Bailie's party of 1820 settlers

Abstract

From preface: This study of the British settlers of 1820 in South Africa uses one party of emigrants as a unit of historical research. In unfolding their story, it attempts to discover how far the standard assumptions about the 1820 settlement are borne out by the historical facts. No systematic set of hypotheses for investigation was established in advance; instead, the structure of the thesis has been determined by the course of the narrative, and the main issues have emerged spontaneously as it has progressed. Although the chronology has been maintained as far as possible, the narrative itself does not follow an entirely straightforward course. The emigrant party of eighty-four men and their families under the leadership of John Bailie which is the subject of the study was officially subdivided five weeks after landing at Algoa Bay, and the dispersal of its members to the established towns of the colony began even sooner. At the end of the three-year period laid down as a residential qualification by Government, less than a third remained to claim land on the party's location in Albany.