Cape Germans

Cape Germans are South African German ethnic people who emigrated to the Cape Colony during the Dutch rule between 1652-1806. In 1652 the Dutch East India Company's (VOC) established a supplies station at the Cape of Good Hope under the command of Jan van Riebeeck. The party was made up of 90 settlers, a number of whom were from Germany, displaced by the 30-year war (1618-1648) in Europe. In the 1680s, more German farmers and women arrived at Cape Colony. In 1691, the population was 1000 Europeans and 400 slaves. From this point onwards the white population increased to about 1300 by the year 1700. About 4000 Germans immigrated to the Cape during the Dutch period, almost all of them males. They came from all German-speaking areas of Europe. The Germans who arrived at the Cape in the seventeenth century were not emigrants but worked for the Dutch East India Company, perhaps initially in Holland, and then were sent to the Cape.