History of the Cape Colony before 1806 History of the Cape Colony before 1806 The written history of the Cape Colony in what is now South Africa began when Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias became the first modern European to round the Cape of Good Hope in 1488. In 1497, Vasco da Gama sailed along the whole coast of South Africa on his way to India, landed at St Helena Bay for 8 days, and made a detailed description of the area. The Portuguese, attracted by the riches of Asia, made no permanent settlement at the Cape Colony. However, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) settled the area
Surinam (Dutch colony) autonomy and self-rule. This was eventually accomplished by the proclamation of the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands on 15 December 1954, which constituted a Kingdom in which the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, and Suriname participated in on a basis of equality. In 1975, Suriname left the Kingdom of the Netherlands to become the independent country of Suriname. From 1683, the colony was governed by the Society of Suriname, a company composed of three equal shareholders, being the city of Amsterdam, the family Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck, and the Dutch West India Company. Although the organization and administration was