Travellers are often astounded when they discover there's a town called Amsterdam in South Africa's Mpumalanga Province, yet the town has closer links to Scottish history rather than Dutch.
In 1882, Scotsman Alexander McCorkindale and his 300 odd men arrived here and named the capital of what was to be his new republic, Amsterdam, in gratitude to Holland's support for the Boers during the First Anglo-Boer War (1880-1881).
A short drive from Amsterdam is Goliath’s Footprint, a six-foot-high geological feature that captures the imagination of all who see it because it is shaped like a human footprint, with five perfectly formed toes.
- Rich history
- Goliath's Footprint
- Jericho Dam
McCordindale was obviously no stranger to entrepreneurship and was something of a visionary. He initially arrived in Zululand South Africa with intentions to grow cotton. On suggestion from his brother-in-law that the area west of the Swaziland border was a good place to further McCorkindale's idea of a Scottish settlement in South Africa, he formed the Glasgow & South African Company.
