First Peoples
20km from the city of Cape Town is a sheltered valley, nestled in
fynbos-covered mountains and leading out into the cold
blue Atlantic. Its First People were the Strandlopers
(“Beach walkers”), who existed on seafood, roots and
berries and who shared the Cape Peninsula with
elephants, leopards, lions, baboons and game. One band
of Standlopers, the Goringhaiqcona were on hand to greet
Jan van Riebeeck and the first European settlers in
1652. This was not the first time that Strandlopers or
Khoi people had interacted with Europeans, there are
records of a battle in 1510 between Khoi people and
Francisco d’Almeida’s expedition. Some say that Hout Bay
was the site of this skirmish, others the mouth of the
Salt River. The Portuguese lost 57 men to the Khoi that
day, but had their revenge in a few years later when
they tricked the Khoi into dragging away cannon filled
with gunpowder and shot, which they then exploded,
causing carnage among the Khoi.
Ultimately it was not gunpowder which destroyed the Khoi people of
the Cape Peninsula, it was an epidemic of smallpox
brought by the Dutch which destroyed the integrity of
the Goringhaiqua Khoi, who were scattered as they fled
the epidemic into the interior. In the time that
followed the Khoi culture as a whole was disintegrated
by the loss of their land, enslavement and alcoholism.
However many in the Western Cape still have Khoi
ancestry and traces of their language and culture
endure.
Forestry
The first written reference to Hout Bay was in 1607 when the
English vessel Consent was becalmed at the
entrance to the Bay. The Master’s Mate John Chapman was
sent in on a “chancy” survey in late afternoon, and
reported a fine, deep natural harbour, sheltered from
North- Westerly gales. The bay was called “Chapmans
Chance”, which name appears on some early maps.
The name Hout Bay (“Houtbaaitjen”) was coined by Jan van Riebeeck
after the Dutch discovered a forest of tall; straight
indigenous trees 5 km from the beach. By 1674 the Dutch
had overcome the logistical problems of getting the
heavy indigenous wood to the beach, and began shipping
timber to Cape Town. It is important to note that the
lower reaches of Hout Bay valley were not ever forested,
but consisted of palmiet wetlands and fynbos. By 1684
all the big indigenous trees were gone! Today the
indigenous forest is slowly regenerating back to its
former magnificence in the Oranjekloof Reserve in the
upper Hout Bay valley. Hout Bay’s suitability for trees
has seen an unbroken practice of forestry, with
plantings of oaks and pines by early settlers, and
today’s suburban treescape.
Farming
The early woodcutters in the 17th century kept cattle,
sheep, goats and pigs, and planted sweet potatoes to
sustain themselves in the isolated valley. By 1677 grain
shortages led to the first land grants to freeburghers
(former employees of the Dutch East India Company who
were granted land on a sharecropper basis). However the
first farmers returned to Table Bay after lions and
leopards ate their animals, and fire destroyed one of
the homesteads, killing a child. Fire remains a hazard
in Hout Bay today, as the area has strong winds and
summer droughts. The City’s Fire Department, Table
Mountain National Parks and the Volunteer Wildfire
Service are called out every season to wildfires in Hout
Bay.
Later efforts were more successful, and farms such as Kronendal
(1681) were established. If Kronendal was set up on the
remains of the earlier farmstead (as seems likely) it
would be the oldest existing farm in South Africa. Today
Kronendal is a the Home of the Hout Bay Museum.
These early farmers produced grain, kept livestock and planted
vines for wine and brandy making. After the Second World
War the demand for vegetables increased, and vines were
pulled out. Hout Bay was renowned for tomatoes,
cauliflowers and other vegetables taken over the
Mountain to Cape Town. Today Hout Bay depends on fossil
fuels to bring vegetables into the valley.
