fortified base, where the annual fleets bound to and from Batavia could ren-
dezvous, take in fresh water, fruit, vegetables, and grain, and land their sick
for recuperation. They did not expect the Cape station to make a profit on its
own-indeed,
it never did so-but
they always tried to keep the costs of its
administration
to a minimum. Within its first decade, however, the Cape
Colony began to develop a degree ofautonomy and an unforeseen dynamic.
Bythe time van Riebeeck handed over the command to his successor in 1662,
the colony 'had become a complex, racially stratified society,"
Three processes contributed
to this development. First, the company
released some of its employees from their contracts and gave them land
with the status of "free burghers." Second, the company landed slaves at the
Cape and set them to work under Dutch supervision on creating the basic
infrastructure
for the colony-a
fort, a jetty, roads, orchards, vegetable
gardens, and arable fields. Third, as the Dutch settlement expanded slowly
but surely from the shore of Table Bay and engrossed and enclosed land for
cultivation, it did so at the expense of the local pastoralists, who had the
option of withdrawing from the fresh water resources and the rich pastures