The written history of the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa began when Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias became the first modern European to round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed along the whole coast of South Africa on his way to India, landed at St Helena Bay for 8 days, and made a detailed description of the area. The Portuguese, attracted by the riches of Asia, made no permanent settlement at the Cape Colony. However, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) settled the area as a location where vessels could restock water and provisions.

First settlement

thumb|300px|right|A romanticised depiction of the arrival of [[Jan van Riebeeck in Table Bay (by Charles Bell)]]

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 a year, until they were rescued by a fleet of 12 ships under the command of W. G. de Jong.

After their return to Holland, some of the shipwrecked crew tried to persuade the Dutch East India Company to open a trading center at the Cape.

A Dutch East India Company expedition of 90 Calvinist settlers, under the command of Jan van Riebeeck, founded the first permanent settlement near the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Jan van Riebeeck was on one of the ships that had come to rescue the shipwrecked sailors, and upon seeing the land, he decided to come back. They arrived in the harbour of modern-day Cape Town on 6 April 1652 with five ships:

  • Dromedaris
  • Goede Hoop
  • Oliphant
  • Reijger
  • Walvisch

The settlers initially built a clay and timber fort. It 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 Riebeeck.

thumb|Sketch of Castle of Good Hope Courtyard in 1680

A long-term policy of the VOC was to limit the growth of the colony to a small, clearly defined area. Initially the VOC had hoped to employ a small number of servants and employees to produce food close to the fortress whilst obtaining cattle from the local Khoikhoi. However repeated crop failures convinced company officials to release nine servants to become semi-independent burgers who would produce food on freehold farms. Land grants were limited until the arrival of the colony's new commander Simon van der Stel in 1679.

Van der Stel pursued an expansionist agricultural policy which was continued by his son William, increasing the number of farms in the colony to 258 by 1705. The number of freehold farms almost doubled by 1731 to 435 farms. Income inequality increased rapidly in the early years of the colony's development and by 1731 only 7% of the colony's small free settler population controlled over half of all the private property in the colony.

Economy

The two pillars of the Cape Colony's economy for almost the entirety of its history were shipping and agriculture. Its strategic position meant that prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 almost every ship sailing between Europe and Asia stopped off at the colony's capital Cape Town. The supplying of these ships with fresh provisions, fruit, and wine provided a very large market for the surplus produce of the colony.