About Mossel Bay

Nomadic Khoisan people were the first inhabitants of the Mossel Bay area. Caves in which the remains of several Khoisan settlements have been found are located nearby, with the one located the starting point of the walking trail to the nearby town of Dana Bay, now a national monument. A Khoisan cultural village is also located at the cave, but has been criticised for being "commercial". Other tribes also lived in the area, including the Gouriquas. Certain traditional leaders have asked that the town be renamed "Gouriqua". A more recent discovery at nearby Pinnacle Point is claimed to be the earliest evidence of human seaside settlement.[1] The first contact between Southern Africans and Europeans took place in Mossel Bay in 1488 between Dias and the Khoisan, on Santos Beach, now also called "Madiba" beach after former president Nelson Mandela. The meeting was peaceful and both sides were willing to trade. Dias erected a cross, and called the bay Aguada de São Brás, as they landed on the festival day of Saint Blaise. The first trading between inhabitants of Europe and Southern African was in 1497 between Vasco da Gama and the local Khoi-San tribe. In the following years, Portuguese sailors would use the bay, where the Khoi-San offered them food, as a halfway station to the Far East. A small stream was used for fresh water. A large milkwood tree served as a post office with Pedro de Ataide's 1500 posting of an important letter in a shoe under the tree. Important letters would be left in a shoe and picked up by later ships. In 1500 or 1501 João da Nova erected the Mossel Bay Stone, which marked a chapel dedicated to Saint Blaise. The first settlers were granted land in Mossel Bay in 1729, 77 years after the Dutch settled in Cape Town.