Boer HistoryFort de Goede Hoop and Castle of Good Hope
Refreshment Station and the Site of 1652
The VOC needed a halfway stop where ships could take water, greens and meat on the long road to and from the Indies. After the wreck of the Haarlem on the Blouberg shore and the long watch kept by castaways under Leendert Jansz and Nicolaas Proot, the Lords Seventeen resolved on a permanent victualling station at the Cape of Good Hope. Those castaways had already raised a rough earthen shelter near the beach and traded with neighbouring Khoikhoi while they guarded cargo salvaged from the wreck. Their report, together with notes from Jan van Riebeeck’s own 1648 call at Table Bay, pushed paper plans into an appointment and a fleet. [3][9]
Van Riebeeck, restored to Company service in 1651 as merchant and soon senior merchant at fifty guilders a month, argued that a strong fortress was as necessary as a garden: protection against European rivals as well as against local conflict. He never treated Table Valley as a permanent private home; even early letters asked for relief and transfer to more important office in the Indies once the fort and gardens stood. The Drommedaris, Reijger and Goede Hoop (with store ships following the line) left the Netherlands in mid-December 1651. Table Mountain was sighted on 5 April 1652; the vessels reached Table Bay on 6 April. Exclusive of officers there were one hundred and eighty-one men aboard the three lead vessels. [3][9]
On 8 April the council met on the flagship and resolved to land at once and mark out a fortress. One hundred labourers were set to the walls; carpenters were to raise temporary wooden dwellings and a store. The chosen ground lay in Table Valley near the Fresh River — sheltered water, mountain streams, and room for gardens, though the end of the dry season left the land parched and the winter south-easter still to come. Year-by-year politics of the landing and first gardens belong on 1652. This page follows the two successive strongholds that stood for Company power on the shore: the earthen fort, then the stone castle that replaced it. [3]
The Earthen Fort de Goede Hoop
Outlines were marked and digging began without delay. The fort was a square with bastions at the angles. Each face measured 252 Rhynland feet. Walls of earth stood twenty feet thick at the base, tapering to sixteen at the top, and twelve feet high under a parapet. A moat ran round the whole, fed when needed from the Fresh River. Inside stood wooden buildings and a square stone tower barely rising above the banks, with a flat roof for muskets. Workshops and a hospital filled a large earthen enclosure toward the sea; a cattle kraal closed a similar yard at the back. Thickness and height of the walls were altered more than once, but the general design remained that of 9 April 1652. [3]
Work was brutal. Of roughly one hundred and sixteen men fit for labour, many were still weak from the voyage; the autumn ground was dry and tough under picks; south-easters blinded them with dust. When the rains came they flooded tents and temporary sheds and spoiled stores. Scurvy, dysentery and fever turned the camp into something closer to a hospital and burial ground than a hamlet in the making. Van Riebeeck’s household moved ashore on 24 April into a rough plank house by the beach; his wife Maria and the sick-comforter Willem Barents Wylant both suffered the red flux in the first winter. By 7 May the four bastions had taken the names of ships then in the bay. Cannon already stood on one wall. Persistence told: within about four months the commander’s family and the bulk of the company could be housed inside the banks. [3][9]
Palisades and further alterations followed through the mid-1650s. Brick replaced some timber; a redoubt rose near Salt River; ramparts were still being finished into 1653. The fort remained the geometric heart of the Caabse Vlek even as free gardens and Rondebosch farms stretched inland. [1]
Life Inside the Old Fort
The fort was more than a ditch and bank. It held dwellings, barracks and stores; gun platforms on the bastions; and the commander’s hall where Sunday worship was held for years before a separate church stood. Round the walls of that hall hung trophies of the chase — skins of lions and leopards, polished horns — until service began. The first European child born in the settlement, on 6 June 1652, was a son of the sick visitor Wylant, in quarters within the walls. Chiefs who came to trade were seated on mats in the commander’s rooms, served bread, rice, cheese, sugar and wine from tin dishes reserved, they were told, for persons of rank; sometimes the virginals played; on a Sunday the military and burgher infantry might be reviewed after divine service while retainers ate in the courtyard. [3]
