Cape Town - The History
Cape Town is the second most popular city in South Africa and the largest in the land area. The city is famous for its harbor as well as its natural setting in the Cape floral kingdom. It also has the well known landmarks such as Table Mountain and Cape Point. It is known as one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
There is no certainty as to when the first humans occupied the area before the first visits of Europeans in the 15th century. The earliest known surviving trace that was found in the region was found at Peers cave in Fish Hoek and date to between 15 000 and 12 000 years ago. Little is known of the history of the region’s first residents because there is no written history from the area before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1486.
Vasco da Gama recorded a sighting of the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. The area did not have regular contact with Europeans until 1652 when Jan van Riebeeck and other employees of the Dutch East India Company were sent to the Cape to establish a way station that provide vegetables, livestock and medical facilities for the ships that are travelling to the Dutch East Indies and the Fort de Goede Hoop which were later replaced by the Castle of Good Hope.
The city grew slowly during this period because it was very hard to find adequate labour. The labour shortage has caused that they couldn’t import the slaves from Indonesia and Madagascar immediately. Many of these became ancestors of the first Cape Coloured communities.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, the Netherlands was repeatedly occupied by France. Britain moved to take control of Dutch colonies. Britain captured Cape Town in 1795 but the Cape returned to the Netherlands by treaty in 1803. British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the battle of Bloubergstrand. In 1814 Cape Town was permanently ceded by Britain in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty. It then became the capital of the newly formed Cape Colony, whose territory expanded very substantially through the 1800’s.
The first road was to the tree-covered mountain slopes of Newlands and Kirstenbosch to provide the needed timber. Wheat, oats and barley grew well in the Liesbeek River valley and the formation of a grain-farming enterprise in 1657. Early settlers on their discharge from the Company settled as independent farmers along the valley in Rondebosch and Rosebank. The first Governor, which is Van Riebeeck, acquired the Boshopscourt Estate in 1658 and established the first vineyard in South Africa. Van Riebeeck handed the government of the Colony in 1662 over to Zacharias Wagenaar.
Work on the Castle of Good Hope started in 1666, with soldiers living there from 1674. In 1667 the Company established a cattle-post in the Hout Bay valley.
Eight ships were wrecked in a single storm in Table Bay in 1737. There was a loss of over 200 lives. This has forced the Company to build another alternative port at Simon’s Town where the ships were safe under the lee of Peninsula highlands.
The discovery of diamonds in 1867 at the confluence of the Gariep and Vaal Rivers catapulted Cape Town’s importance. In 1880 Cecil Rhodes acquired the monopoly over the Kimberley diamond mines and then went on to develop the De Beers diamond empire. In 1886, gold were discovered on the Witwatersand which further strengthened South Africa’s importance.
In 1899, Paul Kruger the then president of South Africa declared the South Africa Was with Britain. It were a fierce war with 300 000 British soldiers fighting. The Peace of Vereeniging was signed in 1902 when the two republics surrendered.
In 1910 the Union of South Africa came into being and the parliament was located in Cape Town. The black population was mainly excluded from power. In 1912 the African Native National Congress and later changed to the ANC was formed to resist white domination. In 1918 the Afrikaners formed the National Party as a counter movement and became very powerful in developing hard line Afrikaner nationalism and the formation of apartheid.
In 1965 District Six was declared a white only area. All the residents were moved and area was destroyed. In very recent years has reconstruction started on the declared land. Today you can go to the District Six Museum where the story is well told.
From 1984 till 1990 was a time of protests and violence against the regime. In the late 80’s it was decided that the best way forward was settlement. Nelson Mandela started secret talks with the government from his jail cell. In 1989 PW Botha had a stroke and was succeeded by FW de Klerk who became President.
South Africa is now a stable democracy and focusing on poverty reduction, education and the development of a strong economy.
|
Home
.jpg)
(1).jpg)
