History of Cape Town
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."[7]
This article is about the history of Cape Town; for the modern-day city, see Cape Town.The arrival of Europeans[edit]
The first Europeans to reach the Cape were the Portuguese. Bartholomeu Dias arrived in 1488 after journeying south along the west coast of Africa. The next recorded European sighting of the Cape was by Vasco da Gama in 1497 while he was searching for a route that would lead directly from Europe to Asia.
Table Mountain was given its name in 1503 by António de Saldanha, a Portuguese admiral and explorer.[8] He called it Taboa do Cabo ("table of the cape"). The name given to the mountain by the Khoi inhabitants was Hoeri 'kwaggo ("sea mountain").[9] A Portuguese force led by Francisco de Almeida was defeated in the Battle of Salt River by the indigenous Goringhaiqua Khoikhoi clan.
The apartheid years[edit]
The latter settlement was the start of what would later develop into the townships of the Cape Flats. In 1948, the National Party stood for election on its policy of racial segregation, later known as apartheid. After a series of bitter court and constitutional battles, the already limited voting rights of the Coloured community in Cape Province were revoked. In 1966, the once-vibrant District Six area was bulldozed and declared a white-only area.[17] This and many similar declarations under the Group Areas Act resulted in whole communities being uprooted and relocated to the Cape Flats.
Under apartheid, the Cape was considered a "Coloured labour preference area", to the exclusion of Black Africans. The government tried for decades to remove largely Xhosa squatter camps, such as Crossroads, which were the focal point for black resistance in the Cape area to the policies of apartheid. In the last forced removal, between May and June 1986, an estimated 70,000 people were expelled from their homes.