The following lists events that happened during the 1680s in South Africa.

Events

1680

• Land is given to Dutch farmers along the Eerste River in the Cape Colony

1681

• March - Deported Islamic religious leaders arrive from Batavia, later to become the Cape Malay community

1682

• 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

1683

• 24 October - Olof Bergh, a Swedish explorer, arrived back in Cape Town from his second expedition to Namaqualand

1684

• The Dutch East India Company unilaterally establishes price controls over hides, skins, ivory and ostrich eggs in the Cape Colony
• An English ship arrives off the eastern coast of KwaZulu-Natal to trade for ivory^[1][2]

1685

• 17 May - The English ketch Good Hope is shipwrecked off Bay of Natal^[2]
• 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

1686

• 16 February - A Dutch East India Company ship Stavemisse is shipwrecked about 112 km south of Port of Natal
• 25 December - An English ketch Bona Ventura is shipwrecked at St Lucia Bay^[2]
• A Dutch Reformed Church is founded in Stellenbosch, Cape Colony

1687

• 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

1688

• 6 January - A Dutch ship, Rosenberg sets sail from the Netherlands carrying fleeing French Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes^[3]
• 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

1689

• 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 ^[2]
• 26 April - The French ship Normandie is captured by the Dutch in Table Bay
• Serious friction develops between the Huguenots and the Dutch settlers

Births

Deaths

• 1689 - IJsbrand Goske, Governor of the Cape Colony, dies