A Climate History of Early Dutch Settlement at Cape Town, 1652–62

Abstract

This article uses historical and climatological methods to recontextualise the first decade of Dutch settlement at the Cape, 1652–62. It draws on weather data contained in the Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, natural proxies in the region, climate reanalysis and the global context of a particularly severe period during the Little Ice Age to reconstruct climatic conditions at monthly and seasonal scales for the decade under review. This reconstruction shows that the Dutch settled at a time of declining moisture at the Cape: relatively wet summers gave way to dry winters, while short-term droughts and deluges were regular occurrences. It then integrates this climatic context into an understanding of the history of this period. In so doing, it argues that adverse climatic conditions helped to undermine early Dutch designs on intensive agriculture, accelerated many free burghers’ initial transition towards pastoralism, shaped the timing and volume of the cattle trade between settlers and indigenous populations and exacerbated tensions that led to the first Khoikhoi–Dutch war (1659–60). It may also have enhanced the transmission of and deaths from disease, though the evidence in this instance is less conclusive. In short, a climate-historical perspective shows that adverse climatic and environmental factors critically affected many of the core themes that are already associated with the history of early Dutch settlement at the Cape.