Cape Republic

Cape Republic
Kaapse Republiek
Location of Cape Republic
Capital	Kaapstadt (Cape Town)
Languages	Dutch (Afrikaans)

The Cape Republic, officially: The Republic of the Cape, (Afrikaans: Kaapse Republiek), is a country located in southern Africa with territory extending from the southern point of Africa all the way up to the Oranje River in the northwest, Umzimbuyu river in the southeast, and the Val river in the north. The country's official language is the Afrikaans dialect of Dutch though several native languages recognized on a local level (the two largest by number of speakers are Sesotho and Xhosa). The Cape Republic is notable as an African nation that has a majority ethnically European and half European population. The nation is known for its large open spaces in the interior and its hills and mountains on the coastal areas; additionally it's one of the largest agricultural exporters in Africa and has one of the largest economies in Africa.

History

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 one 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 crewmates 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 rescue ships that had come to rescue the shipwrecked sailors, and upon seeing the land, he decided to return. They arrived in the harbour of modern-day Kaapstadt on 6 April 1652 with five ships:

• Reijer,
• Oliphant,
• Goede Hoop,
• Walvisch,
• Dromedaris.

The settlers initially built a clay and timber fort, which 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.

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 inspired by the Nieuw Nederlandt colony pursued an expansionist agricultural policy which was continued by his son William thereby increasing the number of farms in the colony to 258 by 1705. The number of free-hold farms almost doubled by 1731 to 435 farms. To attract colonists and much in line with the van Donck colonial principles land was given out to families who could develop it, bringing in more settlers from across northern Europe. Due to the education system being in Dutch all settlers quickly learned the Dutch language for trade and commerce purposes. This land grand system built on the basis of the development of local territory provided Kaapstad with a large supply to resupply VOC ships, while also being able to export them to locals starting a complicated yet vital network of trade.  

While the earliest colonists were, for the most part, from the lower, working-class and displayed an indifferent attitude towards developing the colony, but after a commissioner that was sent out in 1685 to attract more settlers, a more dedicated group of immigrants began to arrive. French refugees began to arrive in the Cape after leaving their country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This small body of immigrants had a marked influence on the character of the Dutch settlers. Owing to the policy instituted in 1701 of the Dutch East India Company which dictated that schools should teach exclusively in Dutch and strict laws of assembly, the Huguenots ceased by the middle of the 18th century to maintain a distinct identity, and the knowledge of French disappeared. By the late 1700s, the Cape Colony was one of the best developed European settlements outside Europe or the Americas.

After the bloody French revolution and the consolidation of the Augustine regime, in 1795 the French Republic invaded the Dutch Republic, and replaced it with a client state, the Batavian Republic. The Dutch stadtholder, Prince of Orange, who had fled to England, refused to recognize the Batavian Republic, and ordered all Dutch colonial governors to surrender to and temporarily accept British authority instead for safekeeping. While there were some who argued to not accept the orders, the majority of Cape colonists (as well as the vast majority of local leaders) were loyal the house of Oranje and two months after receiving the orders the Cape Colony surrendered control to the British (with the explicit promise that the colony to be returned to the House of Oranje eventually). After the particularist revolt in the New Netherland colony in 1796, the British authorities fearing such revolts would spread to other colonies taken for safekeeping from the Dutch Republic declared to local authorities in Kaapstadt that the British crown would under no circumstances annex the Cape colony if British ships were allowed free access to Kaapstad, this agreement is known as the Van Nimwegen declaration (named after the local colonial leader who negotiated the agreement).

Rapid expansion & a new identity

When the Dutch returned to power and their governance over the Kaap-Kolonie a new era was marked. As Europe was devastated by war the Kaap colonies experienced a rapid influx of new settlers, many of the urbanites. This was largely done by the newly formed so-called “Kaap Compagnie”. Formed by 2nd and even 3rd generation settlers of the Kaap-Kolonie it had the express goal to aid in the development of the colony. With the population growing the original lands below the table mountain were getting too crowded while settlement beyond the table mountains had occurred it would now need to become an organized effort. While prior to the 1800s the colony her borders were up until the Oranje-River that was only on paper and in reality the land between the Table mountains and the Oranje river was sparsely populated. This began to change in 1819 when then Governor-General Henk Koenis signed the order that starts the organized settlement of lands beyond the Table mountains. In between 1820 and 1850 a large consolidated effort was carried out to settle the land up to the Oranje River. It saw tens of thousands leave towards towns, founded by scouting parties, that eventually all became connected by railroads, these towns would form the commercial and political center of an area of land that in general had 220 families/farms. This settlement policy proved relatively successful as the towns began to grow in size and importance, with raids by the natives being easily deterred by the effective implementation of a Kommando system fostering a strong militia culture on the frontier.

In order to further Dutch claims to the eastern Cape and to create a buffer between the Xhosa in the east, the Cape colony government gave land grants to 4,500 German settlers (mostly from the lower Rhine, Luxembourg and the Saarland) between 1819 and 1829. Many of these colonists settled along the Algoa bay and in the period the important port town of Fredrickstadt was founded. Eventually after years of border skirmishes between colonists and the Xhosa, tensions over the land surrounding the Groot Visch River led to the great Xhosa war (1829 to 1834). After 5 years of bloodshed and atrocities on both sides, the Xhosa surrendered to the Dutch with the single condition that Xhosa people not be taken as slaves. In 1834 the Dutch annexed Xhosaland as a colonial protectorate. Between 1835 and 1855 the Dutch government sent missions to Xhosaland to Christianize and "civilize" the newly conquered nation and while Christianity and Dutch farming practices spread rapidly throughout the Xhosa, the Dutch language did not and the Xhosa language remained the primary mother tongue of the region.