Boers are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled Dutch Cape Colony, but the United Kingdom incorporated it into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from Trekboer then later "boer", which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
The Cape Colony, also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, then became the Cape Province, which existed even after 1961, when South Africa had become a republic, albeit, temporarily outside the Commonwealth of Nations (1961–94).
Khoekhoe are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San peoples. The designation "Khoekhoe" is actually a kare or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the Griqua, Gona, Nama, Khoemana and Damara nations. The Khoekhoe were once known as Hottentots, a term now considered offensive.
Hottentot is a term that was historically used by Europeans to refer to the Khoekhoe, the indigenous nomadic pastoralists in South Africa.
The Trekboers were nomadic pastoralists descended from European colonists on the frontiers of the Dutch Cape Colony in Southern Africa. The Trekboers began migrating into the interior from the areas surrounding what is now Cape Town, such as Paarl, Stellenbosch, and Franschhoek, during the late 17th century and throughout the 18th century.
The Cape Corps and its predecessor units were the main military organisations in which the Coloured members of South Africa's population served.
The following lists events that happened during the 1790s in South Africa.
The area known today as Cape Town has no written history before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. The German anthropologist Theophilus Hahn recorded that the original name of the area was '||Hui !Gais' – a toponym in the indigenous Khoi language meaning "where clouds gather."
Sir Andries Stockenström, 1st Baronet, was lieutenant governor of the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony from 13 September 1836 to 9 August 1838.
The Regiment de Meuron was a regiment of infantry originally raised in Switzerland in 1781 for service with the Dutch East India Company (VOC). At the time the French, Spanish, Dutch and other armies employed units of Swiss mercenaries. The regiment was named for its commander, Colonel Charles-Daniel de Meuron, who was born in Neuchâtel in 1738.
The Cape Mounted Riflemen were South African military units.
The Cape Colonial Forces (CCF) were the official defence organisation of the Cape Colony in South Africa. Established in 1855, they were taken over by the Union of South Africa in 1910, and disbanded when the Union Defence Forces were formed in 1912.
The Battle of Blaauwberg was a successful British amphibious operation during the War of the Third Coalition which lasted from 8–18 January 1806 and resulted in the capture of the Dutch Cape Colony. After defeating their Batavian opponents, the British signed a treaty under the Treaty Tree in Woodstock, Cape Town which established Britain's control over the Cape Colony. The colony later became a permanent part of the British Empire following the Congress of Vienna that marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. Due to establishing permanent British rule over the Cape Colony, the battle would have many ramifications for southern Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A bi-centennial commemoration of the battle was held in January 2006.
The South African Overseas Expeditionary Force (SAOEF) was a volunteer military organisation in World War I.
The Xhosa Wars were a series of nine wars between the Xhosa Kingdom and the British Empire as well as Trekboers in what is now the Eastern Cape in South Africa. These events were the longest-running military resistance against European colonialism in Africa.
The Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars refers to a series of armed conflicts that took place in the latter half of the 17th century in what was then known as the Cape of Good Hope, in the area of present-day Cape Town, South Africa, fought primarily between Dutch colonisers, who came mostly from the Dutch Republic and the local African people, the indigenous Khoikhoi.
The Dutch Cape Colony was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) colony in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original colony and the successive states that the colony was incorporated into occupied much of modern South Africa. Between 1652 and 1691, it was a Commandment, and between 1691 and 1795, a Governorate of the VOC. Jan van Riebeeck established the colony as a re-supply and layover port for vessels of the VOC trading with Asia. The Cape came under VOC rule from 1652 to 1795 and from 1803 to 1806 was ruled by the Batavian Republic. Much to the dismay of the shareholders of the VOC, who focused primarily on making profits from the Asian trade, the colony rapidly expanded into a settler colony in the years after its founding.
The capitulation of Saldanha Bay was the surrender to the British of a Batavian expeditionary force sent to recapture the Dutch Cape Colony in 1796. In 1795, early in the War of the First Coalition, French troops overran the Dutch Republic which then became a French client state, the Batavian Republic. Great Britain was concerned by the threat that the Cape Colony posed to its trade routes to British India. It therefore sent an expeditionary force that landed at Simon's Town in June 1795 and forced the surrender of the colony in a short campaign. British Vice-Admiral Sir George Elphinstone, then reinforced the garrison and stationed a naval squadron at the Cape Colony to protect it.
The invasion of the Cape Colony, also known as the Battle of Muizenberg, was a British military expedition launched in 1795 against the Dutch Cape Colony at the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch colony at the Cape, established and controlled by the United East India Company in the seventeenth century, was at the time the only viable South African port for ships making the journey from Europe to the European colonies in the East Indies. It therefore held vital strategic importance, although it was otherwise economically insignificant. In the winter of 1794, during the French Revolutionary Wars, French troops entered the Dutch Republic, which was reformed into the Batavian Republic.
The York Light Infantry Volunteers, also known as the Barbados Volunteer Emigrants, was a foreign light infantry regiment of the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. It was formed in September 1803 from the Dutch garrisons of the captured Batavian colonies of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice. Additions to the regiment were recruited from the ranks of prisoners of war, and the regiment was also the recipient of the majority of deserters taken in the Peninsular Wars. The regiment served its whole existence in the West Indies, fighting in the British West Indies campaign. It was present at the Battle of Suriname in 1804 and at the invasions of Martinique and Guadeloupe in 1809 and 1810 respectively. It finished the Napoleonic Wars as garrison at Jamaica, before in early 1817 being sent to England, where it was disbanded on 19 March.
Dutch Cape Colony 
