Everything about Jan Van Riebeeck totally explained
Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (
21 April,
1619–
18 January,
1677), was a
Dutch colonial administrator and founder of
Cape Town. He was born in
Culemborg in the Netherlands as the son of a surgeon. He grew up in
Schiedam, where he married 19-year old
Maria de la Quellerie on
28 March 1649. (She died in
Malacca, now part of
Malaysia, on
2 November 1664, at the age of 35). The couple had eight children, most of whom didn't survive infancy. Their son
Abraham van Riebeeck, born at the Cape, later became Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.
Joining the
Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1639, he served in a number of posts, including that of an assistant surgeon in the
Batavia in the
East Indies. He subsequently visited
Japan. His most important position was that of head of the VOC trading post in
Tonkin,
Vietnam. However, he was called back from this post as it was discovered that he was conducting trade for his own account.
In 1651 he was requested to undertake the command of the initial Dutch settlement in the future
South Africa. He landed three ships
Drommedaris,
Reijger and
Goede Hoop 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.
Van Riebeeck was Commander of the Cape from 1652 to 1662; he was charged with building a fort, with improving the natural anchorage at Table Bay, planting fruit and vegetables and obtaining livestock from the indigenous
Khoi people. In the
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens in Cape Town there's a wild
almond hedge still surviving that was planted on his orders as a barrier. The initial fort was made of mud, clay and timber, and had four corners or bastions. This first fort, Fort Duijnhoop, shouldn't be confused with the present-day Cape Town Castle. The Castle, built between 1666 and 1679, several years after Van Riebeeck's departure, has five bastions and is made of brick, stone and cement.
Van Riebeeck reported the first
comet discovered from South Africa,
C/1652 Y1, which was spotted on
December 17,
1652.
He died in Batavia (now renamed
Jakarta) on the island of
Java in 1677.
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