Jan van Riebeeck

Jan van Riebeeck was a Dutch colonial administrator and founder of Cape Town. Van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg in 1619 and at the age of 20 joined the Dutch East India Company (VOC as an assistant surgeon and sailed to Batavia in April 1639

In 1643 Riebeeck travelled to the VOC outpost at Dejima in Japan. In 1645 he took charge of the company trading station at Tonkin, Vietnam. In Tonkin, he defied the ban on private trading and was sent back to Holland. While travelling to Holland he stopped at the Cape of Good Hope in March 1648 and spent eighteen days there. When the VOC considered the establishment of a refreshment station at the Cape, van Riebeeck saw his chance for restitution, and applied to the position of chief of the Cape. In 1651 he left Holland for the Cape as commander of the Cape of Good Hope. He landed three ships at the future Cape Town on 6 April 1652 and fortified the site as a way-station for the VOC trade route between the Netherlands and the East Indies. The Cape was to provide fresh provisions for the VOC fleets sailing between the Dutch Republic and Batavia, as deaths en route were very high. Van Riebeeck was charged with building a fort, with improving the natural anchorage at Table Bay, and for the development of agriculture. By 1662, when van Riebeeck left the Cape, the settlement there had more than 100 colonists.