The early history of the Boer Republic

1602, 60 Dutch firms formed the Dutch East India Company in partnership, and the Dutch Joint Provincial Council granted it a patent right to monopolize the East India trade. According to the authorization of the Dutch Joint Provincial Assembly, the East India Company can have its own army, form its own fleet, independently conclude treaties and agreements with foreign countries, and declare war on peace with foreign countries. The Dutch East India Company quickly monopolized the trade between Western Europe and the Spice Islands, dealing in commodities such as pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves in east indies, and tea, silk, porcelain and lacquerware in China and Japan. A single voyage of the Dutch merchant fleet usually takes eight or nine months to cross the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. In order to supply fresh water, vegetables, fruits and fresh meat, several supply stations need to be set up halfway. 1598, the Dutch occupied a hot and humid volcanic island in the western Indian Ocean and named it mauritius island after Prince Maric Orange, then consul of the Netherlands. The Dutch established the largest commercial supply station of the East India Company here. However, due to the rampant rodent infestation on the island and the deviation from the main routes at that time, mauritius island's production and supply capacity was insufficient, so the Dutch decided to build a larger midway supply station at the Cape of Good Hope.

1652 In April, Dutch captain Jan Van Riebeeck arrived at Table Bay in the Cape of Good Hope with the first batch of 153 Dutch immigrants, and established Cape Town, the first Dutch colony in South Africa. These immigrants are employees of the East India Company. They grow crops and raise livestock according to the instructions issued by the East India Company, and the products are purchased by the East India Company at a fixed price. Soon, some Dutch employees began to emigrate to the mainland in order to get rid of the control of the East India Company. Soon after, more Dutch and persecuted French Huguenots came to settle here. With Cape Town as the center, they spread around and expanded the merchant shipping depot into a Cape colony. Cape Town has replaced Mauritius as the most important stopover supply base for ships sailing between two oceans. 17 10, the Dutch officially abandoned mauritius island and took full charge of the Cape Colony.

In order to build farms and pastures, Dutch immigrants supplied products to merchant ships, migrated and expanded from the Cape of Good Hope to the mainland, occupied a large area of indigenous land, drove away the local indigenous black workers and became slave owners themselves. These descendants of Dutch, French and German immigrants gradually formed a unified race, speaking a Dutch dialect mixed with French, German, Malay and Xhosa. They are called Boers (meaning "farmers"), but they call themselves Afrikaners (meaning African settlers). By the middle of the19th century, the number of descendants of Dutch immigrants who settled in South Africa had reached 2 1000, accounting for 24% of European white settlers in sub-Saharan Africa.