chiefdom · Central and Southern Africa
Philippolis Griqua State
Origins
Philippolis began in 1823 as a London Missionary Society station for San. In 1826 Adam Kok II and his Griqua followers, who had split from the community at Griquatown, settled there and made it the centre of their own captaincy.
Rule and society
The Kok family ruled with a council and a mission-backed legal order, and the Griqua farmed sheep and cattle. From the 1830s Boer trekboers leased and bought Griqua farms. Adam Kok III, kaptein from 1837, sought British support, signing a treaty with the Cape in 1843, but under the Orange River Sovereignty and then the Orange Free State the Griqua steadily lost land.
Decline and legacy
In 1861 Adam Kok III sold the remaining land to the Orange Free State and led about 2,000 people across the Drakensberg to Nomansland, where they founded Griqualand East.
Lineage
On the connections map
Open the full map →More states of Central and Southern Africa →
Cite this page
- APA
- The Epoch Institute. (2026). Philippolis Griqua State. In The Epoch Institute States Register. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/philippolis-griqua-state
- MLA
- “Philippolis Griqua State.” The Epoch Institute States Register, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/philippolis-griqua-state. Accessed .
- Chicago
- The Epoch Institute. “Philippolis Griqua State.” The Epoch Institute States Register. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/philippolis-griqua-state.
- Harvard
- The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Philippolis Griqua State’, The Epoch Institute States Register. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/state/philippolis-griqua-state (Accessed: ).
Last reviewed October 2026Random state ↻