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This is episode 11 and it\u2019s all about Jan van Riebeeck arrival in 1652 and the amaXhosa/KhoeKhoe relationship.
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\nSouth Africa\u2019s modern community is a melting pot of people and part of that melting story started when the Dutch company the VOC decided to build a refreshment station in Table Bay. But it took quite some time to convince the Heeren 17 to agree to this plan.
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\nVan Riebeeck\u2019s landing was also extremely well documented \u2013 the logs he kept and those maintained by the VOC is a vast repository of the past.
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\nWe need to talk a little about van Riebeeck. I mentioned a few things last episode, but now we must understand the short, fiery and energetic person more completely. He was lionised as the man who had vision leading the arrival of Europeans who came to live in south Africa \u2013 but the tale is not as it seems.
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\nThe real distinction for running a proper colony fell to later men such as Simon van der Stel and Hendryk van Rheede whereas van Riebeeck never wanted to remain in Africa.
\nIn the mid-1600s the amaXhosa were still living in the vicinity of the Mbashe River in the modern Transkei and were going through a process of major segmentation as several chiefdoms hived off from the paramountcy. Some of their history was noted in 1554 after Portuguese ship S\xe3o Bento ran aground at the mouth of the Mbhashe River.