King William's Town
Tourism

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industries (textiles, leatherworking, the manufacture of footwear, soap and candles, etc.).

King William's Town grew out of a mission station established on the Buffalo River in 1826. In 1835 the Xhosa destroyed the settlement and carried off the missionaries. In the hope of pacifying this unsettled area the Governor of the Cape Province, Sir Benjamin D'Urban, declared it a separate province named Queen Adelaide, with King William's Town, refounded on the site of the former mission station, as its capital. The new province did not last long, however. After being again destroyed in 1846 the town became in 1847 the administrative center of British Kaffraria. In subsequent years it was several times the scene of fighting between Xhosa and Europeans. It lost its status as a provincial capital in 1865, when British Kaffraria was incorporated in the Cape Province.