Cape Colony Founded by the VOC
On 6 April 1652, Jan van Riebeeck of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established a refreshment station at the Cape of Good Hope, the halfway point on the spice route between the Netherlands and Batavia (Jakarta). Initially intended only as a supply post for VOC ships, the station grew rapidly into a settler colony. By 1657 the VOC permitted free burghers (independent farmers, the first Boers) to settle permanently. The indigenous Khoikhoi people, who initially traded cattle with the Dutch, were progressively dispossessed as the colony expanded. The Cape Colony became the foundation of what would eventually become South Africa, and the Boer farmer identity that shaped South African history through to apartheid. The VOC's decision to allow permanent settlement, made for purely logistical reasons, had consequences lasting centuries.
- Year: 1652 CE
- Category: Political
