VOC forces attack Cochoqua communities

Khoikhoi groups raided settler herds, beginning a period of open conflict. The action opposed the loss of grazing land and colonial restrictions on livestock and movement. Dutch records called such...

Zacharias Wagenaer took over the Cape station as Van Riebeeck’s successor. The change in leadership came as VOC settlement and agricultural expansion increasingly constrained Khoikhoi land and...

Jan van Riebeeck left the Cape for Batavia after directing the VOC station for a decade. The settlement outlasted its founding commander and continued its expansion into Khoikhoi territory, with...

Dutch officials surrendered New Netherland to an English fleet, and New Amsterdam became New York. The transfer changed the European ruler but left Indigenous land claims and African enslavement...

The treaty ending the Second Anglo-Dutch War formalized territorial exchanges: England retained New Netherland while the Dutch retained Suriname. The agreement treated colonized territories as...

During the Third Anglo-Dutch War, Dutch forces retook New York and renamed it New Orange. The brief restoration of Dutch rule was another imperial transfer imposed over Indigenous homelands; it did...

The treaty ended the war and set the terms for the Dutch return of New Netherland to England. European powers formalized colonial possession through diplomacy, while Indigenous communities had no role...

Dutch authorities formally returned New Netherland to England under the postwar settlement. The transfer ended Dutch political rule in the colony but preserved European settler claims and systems of...

The charter dated 23 September 1682 formalized a company shared by the Dutch West India Company, Amsterdam, and the Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck family. It organized plantation expansion and rule in a...

The VOC directors decided to send French Huguenot refugees to the Cape. Their settlement served the company’s demand for skilled farmers and reinforced colonial expansion. The Cape was already...