Griquatown, South Africa Tourism

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Orange River. Here in 1801 the London Missionary Society established a mission station which developed into the chief town of the self-governing territory of Griqualand. Among the missionaries who worked in the mission station was Robert Moffat (1795-1883), whose daughter Mary (b. 1821) married the African missionary and explorer David Livingstone (1813-73).

After diamonds were found in this area Griqualand became a British colony in 1871 and three years later was incorporated in the Cape Colony. At this time the Griqua had split, and in 1862 one group had moved south through the Drakensberg and founded Kokstad and Griqualand East.

Features of interest are the Raadsaal, seat of Griqualand administration, the Execution Tree on which cattle thieves were hanged and the grave of Andries Waterboer, one of the leaders of the Griqua.