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The Dutch Cape Colony (Dutch: Kaapkolonie) was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) colony in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original colony and the successive states that the colony was incorporated into occupied much of modern South Africa .
The introduction of Free Burghers to the Dutch Cape Colony is regarded as the beginning of a permanent settlement of Europeans in South Africa. [1] The Free Burgher population eventually devolved into two distinct segments separated by social status, wealth, and education: the Cape Dutch and the Boers. [2]
As a result, by 1691 over a quarter of the white population of South Africa was not ethnically Dutch. [8] The number of permanent settlers of both sexes and all ages, according to figures available at the onset of British rule, numbered 26,720, [8] of whom 50% were Dutch, 27% German, 17% French and 5.5% other. [42]
The settlers initially built a clay and timber fort, which was replaced between 1666 and 1679 by the Castle of Good Hope, which is now the oldest building in South Africa. The Colony began properly in 1671 with the first purchase of land from the Khoikhoi (called "Hottentots" by the settlers) beyond the original limits of the fort built by van ...
The term Afrikaners or Afrikaans people [6] [7] [8] is generally used in modern-day South Africa for the white Afrikaans-speaking population of South Africa (the largest group of White South Africans) encompassing the descendants of both the Boers, and the Cape Dutch who did not embark on the Great Trek.
Indian slaves from the Dutch colonies in India had been introduced into the Cape area of South Africa by the Dutch settlers in 1654. [64] By the end of 1847, following annexation by Britain of the former Boer republic of Natalia, nearly all the Boers had left their former republic, which the British renamed Natal.
The Portuguese had little competition in the region until the late 16th century, when the English and Dutch began to challenge them along their trade routes. Stops at the continent's southern tip increased, and the cape became a regular stopover for scurvy-ridden crews. In 1647, a Dutch vessel, the Haarlem, was wrecked in the present-day Table Bay.
Map of the Cape of Good Hope in 1885 (blue). The areas of Griqualand West and Griqualand East were annexed to the Cape Colony around 1880. The Cape Colony (Dutch: 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.