Ep. 29 - Cape Town, South Africa
A scarred past, but a beautiful future. Listen along in episode 29 as we delve into the intense history of Cape Town, from its founding as a Dutch colony, through the Apartheid era, to a bright future ahead. Voted many times over as one of the best places in the world to visit, this beautiful destination with a storied past should definitely be making your travel list.
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Transcription:
*Intro music*
Hello and welcome to The Friday Take Five, a podcast where we take 5 minutes to delve into history and adventure. I’m Mark Moran, the host of the show, and you’re listening to episode 29. A new week means we’re discovering a new destination with a new story. I make it my goal to inspire folks to get out and explore the world around them, and so if by the end of this episode you’re putting a new destination on your travel bucket list, then I’ve done my job. Let’s discover, destination 29.
*Transition music*
It’s time for another trip to Africa. This time, we’re headed to a place colorfully named the rainbow nation. Adventure 29 brings us to Cape Town, South Africa. Cape Town, is yet another city that has some history to it. So let’s head back in time to its founding, hundreds of years ago.
Europeans hit land near current day Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa in the 1500s. The first one to drop anchor and hop ashore was a Portuguese man by the name of Antonio de Saldahna. With his first stop ashore, he ran into the indigenous Khoe people. For years after the fact, Europeans continued to use the area to stop in for fresh water and other supplies on their journeys elsewhere.
Fast forward to the mid 1600s and a Dutch ship was shipwrecked in Cape Town’s Table Bay. Survivors of the shipwreck told their superiors at the Dutch East India Company of the wonders of the area, and before long, the Dutch created a formal supply station in the location. By the early 1650s, the Dutch began to build a fort and a garden in the area to create a self-sustaining community. By 1657, the company began releasing men from its ranks to live as free citizens in the area. A year later, the company began importing slaves to grow the colony even further.
With a combination of the introduction of slaves, people who had been politically exiled from other Dutch territories, and marriages between Dutch citizens and the indigenous KhoeKhoe, the South African population began to increase, but it wouldn’t be until the mid 1700s and the rise of global political tensions that visitors from other countries would start migrating en masse to what was at that point finally called Cape Town.
The late 1700s into the 1800s brought an era of occupation in which the British took the area, and then it got handed back to the Netherlands, and then back to Britain. It would be a hot minute before South Africa would seek and then gain independence in the 1900s.
The 1900s is where Cape Town and South African history gets quite unique. For most of the early to mid 1900s, there was no formal mechanism dividing individuals of different races, like you might have seen in the US, for example. Interracial marriages were in fact reasonably common. However, by the late 1940s that changed. Multiple laws were passed by the minority white political leaders that prevented interracial marriages, redistricted where people lived based on race and resulted in a solidification of power for the white ruling class.
After years of protests in Cape Town and similar ones across the country that became increasingly violent, change was on the horizon. The ruling National Party began to negotiate with the African National Congress, or the ANC, which resulted in the end of segregation, the introduction of majority rule, and the release from prison of Nelson Mandela, a prominent ANC leader.
As you may or may not know, Nelson Mandela would go on to become the president of South Africa just a few years later.
So where are Cape Town and South Africa today? Like many countries, South Africa at times struggles with the scars of its past or Apartheid, and that segregation I was talking about. But it’s healing, and it’s waiting to be discovered. I love the fact that it has an intensely storied past, but I’m also excited to get exploring with some of the incredible natural beauty of this destination. Cape Town has been voted time and time again as one of the best places in the world to visit due to its wide range of things to see and experience. It has forests, beaches, mountains, oceans, gardens, nature reserves and more! A few of the items making their way to the top of my list are hiking, like hikes on Table Mountain and Lion’s Head, which both offer spectacular views of Cape Town and the Ocean beyond it. I’m also excited to get out on a tour of Robben Island, which has over 500 years of history and houses the prison where Nelson Mandela was placed in for years. Finally, I’m itching to get on a wine tour while we’re there! With a couple hundred years of grape growing under their belt, vineyards from Cape Town are world renown for some of their wines.
With a whole lot to do and a deep rich history, Cape Town is making its way up my travel list. I’m already starting to plan my adventure, so the question is… Are you planning yours?
*Transition music*
Hey there! Thanks for listening to another episode of The Friday Take Five. If you haven’t already, be sure to give us a 5 star rating on podcasting platforms, and don’t forget to turn on notifications and automatic downloads to keep up with new episodes. Have your own stories about Cape Town, feedback or recommendations on places or stories for us to cover? We’d love to hear it so follow us and DM us on socials @FridayTakeFive or email us at thefridaytakefive@gmail.com. Stay curious, stay adventuring, and have a great weekend!
*Outro music*