Cover image: F. Benda - The planting of cross by Bartholomew Dias in 1488‍

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The Cape before Cape Town

Originally inhabited by Khoe tribes such as the Gonnema, Goringhaicona & Goringhaikwa, the first recorded Europeans to have reached the South-westernmost tip of Africa was the Portuguese Bartholomew Dias and his crew. He was sailing back from South-eastern Africa and to commemorated his achievement through the placement of a padrao (a large stone cross) at Cape Point in 1488. Unfortunately the padrao disappeared over time. The Portuguese frequently stopped at the Cape, but these visits stopped when the Viceroy of India Bernado d’Almeida and his crew lost in a skirmish with the local Africans, along with their lives. The Portuguese still tried to maintain a presence by building a convict house on Robben Island, but this did not last.

Although the Portuguese stopped anchoring in Saldanha Bay after d’Almeida’s death, other Western Europeans regularly visited Saldanha Bay and traded with the Khoe tribes who resided in the area. In 1601 the Dutch cartographer Joris van Spilbergen renamed Saldanha Bay to Table Bay, because of its proximity to Table Mountain, and moved the name Saldanha Bay to its current location. The English translation of the name came into use since 1623. These two groups regularly visited Table Bay to the point that certain individuals attempted to lay claim to Table Bay, but met with hostility from their European countries and African residents.

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First Fifty Years

On the 6th of April 1652, two years after the shipwreck of the Haerlem, The Dutch East India Company (VOC) commissioned Jan van Riebeeck to establish a refreshment station on the shores of Table Bay. The original Fort de Goede Hoop only lasted up to 1674, being made of earth that was easily damaged by heavy rains. The Fort was replaced by the Castle of Good Hope in whose construction started in 1666 with slave labour, and fully completed in 1679. That was also the same year that the Cape’s first church building, built inside the Castle, was demolished. Seemingly a prerogative, VOC officials planted the first wine grapes in 1655 and had the first wine pressed in 1659.

The first private citizens to have resided in the Cape were the Vrijburghers (Dutch for, “free citizens”), former VOC employees who were granted farming land along the western bank of the Liesbeeck River in 1657. In 1662 the first private business to have been operated here was that of a provision merchant named Albert Dirksen, and the first inn was build inside the Castle of Good Hope. In 1669 a French ship wrecked in Table Bay, and the surviving Huguenots (French Protestants) would go on to improve winemaking in the Cape. In 1680 a Dutch Captain by the surname of Van der Decken is caught in a devastating storm where he cursed God to sail the ocean forever. Thus creating the legend of the Flying Dutchman.

The first slaves were brought to the Cape of Good Hope in 1658 from Angola on a captured Portuguese ship. They performed tasks that the VOC employees did not want to do, much to the annoyance of the managers and Commander Van Riebeeck. With all these different people residing on their former grazing grounds, and prevented to farm next to the Liesbeeck River, the Goringhaicona & Goringhaikwa launched a war against the VOC and Vrijburghers in 1659. They lost and were prevented to farm west of the Liesbeeck. The first Malay slaves arrive at the Cape in 1667. A second Dutch-Khoekhoe war broke

out in 1673 and ended in 1677 with the Cape Khoe being pushed further inlands from their original grazing land. In 1694 Sheikh Yussuf arrived and became a foundational leader and teacher for the Cape Malay community.

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From Kaap de Goede Hoop to Kaapstad

In 1710, after a declaration by the Fiscal & Raad van Justisie that all streets must be named, the directions of the streets were changed to run parallel with the streams running down from Table Mountain to Table Bay. Voorste Street was called de Gragt by the local residents and in 1743 it was renamed to Heerengracht Street. At Van Riebeeck’s Garden, next to the Castle, a penalty was imposed in 1753 on flower pickers that they will be shot by the gardener. The Amsterdam Battery was built where the V&A Waterfront is today. Another sign of militarisation at the Cape was the building of the Catzenellenbogen, nicknamed the Catz, inside the Castle. In the same year 1786, French troops were placed at the Cape as a deterrent to a possible British invasion.

In 1706 the first wine made in the Cape was exported to the East Indies. 1737 the Cape’s first fire brigade was established, mainly staffed by slaves and freed slaves. In the 1750s the Cape’s people of colour were subject to curfew, which complicated the work of those who were employed as fire fighters. In 1773 the ship De Jonge Thomas wrecked in Table Bay, and Wolter Woltemade proceeded to save many lives before he lost his own life. In 1777 the All Nations Bar was first recorded and existed right up to 1941, before the building was demolished. In 1780 the first Lutheran church service was held in Strand Street, and in 1790 a freed slave pair, Jan van Boekies and his wife, converted their house in the Bo-Kaap into a house of prayer and planted palm trees in front of it.

In 1705 a soldier got lost in the Table Cloth mist on top of Table Mountain and lost their life by falling off the cliff. In 1716 the earliest recorded sightings of Aurora Borealis at the Cape was made. In 1722 the Cape Doctor shipwrecked 10 ships and caused 600 casualties. This disaster made a law to be passed by the Fiscal & Raad van Justisie that forbade salvaging. This law was lifted by the Governor Ryk Tulbagh in 1740, so that he could salvage the washed up treasures of the shipwrecked Visch. In 1750 a large rockfall took place on the precipice in the centre of Table Mountain, and in 1780 Cape residents witnessed a Brocken spectre, where a gigantic shadow was seen being cast by someone on Table Mountain.

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