Gardener Hendrik Boom set seed and young plants within weeks of the landing; by early 1653 cauliflower from the garden near the fortress was served at the commander’s table “as firm and crisp… as in the fatherland.” Meat still depended on careful barter with Khoikhoi herds. The fort’s courtyard and outer kraals were the stage for that uneasy commerce as much as for military drill. [9]
War Scare and the Limits of Earth
In the second year of the settlement news of open war between the Netherlands and Cromwell’s England reached Table Bay. Van Riebeeck was authorised to detain twenty-five soldiers from passing ships — “you may even go to thirty,” the Seventeen added. He did so, yet held few illusions: his cannon were so short-ranged that balls fell halfway to the usual anchorage. He still wrote that enemies would not find the fortress “a cat to be touched without gloves,” and trusted that with guidance from above nothing need be feared. No English war fleet tested that claim during the conflict. When the first English merchantman appeared after peace, in December 1654, hospitality replaced alarm. [9]
By the mid-1660s visitors and officers could see the deeper truth. Clay banks that answered cattle raids and local show of force would not answer artillery or a serious seaborne attack. Walls crumbled after heavy rains; guns on the old works were harmless to a ship at the usual anchorage. When commercial rivalry with England hardened again into open war, the old fort still stood as the heart of the settlement — and as a ruined molehill in the eyes of later governors charged with defending the sea road. [3][9]
War Cloud and the Decision for Stone
Commercial rivalry and the seizure of Company ships in European waters pushed the directors to secure the Cape more firmly. They resolved on a strong stone fortress able to carry heavy guns and house a large garrison. Plans were prepared in the Netherlands; Pieter Dombaer was named to superintend the work. Zacharias Wagenaar was ordered to detain some three hundred soldiers from passing ships to quarry and gather materials. Choice of site was reserved for a military expert: Isbrand Goske (also written Godsken, Gotsken, Godske in the papers of the day). [3][9]
Activity filled Table Valley: soldiers on stone, convicts and slaves on Robben Island for shells, decked boats ferrying shells and Hout Bay fuel to the limekilns. Formal news that England and the Netherlands were openly at war reached the Cape on 9 June 1665. Goske arrived in the Nieuw Middelburg on 18 August 1665. After about eight days’ inspection, with a broad board of councillors and naval and military officers, he fixed the site sixty Rhynland roods (about two hundred and forty-eight imperial yards) east of the old fort — ground that still carries the castle. Open trenches showed sand deeper than hoped: nowhere could foundations begin closer than about eleven feet, and in places excavations more than double that depth were needed before basement walls could rise. [3][9]
The same years brought a resident clergyman and consistory. The Rev. Johan van Arckel arrived in the same Nieuw Middelburg that carried Goske; an ecclesiastical court was constituted with a political commissioner from the council of policy, the clergyman, deacons and elders under Company confirmation. Worship still filled the commander’s hall in the old fort while a building set apart for religious services was unfinished. Day-to-day war scares — such as the chase of the Royal Charles in September 1665 — showed how exposed the anchorage still was. [3] See also 1665.
Foundation Ceremony, 2 January 1666
On Saturday 2 January 1666 the first stones were laid. Trenches for only one of the five points were ready; foundations twelve feet thick made the digging itself heavy work. Four large hewn stones were lowered into the trench. The first was laid by commander Wagenaar, the second by clergyman van Arckel, the third by secunde Abraham Gabbema, and the fourth by fiscal Hendrik Lacus. The Company presented the master mechanics with a sum equal to six pounds sterling. Two oxen and six sheep, a hundred loaves and eight casks of Cape ale fed the crowd; tables stood on the levelled ground inside the trenches; poetry was recited after the fashion of the Netherlands. [3][9]
Farmers from Rondebosch and Wynberg, sailors from the cutters, Company servants and free residents packed the ground in their best attire. It was the densest public gathering the Caabse Vlek had yet seen. Wagenaar himself was ailing and already seeking relief; he still took the place of honour at the ropes. Van Arckel, who had won affection by gentleness and piety, died on 12 January 1666 after a brief illness — less than six months after arrival, and only ten days after he laid the second foundation stone. His temporary successor still preached in the great hall of the commander’s house in the old fort, trophies on the walls, while the new pentagon rose a short walk to the east. [3][9] Narrative of the year is on 1666.
