Land is given to Dutch farmers along the Eerste River in the Cape Colony
March - Deported Islamic religious leaders arrive from Batavia, later to become the Cape Malay community
8 June - The Johanna, a British East Indiaman sailing from Kent to Surat, India under the command of Captain Robert Brown is shipwrecked off Cape Agulhas
24 October - Olof Bergh, a Swedish explorer, arrived back in Cape Town from his second expedition to Namaqualand
The Dutch East India Company unilaterally establishes price controls over hides, skins, ivory and ostrich eggs in the Cape Colony
A English ship arrives off the eastern coast of KwaZulu-Natal to trade for ivory
17 May - The English ketch Good Hope is shipwrecked off Bay of Natal
The Cape Colonists send a commissioner to Europe to attract more settlers
Copper is discovered by the settlers in Namaqualand
Simon van der Stel, the Governor of the Cape Colony, is granted a 900-morgen property and is named Groot Constantia
Simon van der Stel visits Namaqualand
16 February - A Dutch East India Company ship Stavemisse is shipwrecked about 112km south of Port of Natal
25 December - A English ketch Bona Ventura is shipwrecked at St Lucia Bay
A Dutch Reformed Church is founded in Stellenbosch, Cape Colony
Free burghers in the Cape Colony petition the Dutch East India Company to extend the slave trade to private enterprise
The Paarl settlement is established in the Cape Colony
6 January - A Dutch ship, Rosenberg sets sail from the Netherlands carrying fleeing French Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
April - The first group of French Huguenots refugees arrive in the Cape
Simon van der Stel, the Governor of the Cape Colony settles the Huguenot refugees in the present day Drakenstein, Franschhoek and Wellington areas which were beyond the Cape Colony and belonged to the Khoikhoi people
4 January - The Dutch East India Company ship, the Noord became the first ship to sail into the Bay of Natal to search for survivors of the Stavenisse shipwreck of 1686
26 April - The French ship Normandie is captured by the Dutch in Table Bay
Serious friction develops between the Huguenots and the Dutch settlers
1689 - Jan de la Fontaine, Governor of the Cape, is born
1689 - IJsbrand Goske, Governor of the Cape Colony, dies
1680s in South Africa Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
