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=== European colonists ===
[[File:Flag of the Dutch East India Company.svg|thumb|upright=.75|Flag of the [[Dutch East India Company]]]]

The [[Dutch East India Company]] ({{langx|nl|Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie}}; VOC) was formed in the [[Dutch Republic]] in 1602, and at this time the Dutch had entered the competition for the colonial and imperial trade of commerce in Southeast Asia. The end of the [[Thirty Years' War]] in 1648 saw European soldiers and refugees widely dispersed across Europe. Immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia, and Switzerland traveled to the Netherlands in the hope of finding employment with the VOC. During the same year, one of their ships was stranded in [[Table Bay]] near what would eventually become [[Cape Town]], and the shipwrecked crew had to forage for themselves on shore for several months. They were so impressed with the natural resources of the country that on their return to the Dutch Republic, they presented to the VOC directors the advantages to be had for the Dutch Eastern trade from a properly provided for and fortified station at the Cape. In response, the VOC sent a Dutch expedition in 1652 led by [[Jan van Riebeek]], who constructed a fort, laid out vegetable gardens at Table Bay, and took control over Cape Town, which he governed for a decade.