South Africa - History - Early Settlers
It was the Portuguese that first wrote about the land that we now call South Africa. In 1487 they were the first to reach the southern tip of the African continent and eventually christened it ‘the cape of good hope’ as it was seen as the gateway to the riches of Asia. The name is still used today, although it is usually used to refer to the ‘hope’ that sailors cling to whilst navigating some of the world’s most treacherous seas!
In 1652 the Dutch East India Company started to trade from the cape for the first time setting up staging posts for their fleets moving between Europe and Asia. Slowly the Dutch spread there wings inland and eventually conflicts started to arise between them and the indigenous peoples, principally the Xhosa peoples from the north of the country. Labour shortages meant that the Dutch started to bring slaves from Asia to work in their growing settlement, further developing the mixture of peoples now inhabiting the land. As the races started to mix and marry so the ethnic demographic of the nation slowly evolved.