Some of the shipwrecked crew members returned to Holland had tried to persuade the Dutch East India Company (in the Dutch of the day: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) to open a trading center at the Cape; they decide to establish a permanent settlement.
The VOC, one of the major European trading houses sailing the spice route to the East, has no intention of colonizing the area, instead wanting only to establish a secure base camp where passing ships could shelter, and where hungry sailors could stock up on fresh supplies of meat, fruit, and vegetables.
To this end, the VOC requests Jan van Riebeeck, who had been on one of the rescue ships, to undertake the command of the initial Dutch settlement in the future South Africa.
Van Riebeeck, who had joined the Company in 1639, had served in a number of posts, including that of an assistant surgeon in the Batavia in the East Indies.
He had subsequently visited Japan.
His most important position had been that of head of the VOC trading post in Tonkin, Vietnam, but after his superiors discovered that he was conducting trade for his own account, he had been recalled from this post .
Van Riebeeck reaches Table Bay on April 6, 1652, landing three ships -- Drommedaris, Reijger and Goede Hoop -- at the site of the future Cape Town, meant to be a way-station for the VOC trade route between the Netherlands and the East Indies.
The Walvisch and the Oliphant arrive later, having performed 130 burials at sea.
Charged with building a fort, with improving the natural anchorage at Table Bay, and planting fruit and vegetables and obtaining livestock from the indigenous Khoi people, van Riebeeck plants a wild almond hedge as a barrier.
(It still survives in the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town.)
The initial fort is made of mud, clay and timber, and has four corners or bastions.
