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At the time of first European settlement in the Cape, the southwest of Africa was inhabited by Khoikhoi pastoralists and hunters. Disgruntled by the disruption of their seasonal visit to the area for which purpose they grazed their cattle at the foot of Table Mountain only to find European settlers occupying and farming the land, leading to the first Khoi-Dutch War as part of a series of ...
The Dutch East India Company settlement in the area began in March 1647, with the shipwreck of the Dutch ship Nieuwe Haarlem. The shipwreck victims built a small fort that they named the "Sand Fort of the Cape of Good Hope." They stayed for nearly one year, until they were rescued by a fleet of 12 ships under the command of W. G. de Jong.
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]
The war of 1817–1819 led to the first wave of immigration of British settlers of any considerable scale, an event with far-reaching consequences. The then-governor, Lord Charles Somerset, whose treaty arrangements with the Xhosa chiefs had proved untenable, wished to buffer the Cape from contact with the Xhosa by settling white colonists in the border region.
The Dutch colony at the Cape of Good Hope expanded beyond the initial settlement and its borders were formally consolidated as the composite Dutch Cape Colony in 1778. [59] At the time, the Dutch had subdued the indigenous Khoisan and San peoples in the Cape and seized their traditional territories. [59]
The Cape Town Legislative Council was also established in the same year. One of the most momentous events in South African history, the Great Trek (Afrikaans: die Groot Trek), began in 1836. About 10,000 Dutch families, for various reasons, left for the north in search of new land, thereby opening up the interior of the country.
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.
The Cape Dutch population was predominantly urban and concentrated around Cape Town and various settlements in the Western Cape's interior. [7] Cape Dutch settlement and migration patterns in the nineteenth century tended to reflect those of British colonists. [ 24 ]