1897 in South Africa

Incumbents

• Governor of the Cape of Good Hope and High Commissioner for Southern Africa:Hercules Robinson then Alfred Milner.
• Governor of the Colony of Natal: Charles Bullen Hugh Mitchell.
• State President of the Orange Free State: Martinus Theunis Steyn.
• State President of the South African Republic: Paul Kruger.
• Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope: John Gordon Sprigg.
• Prime Minister of the Colony of Natal:
• * until 14 February: John Robinson.
• * 15 February – 4 October: Harry Escombe.
• * starting 4 October: Henry Binns.

  Events

• 21 - Sir Alfred Milner becomes High Commissioner of South Africa and Governor of the Cape Colony.

• 5 - Port Elizabeth is flooded.

• 30 - The Colony of Natal annexes Zululand.

• Bergville is established in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains in Natal.
• "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika" is composed as a Xhosa hymn by South African teacher Enoch Sontonga.

  Births

• 3 July - Ludwig Wybren Hiemstra, Afrikaans linguist and editor of the Bilingual Dictionary, is born in Lydenburg.
• 26 October - James Leonard Brierley Smith, ichthyologist, is born in Graaff Reinet.

  Deaths

Railways

Railway lines opened

• 13 March - Cape Western - Mafeking to Ramatlabama at the Bechuanaland border,.
• 3 August - Transvaal - Frederikstad to Klerksdorp,.
• 1 October - Cape Midland - Rosmead Junction to Middelburg,.
• 1 December - Natal - Isipingo to Park Rynie,.
• 3 December - Natal - Verulam to Tongaat,.
• 15 December - Natal - Thornville Junction to Richmond,.

  Locomotives

• Six 4th Class 4-4-2 Atlantic type tender locomotives on the section from Kimberley southwards.
• A third batch of fifty-five 6th Class 4-6-0 steam locomotives. In 1912 they would become Class 6B on the South African Railways.

• The independent Pretoria-Pietersburg Railway in the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek purchases a tank locomotive named Portuguese from the Lourenco Marques, Delagoa Bay and East Africa Railway in Mozambique.
• Arthur Koppel, acting as agent, imports a number of Dickson-built 0-4-2ST narrow gauge saddle tank steam locomotives to mines on the Witwatersrand.