GENEALOGY OF THE GERICKE FAMILY IN SOUTH AFRICA
	A short history of South Africa.

The driving force behind the discovery of the southernmost part of Africa was the search for an alternative to the overland route to India and access to the lucrative spice trade. The first European to reach the southern tip of Africa was the Portuguese, Bartholomew Dias,who rounded the Cape in 1487. In the period 1600 to 1650 many Portuguese, English and Dutch ships called at the Cape.

The Dutch East India Company(VOC) eventually decided to formally occupy the Cape in order to establish a re victualling station for their ships on the India route. Johan van Riebeeck arrived here as first Governor on 6 April 1652.

The initial contact was with the Hottentots but as the station grew contact was made with the second group of indigenous people, the Bushmen. In 1779 contact with the third group, the Bantu, was reported. These people had been migrating from the north-east and therefore arrived in southern Africa at nearly the same time as the Dutch.

In 1727 there was already a need to look at the forests in Rivier Sonder End but it was concluded that the Hottentots-Holland mountains would make it too difficult to transport wood from the interior to the Cape. The boundary of the Cape was extended to the Great Brak River in 1745. At the same time the Drostdy at Swellendam was established. In 1755 small-pox broke out for a second time and reduced the number of free burghers and officials from 6 110 to 5 123. These numbers do not include the rural farmers. Similarly the number of slaves was reduced from 6 279 to 5 787. In 1778 the number of Hottentots had been drastically reduced and it was noted that the vast majority of these people no longer lived in kraals but were now on farms. At this stage the outlying farmers started to complain that the Bantu were crossing the Fish River to seek grazing for their herds.

In 1772, when Johan Godfried arrived at the Cape, the VOC was in decline in the Netherlands and role of the Company in the Cape was affected by a growing demand for democracy by the colonists, in the rural areas the rules of the Company were largely disregarded. Governor Ryk Tulbagh died in 1771 and the new governors were extremely unpopular with the colonists. Clashes with the Xhosa on the eastern frontier were intensifying.

In 1795 both the districts of Graaff-Reinet and Swellendam repudiated the authority of the Company.The population had at that stage grown to 16 000 - 20 000 Whites, 17 000 - 25 000 slaves and an estimated 14 000 Hottentots. The Hottentots were by now largely detribalised except for two groups, the Griquas and the Korannas who had settled on and north of the Orange River. The Bushmen continued to defend their territory and were under attack from everybody else.

As a result of the war between the Netherlands and England the English captured the Cape in 1795 and returned it to the Batavian Republic in 1803. In order to improve law and order on the frontier the districts of Tulbagh and Uitenhage were declared in 1804. In 1806 the English occupied the Cape for the second time. Under the governorship of the Earl of Caledon three new districts were declared in 1814, George, Clanwilliam and Caledon.

Two major factors in the next two decades were the abolishment of slavery in 1834 and the Great Trek in 1836. It is safe to say that the first two generations of the GERICKE family in the Cape lived in troubled times.