Materials, Labour, Stops and Restarts
Stone came from Table Mountain ground; shells from Robben Island were burned for lime; timber came from Hout Bay forests; clinker bricks arrived as ballast from the Netherlands. Farmers hired out wagons, oxen and drivers at six shillings and three pence a day. Soldiers, sailors from fleets, Company servants, free burghers, hired Khoikhoi, convicts and enslaved labour all appear in the work parties — numbers swelling when ships could spare men, shrinking when Europe’s wars cut the stream of hands. [3]
Progress was uneven. Peace after the Treaty of Breda slowed the urgency; at times work almost stood still with bastions barely begun. Cornelis van Quaelberg took over in August 1666 after a battered voyage that had rounded the British Isles in wartime. His hospitality to the damaged French fleet under viceroy De Montdevergue — stores drawn freely from Company warehouses — later infuriated the directors in Amsterdam and ended his Cape career. That episode belongs chiefly to politics; for the castle it meant distraction and depleted magazines at a moment when stone work needed steady hands. [3][9]
Under the invalid commanders Jacob Borghorst and Pieter Hackius the settlement often lacked a firm daily hand. Side walls of rooms still collapsed with a great noise; mineral seekers dug without result. In 1672, with a darker European outlook, instructions returned to gather shells, quarry stone and press on. Woodwork prepared in Amsterdam came out in fleets with bricks, tiles and mechanics. Suspension and restart years are treated in detail on 1667 and neighbouring calendar pages. [3][9]
Goske’s Drive to Completion
When Goske returned in October 1672 as the Cape’s first full governor — not merely commander — his first duty was to keep the Cape Dutch. The earthen walls of the old fort had by then so crumbled that he described the work as a ruined molehill. He ordered it hastily rebuilt as a temporary measure, then set every spare man on the castle. Even with authority to land hands from passing ships, wartime shortages meant that rarely more than about two hundred and fifty to three hundred men could be kept on the new works. Saturday mornings went to drill; loafing soldiers were punished; the whole settlement was bent toward discipline and defence. [3][9]
No English or French fleet tested Goske’s readiness at Table Bay during his term. Naval energy from the Cape went instead into the temporary seizure of St Helena, lost again to the English within months. On the civilian side he pushed Hottentots-Holland farming, an orphan chamber, and other institutions while the pentagon rose. By the time he handed over to Johan Bax van Herenthals in March 1676, the castle was far enough advanced to house the garrison in better quarters and to receive the first stone of a governor’s residence inside the works. [9]
Occupation 1674 and Bastion Names 1679
By the beginning of the winter of 1674 the castle was far enough advanced to be considered more capable of defence than the old fort. The garrison moved in; the walls of the earthen fort were broken down. On 13 July a despatch vessel, gaily decorated with flags, brought news of peace with England. French naval power was rated a lesser threat, and work continued more steadily without the same emergency staff kept purposely for the castle alone. [3] See 1674.
