217 houses a year later [MS]. | Diaries: A363596, lines 3051 to 3084; A363349, lines 12810 to 12821; A363597, lines 1213 to 1220 and lines 1793 to 1805 |
| May 1803 | Families who come to live at the mission are told “all the rules in force among us”, and promise with a handshake to keep them [MS] | Diaries: A363597, lines 45 to 132 |
| September 1803 to 1804 | Under the Batavian government, Governor Janssens has a Khoekhoe corps recruited at the mission. Twenty-two men enlist in September 1803, and in October two baptised men are made corporals [MS]. In 1804, 187 women and children of the soldiers arrive from the camp at Wynberg to be cared for at the mission [MS]. | Diaries: A363597, lines 573 to 725 and lines 812 to 834; A363597, lines 1666 to 1693 |
| December 1803 and February 1804 | Commissioner-General De Mist visits and inquires into how the mission is organised [MS]. In February 1804 a government order requires every household head to report what was sown, the harvest, and all livestock, on pain of a 500 rixdollar fine [MS]. | Diaries: A363597, lines 1029 to 1077 and lines 1424 to 1453 |
| 1806 | Governor Janssens renames the mission Genadendal [IC] | History of the Valley |
| 1809 and 1828 | The Caledon Code imposes passes [IC]. Ordinance 50 gives free people of colour legal equality [IC]. | Khoekhoe |
| 1813 | A surveyor maps the boundary between the mission and the neighbouring farms, but residents are given no proof that they own their land [MS] | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1814 to 1831 | A school building is consecrated on 15 July 1814 with 243 children [MS]. In 1816 C.I. Latrobe draws up rules for residents, which they accept as a “Brotherly Agreement” [MS]. South Africa’s first kindergarten opens on 12 September 1831 [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk, From the Farm to the Classroom |
| 1823 to 1838 | A lending library opens in 1823 [IC], though Balie’s history gives 1825 [MS]. A printing press arrives in 1837, and South Africa’s first teachers’ training college opens in 1838 [IC]. | Hans Peter Hallbeck, What Began Here |
| 1834 to 1840 | Slavery ends. Many freed people come to Genadendal, whose population grows from 1,446 in 1837 to 2,187 in 1840 [MS] | History of the Valley |
| 1858 | The mission land, now Farm 39, is surveyed in November 1857 at 5,644 morgen, and granted to the Moravian Church in trust for residents [MS]. Many residents reject the grant because the church’s superintendent is the only trustee, and no resident is named with him [MS]. | TRANCRAA and Farm 39, Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1899 to 1902 | A deputation of the Afrikaner Bond argues that the teachers’ college is not needed for people who are not white [MS]. During the Anglo-Boer War the missionaries sympathise with the Boers and many residents side with Britain, and resentment against the mission grows [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1904 to 1918 | Greyton becomes a municipality in 1910 [IC]. St Andrew’s Anglican Church is built in 1904 [MS], and the Dutch Reformed congregation is founded on 7 May 1918 [MS]. | The Municipality, Anglican Church |
| 1909 to 1927 | The Mission Stations and Communal Reserves Act lets residents live on mission land but not own it [IC]. A secular board replaces the missionaries in 1924 [IC]. The government closes the teachers’ college in 1926 [IC]. | Moravian Church |
| 1924 to 1997 | In 1924 a group of residents known as the Magermans take the church to the Supreme Court over property rights [MS]. From 1926 to 1997 a series of government departments runs Genadendal, with a Board of Management whose chair the state appoints [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1950 | The Group Areas Act divides land by race [IC] | History of Greyton |
| 1950s and 1960s | Members of the Teachers’ League of South Africa meet in the Genadendal parsonage loft to oppose apartheid, and become known as the Solder-beweging (Loft Movement) [MS]. In 1962 one of them, Rev Daniel Wessels, is placed under house arrest for five years [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1977 | The Greyton Nature Reserve is proclaimed on the mountain commonage [IC] | Brian Rycroft |
| 1980 to 2001 | The buildings on Church Square are declared national monuments in 1980, and the Moravian Church sets up the Mission Trust Fund to restore them in 1986 [MS]. The Mission Museum opens in 1987, and its collection is declared a National Cultural Treasure in 1991 [MS]. In 2000 the collection and the monuments are changed to provincial status [MS]. Around 2001 the Dutch government gives R11 million for restoration [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk, Genadendal Mission Museum |
