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16526 April 1652 · Cape Town

Dutch East India Company settles the Cape

Charles Bell's painting of Jan van Riebeeck arriving at the Cape in 1652
Archival image: Charles Davidson Bell. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Jan van Riebeeck landed in Table Bay in 1652 to set up a supply station for Dutch East India Company ships. The outpost grew into a settler colony that took Khoikhoi grazing land and depended on enslaved people brought from Asia and other parts of Africa. The stone Castle of Good Hope, completed in 1679, is South Africa's oldest surviving colonial building.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Castle of Good HopeFive-pointed company fortress with moat and bastions.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: Company's GardenThe company's supply garden, now a public park.Map ↗
  3. Site 3: Iziko Slave LodgeBuilding that housed the company's enslaved workers.Map ↗

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