Why go
Table Bay and the Cape Peninsula are more than maritime scenery. Portuguese voyages sought an eastern sea route, and the Dutch East India Company later used the Cape to provision ships. Following the farms beyond that first station reveals the expansion and coercion that accompanied colonial settlement.
The full story
Bartolomeu Dias explored the southern African coast in 1488 while seeking a sea route to Asia. Vasco da Gama later rounded the Cape and continued along the eastern coast. These voyages established a European maritime route, but they were not the beginning of human life or trade in the region. In 1652, Jan van Riebeeck arrived at Table Bay for the Dutch East India Company, which wanted a place to resupply ships. The station grew. European settlers farmed beyond it, pressing into land used by Khoi and San communities. The company also brought enslaved people from elsewhere, including its Asian trading world. Their labour and descendants became part of the Cape’s language, culture and social history. French Huguenot arrivals added another settler strand. A visit to the Cape’s older districts is richer when the shipping story is read beside land dispossession and slavery, rather than as a tale of exploration alone.