| 1987 to 2000 | The Rural Areas Act takes over the former mission areas, with Genadendal added in 1989 [IC]. After 1994, transitional councils replace the old structures, and Theewaterskloof Municipality is created in December 2000 [IC]. | The Municipality |
| 1998 to 2011 | TRANCRAA comes into force on 2 November 1998 [IC]. Residents elect the Transformasie Komitee in November 2004 [IC]. In 2007 the Komitee applies to the High Court to review actions of the municipality [MS]. The transitional period ends in January 2011 without a transfer [IC]. | TRANCRAA and Farm 39, Transformasie Komitee |
| 2024 and 2025 | The province intervenes in Theewaterskloof Municipality, and approves a Financial Recovery Plan on 7 October 2025 [IC] | The Municipality |
| 2030s | The proposed Valley of Grace Learning Campus would bring study after school back to the valley for the first time since 1926. It is not yet agreed. | Future of the Valley |
Markets: exchange at a price
| When | What happened | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| Before 1652 | Khoekhoe wealth is held in cattle, and Khoekhoe traders carry goods far into the interior [IC] | Money and Land |
| 1652 to 1713 | The company barters for Khoekhoe cattle and sheep with iron, copper, beads, tobacco, and brandy [IC]. The Chainoqua and Hessequa are its largest suppliers from 1662 to 1713 [IC]. The trade takes breeding animals out of the herds faster than they can grow [TBV]. | The Cattle Trade |
| 1657 and 1714 | The company grants the first freehold farms in 1657, and lets loan farms for a yearly fee in money from 1714 [IC] | Land as Property |
| 1738 | Schmidt pays for work in supplies, with no money involved. A neighbouring farmer grinds the students’ wheat [IC]. | The Mission Economy |
| 1782 and 1793 | The first paper money is issued in 1782, and the Bank van Leening begins lending against property in 1793 [IC]. Weltevreden is held as a loan farm from 1791 and granted in 1793 [IC]. | Money and Banks |
| March and June 1793 | The missionaries record prices: a tradesman is paid 1 rixdollar a day with food, and a wagon costs 250 rixdollars [MS]. The Khoekhoe own oxen and lend them to the mission [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 1623 to 1664 and lines 4078 to 4168 |
| November 1793 and 1794 | Mission residents go to the farms for the harvest. A reaper earns 3 to 4 shillings a day with food, but most already owe the farmers as much as they will earn [MS]. In 1794, women who weed wheat for a shilling a day with food receive no money, because their pay only reduces their debt [MS]. | Diaries: A363595, lines 7058 to 7097 and lines 10412 to 10428 |
| 1794 and 1795 | Neighbouring farmers impound the Khoekhoe’s cattle, and their owners pay 1 shilling a head, and later 2 shillings, to get them back [MS] | Diaries: A363595, lines 12469 to 12512; A363596, lines 195 to 204 |
| July 1795 | The Swellendam rebels are angry that the school draws Khoekhoe workers away from their farms: “Who is to do our work for us? For we have no slaves” [MS] | Diaries: A363596, lines 1830 to 1868 |
| 1795 | Weltevreden passes to Hendrik Cloete [IC]. In February “Mr Clüde, to whom Constantia belongs” visits the mission and says the Commissioner has not been told the truth about its grazing [MS]. In April the diaries record that a “Mr Claude”, probably the same man [TBV], has put the Khoekhoe’s case to the government and bought the land near the mission where Baas Teunis’s son had impounded their cattle [MS]. | History of Greyton; Diaries: A363595, lines 14576 to 14712; A363596, lines 863 to 899 and lines 1464 to 1481 |
| 1795 to 1797 | Farmers who failed to drive the mission out agree among themselves not to sell food to the mission or its Khoekhoe residents, “so as to be able to starve us out by it” [MS]. In late 1797 a farmer from the coast breaks the agreement and sells grain, and the others then compete to supply the mission [MS]. | Diaries: A363349, lines 12599 to 12632 |
| September 1795 to 1796 | After the British take the Cape, each Khoekhoe soldier is paid off with a rixdollar, and many farmers come to the mission to hire workers [MS]. In 1796 a farmer who wants back a Khoekhoe youth who left him is told, apparently by the British General, that the Khoekhoe “were free people and could serve whom they wanted” [MS]. | Diaries: A363596, lines 2482 to 2557; A363349, lines 16264 to 16285 |
