Early travellers and explorers who visited the Cape in the 16th century traded with the Khoikhoi people who lived on these shores and in the interior. When the Dutch East India Company established a replenishment station at the Cape in 1652, trade continued inland as far as Swellendam.
In 1743 Swellendam was declared a magisterial district, the third oldest in South Africa, and was named after Governor Hendrik Swellengrebel (the first South African born Governor) and his wife, Helena Ten Damme. This outlying settlement soon became a gateway to the interior, and was visited by many famous explorers and travellers including François Le Vaillant (1781), Lady Anne Barnard (1798), William John Burchell (1815) and Thomas Bowler (1860). In time, a village was established beyond the Drostdy, where artisans including numerous wainwrights and traders settled. To travellers and explorers, the services of the village folk were indispensable, as Swellendam was the last outpost of civilization on the eastern frontier.
By 1795 maladministration and inadequacies of the Dutch East India Company caused the long-suffering burghers of Swellendam to revolt, and on 17 June 1795 they declared themselves a Republic. Hermanus Steyn was appointed as President of the Republic of Swellendam, he was the first to be appointed the title of President in South Africa. The burghers of Swellendam started to call themselves "national burghers" - after the style of the French Revolution. But the Republic was short-lived due to the occupation of the Cape by the Kingdom of Great Britain. With the arrival of British settlers in the early 19th century the Overberg boomed, and its capital, Swellendam, was soon the heart of the famous mercantile empire of Barry and Nephews, created by Joseph Barry. The Breede river is the only navigable river in South Africa and ships sailed 35km up river to Malgas to unload and load merchandise.
By the middle of the 19th century, the eastern districts
