Enon is a small town in the Eastern Cape in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. It is named after the biblical place mentioned in It lies east of Kirkwood and north-east of

Uitenhage Uitenhage ( ; ), officially renamed Kariega, is a South African town in the Eastern Cape Province. It is well known for the Volkswagen factory located there, which is the biggest car factory on the African continent. Along with the city of Port E ...

. Enon (formerly known as Witterivier) was formed in 1818 by the Moravian Missionary Society on request of the Area

Landdrost {{Use dmy dates, date=December 2020 ''Landdrost'' was the title of various officials with local jurisdiction in the Netherlands and a number of former territories in the Dutch Empire. The term is a Dutch compound, with ''land'' meaning "region" an ...

Jacob Glen Cuyler, to serve as a buffer between the Xhosa, Tembu and Fingo tribes living outside the

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...

and the European farmers and towns inside the Cape Colony. The land was granted to the Missionary Society in trust, to be administrated on behalf of the Cape Colony in the interests of residents of the missionary station. Within the first 35 years of its inception it was caught in the middle of three Cape Frontier Wars and the

First Anglo-Boer War The First Boer War ( af, Eerste Vryheidsoorlog, literally "First Freedom War"), 1880–1881, also known as the First Anglo–Boer War, the Transvaal War or the Transvaal Rebellion, was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 betwee ...

, and has been evacuated on three separate occasions. Enon is referred to in the 1840s by

James Backhouse :''See alsfor two other James Backhouse botanists and nursery owners of York.'' James Backhouse (8 July 1794 – 20 January 1869) was a botanist and missionary for the Quaker church in Australia. His son, also James Backhouse (1825–1890), wa ...

in his diary. In 1909 control of the town was ceded back to the

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Tran ...

. The governance of Enon currently falls under the Sundays River Valley Local Municipality.

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Sarah Baartman District Municipality Populated places in the Sunday's River Valley Local Municipality Populated places established in 1818