| 1797 | A forge and a water mill are built at the mission [IC]. The diaries say the mill was needed because residents had to carry their corn four to six German miles to a mill, pay dearly, and wait up to two weeks [MS]. Farmers who had sworn not to buy anything from the smithy soon order knives, and Kühnel takes a young Khoekhoe apprentice [MS]. Genadendal knives are sold across the Cape [MS]. On Lady Anne Barnard’s advice the government gives 500 rixdollars to drain the garden land, and each household gets 2 to 4 morgen [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk; Diaries: A363349, lines 12285 to 12322 and lines 12633 to 12646 |
| 1801 to 1810 | Khoe workers on colonial farms are paid mostly in kind, above all in sheep, and the share paid in cash grows year by year [IC] | Money and Land |
| 1804 and 1805 | The government pays for grain for soldiers’ families, at 72 rixdollars a wagonload [MS]. In May 1805 a Khoekhoe resident, Matthäus, who carries wood to the Cape, unloads his wood to carry two missionaries by wagon instead, for 40 rixdollars [MS]. | Diaries: A363597, lines 1586 to 1597 and lines 2047 to 2075 |
| 1813 and 1843 | Loan farms become surveyed quitrent property that can be inherited and sold [IC]. From 1843, Crown land is sold at public auction [IC]. | Land as Property |
| 1820 to 1860 | Half of Genadendal’s residents live by trades, among them tailoring, carpentry, knife-making, smithing, and tanning [MS]. A tannery is started in 1828, taught by an Irish tanner [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk, The Mission Economy |
| 1825 and 1826 | The rixdollar is fixed at 1 shilling and 6 pence, and British sterling becomes the Cape’s official money on 1 January 1826 [IC] | Money and Banks |
| 1834 to 1838 | Slaveholders are paid compensation. The people who had been enslaved receive nothing [IC]. | Money and Banks |
| 1837 to 1859 | The mission press adds printing to the village’s trades, and prints De Bode van Genadendal from 1859 [IC] | Benno Marx |
| 1851 and 1886 | Genadendal knives win an honourable mention at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, and 33 of the valley’s medicinal herbs one at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886 [MS] | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1852 and 1861 | Banks open at Swellendam and Caledon [TBV] | Money and Banks |
| 1854 | Greyton’s plots are sold as freehold, each with a title deed, a water right for the leiwater, and grazing on the commonage [IC] | History of Greyton, Greyton’s Leiwater |
| 1860 | The Post House is built in Greyton as a trading post [IC]. Greyton’s histories say the De Villiers family builds a trading store [TBV]. | The De Villiers Family |
| Second half of the 1800s | Factory goods arriving by steamship undercut the mission’s knives, furniture, and crafts, and many people leave to find work in towns and on farms [TBV]. Balie’s history says Sheffield knives were sold at the Cape with the Genadendal mark, and that the last of Genadendal’s knife-makers died in 1880 [MS]. From 1877 the missionary A.G. Hettasch tries castor oil, silkworms, and buchu for export in their place [MS]. | The Mission Economy, Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| 1920 to 1934 | The Osman family begins trading in Greyton, and moves into its present building in 1934 [MS] | History of Greyton |
| 1950s to 1992 | Co-operative laws force farmers to send their wheat to licensed co-operatives, and the Genadendal water mill closes [MS]. It is restored and milling again in 1992 [MS]. | Genadendal: A Long Walk |
| Probably 1968 to 1974 | Coloured families in Greyton are forced to sell their plots and small farms [IC]. One account says that owners of their own farms were “overnight reduced to having to work as gardeners and domestics” [MS]. | History of Greyton |
| 2003 | The Genadendal printing works close after more than 170 years [MS] | What Began Here |
| 2025 | The Financial Recovery Plan reports that Genadendal accounts for about a fifth of the municipality’s outstanding debt, and that many residents there hold that the land does not belong to the municipality [IC] | TRANCRAA and Farm 39 |
| 2026 | The Forum names tourism development and business development and local procurement among its five priorities [MS] | Forum priorities |
| By 2038 | The proposed Heritage Trail aims for a six-month waiting list of visitors [MS]. It is not yet agreed. | Valley of Grace Heritage Trail |
Early signals of Emergent
The Emergent form is still to be written up in full. These are the first signs of it in the valley. They are weak signals, recent and not yet settled.