Under Bax the final stages still lagged — the moat unfinished, digging at times reduced to a shovel every two hours. He put the settlement to the job, recorded on one occasion as leading burghers and burgheresses while he, his wife Aletta and their young son carried baskets of sand and stone from the ditch, then ordered everyone who passed the castle, regardless of rank or colour, to take at least one basketful of rubbish from the works. In November 1676 Abraham van Riebeeck, outward as junior merchant, was shown the nearly completed castle and the dismantled banks of his father’s earthen fort thrown into the moat. [9]
On 24 June 1677 a peace with Gonnema and allied captains was concluded with ceremony in the new castle: black ambassadors Nengue, Harry and Nuguma acknowledged Company authority over the land they represented, asked pardon for past hostility, and promised cattle and consultation before fighting any Company ally. The stone fortress had become the stage of diplomacy as well as of guns. [9]
On 26 April 1679 the council resolved to name the five points in honour of the Stadtholder’s house: Orange (south), Nassau (south-east), Catzenellenbogen (east), Buren (north), and Leerdam (west). Intelligence of peace with France had already allowed another reduction of the garrison and the release of European labourers on the castle; completion of the moat was left largely to enslaved workers at trifling cost to the Company. Simon van der Stel landed as commander on 12 October 1679 and took over in the council chamber inside the castle amid discharges of cannon and musketry — a fortress already named and occupied, though details of gates, Kat works and ornament still lay ahead. [3] Context: 1679.
Design, Bastions and Interior
The stone work followed bastioned trace familiar from the Dutch school of fortification: five points for cross-fire along the curtains, heavy walls on the seaward face, and room inside for magazines, barracks, stores and government. A deep foundation on rock where it could be reached, thick basement walls, and a well for siege water belonged to the original design. A wide moat, pushed hard from late 1677 — even with leading residents carrying earth in a public show — was meant to complete the wet defence, though stagnant water and refuse later spoiled the ditch. [3]
Inside, the castle became the Cape’s administrative heart: council chamber, stores, workshops, bakery, residences, and cells. The cross-wall known as the Kat divided outer and inner yards; governor’s rooms and council space grew on that axis. Church services and burials for a time clung to ground later enclosed by castle walls — including memorial escutcheons of officers laid in the old church floor. Early confidence that no ship’s gun from the Devil’s Peak slope could harm the works was tested in a public experiment after a constable’s loose talk; the castle walls stood the trial, though later commissioners were less sure about the site. [3]
Later Adaptations: Entrance, Kat and Ornament
The original exit lay between Nassau and Catzenellenbogen. Under Simon van der Stel the main entrance was shifted to the curtain between Buuren and Leerdam — the front still used today — with a gateway tower and, in time, a bell cast in Amsterdam. Coats of arms of the United Netherlands, the VOC monogram, and chamber shields of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft, Zeeland, Hoorn and Enkhuizen marked Company lordship over the gate.
Grain cellars, a heightened Kat wall ordered in the commission era, and the balcony known as De Kat (later rebuilt with work associated with Louis Thibault and carver Anton Anreith) turned a pure fortress into a seat of proclamation and ceremony as well as guns. Those eighteenth-century finishes sit on top of the seventeenth-century pentagon; the bones remain the five bastions named in 1679.
Government Seat and Later Hands
From the garrison’s move in 1674 through the end of Company rule in 1795, the castle was headquarters of VOC government at the Cape and the governor’s official residence. Councils of Policy and Justice sat there; proclamations and sentences were read from its balcony; magazines and barracks filled the points. It was never tested by a long European siege, but it fixed the Company’s claim on Table Bay in stone after the earthen fort had failed that test in peace as well as in the imagination of war. [3]
British forces took the Cape in September 1795; Batavian rule returned briefly after Amiens; Britain seized the Cape again in January 1806 after Blaauwberg. The castle remained a military and administrative seat into the nineteenth century, later South African army headquarters, and a proclaimed heritage structure in the twentieth century. Restorations in the late twentieth century prepared the museums and collections now shown inside the same pentagon whose first stones went down in 1666.
For the men who commanded from these walls, see also the year pages of the 1660s–1670s and the biographical thread of Cape commanders. The two buildings — mud fort and stone castle — mark the passage from a landing camp to a permanent Dutch stronghold on the southern sea road.