ABSTRACT
The presence of white settlers determined the composition of the new society at the Cape. While the Kaapse Patriotte, a western Cape settlers’ organization, demanded political and economic reforms from the Netherlands East India Company (VOC), which ruled the Cape, on the northern and eastern frontiers the San and Xhosa were resisting the advance of white occupation. Between 1672 and 1679 the free white population increased from 168 to 259, partly through freeing suitable VOC employees, partly through the excess of births over deaths, and to a minor degree through immigration. Many of the most important features of the emergent new society at the Cape were moulded by the policies of the VOC, which ruled the Cape as a minor part of the Dutch Eastern Empire from 1652 to 1795. The focal point of the new society thus created was the white settler community.