| When | What happened | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Greyton residents start Greyton Transition Town, in response to rising fuel and food costs [MS]. Forum research notes give 2012 [MS]. | History of Greyton |
| 27 March 2020 | When the COVID-19 lockdown begins, small-scale and commercial farmers in the valley set up a community feeding scheme [MS] | History of the Valley |
| July 2026 | The Valley of Grace Nature Realm, covering about 10,000 hectares, goes live on the Guardians of Earth platform, where residents, learners, and visitors can record plants, animals, and heritage [MS] | Future of the Valley |
| 16 September 2026 | The Ward 2 Development Forum meets for the first time. It agrees that affected communities should be part of a proposal from the start [MS]. | Ward 2 Development Forum, Minutes |
| 2026 | The Register lists the valley’s initiatives by what they need and what they offer [MS] | The Register |
| From 2027 | The Forum plans a yearly survey, run by young people from each village [MS] | The Yearly Valley Survey |
| Proposed | The BioConomy, which would keep more of what the valley has in the valley, including water in the ground and healthy soil, and the Agri-Heritage Co-operative. Neither is yet agreed. | Our Long-Term Goal |
| 23 April 2038 | 300 years since Schmidt settled at Baviaanskloof | Future of the Valley |
What must still be decided
- Whether the Forum adopts this interpretation of history, including the dates given for when each form was most dominant.
- Whether the Genadendal and Greyton stories should each have their own column, since they moved at different paces.
- Whether older practices belong among the early signals of Emergent: Greyton’s leiwater, which has watered the village since 1854 and is run today by volunteer water bailiffs, and the commonage that became the nature reserve in 1977.
- Whether the “couple of years ago” in Baas Teunis’s speech of December 1792 refers to Jan Paerl’s movement of 1788.
- What the Tribes column would say if it were written by descendants of the Khoekhoe and San, and by the families of Heuwelkroon and the mission villages.
- Every diary entry here depends on translations that no person has checked. Some readings are marked in the repository to be checked against the manuscript images.
Have your say
To correct a fact, suggest an entry, or read an event differently, contact the moderators via How to Submit.
Related
- Valley History
- History of the Valley
- The Laws That Shaped the Valley
- What Began Here
- Money and Land
- The Genadendal Diaries
- Genadendal: A Long Walk
- Future of the Valley
- Our Long-Term Goal
References
- Ronfeldt, D. (1996). Tribes, Institutions, Markets, Networks: A Framework About Societal Evolution. RAND. The TIMN framework on which the TIME model builds.
- Garcés Pérez, J.L. and Lasch, A. (2025). Multilingual working and reading versions of the “Genadendal Diaries” from the Utrecht Archives. Zenodo, version 0.3. The transcriptions of the four diaries.
- Genadendal Diaries repository. Genadendal Diaries. The English translations, 1792 to 1805, cited here by file and line number. Unreviewed machine translations.
- Balie, I. (2023). Genadendal, The Valley of Grace: A Long Walk Through the History of the First Mission Station in South Africa. AuthorHouse. First published 2020. The rows citing Genadendal: A Long Walk, where the page numbers are given.
- The other facts on this page come from the pages linked in each row, and from the sources listed on those pages.