EAST INDIES ROUTE-[Baya de Saldanha / Ca…

Rare c.18th map of Table Bay, South Africa, extending from Saldanha Bay to the Cape of Good Hope from the most important record of the V.O.C. (Dutch East India Company by Francois Valentyn.

Cape Town was founded by the Dutch East India Company or the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) in 1652 as a refreshment outpost for the to supply of VOC ships on their way to Asia with fresh fruits, vegetables, meat and water. In 1480, Portuguese ships had landed on the West Coast of Africa. Bartholomeu Dias explored the continent further southwards and in 1488 unknowingly sailed round the Cape. Dias went as far as Port Elizabeth before turning back presumably due to protests by his ship crew. On his return Dias erected a cross (on the Gulf between the Mountains later named by sailors as ‘False Bay’). Dias named the Cape, the Cape Storms, but John II the king of Portugal renamed it the Cape of Good Hope. The name expressed the king’s optimism that a sea trade route to India could be opened up via the Cape. In 1497 Vasco da Gama an sailed round the Cape way to India establishing the route to the Spice Islands along the African coast to India, then to Malacca.

Valentyn studied theology and travelled twice to the East Indies in the employ of the V.O.C, firstly as a Calvinist minister on the spice island of Amboina (1686-1694) and then to Java (1706) and again Amboina (1707-1713). In the preparation of his historical account of the V.O.C. in the East, Valentyn was given privileged access to the secret archives of the company, enabling him to provide detailed information on previous Dutch voyages to the Indies, including those of Abel Tasman.

From Francois Valentyn’s (1656-1727), Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien, vervattende Een Naaukeurige…..