Dutch Cape Colony

Timeline

1. 1652Table Bay landing site · Western CapeJan van Riebeeck arrived at Table Bay with about 90 VOC personnel aboard three ships (Drommedaris, Reiger, Goede Hoop), immediately building a wooden palisade fort and vegetable garden, formally establishing the VOC's South African refreshment station and providing strategic support for the Dutch trade route to Asia.
2. 1652–1660Surroundings of the Cape Colony · South AfricaIn the colony's early years, VOC personnel bartered livestock with the local Khoikhoi, and relations were relatively peaceful. As colonial farmland expanded inland, the two sides clashed fiercely over land and water, and the First Khoikhoi-Dutch War (1659–1660) broke out; the Khoikhoi suffered heavy losses and lost large tracts of traditional pasture.
3. 1657–1658Farming areas near the Cape of Good Hope fort · South AfricaIn 1657 the VOC approved converting some employees into free burghers (Vrijburger) who could farm land independently, easing the company's direct provisioning burden. In 1658 the first slaves arrived aboard VOC ships—some from the Angolan coast, some from Portuguese India—making slave labor the core of the colonial agricultural economy and profoundly shaping South Africa's later racial and class structure.