Table Bay

Table Bay lies beneath the flat summit of Table Mountain, on a coast where Khoikhoi herders lived long before European ships arrived. The bay offered an anchorage and fresh water to vessels rounding southern Africa, though storms could make it dangerous. In 1652 Jan van Riebeeck established a Dutch East India Company supply station on its shore. The newcomers traded for livestock, but their expanding settlement and occupation of grazing land brought conflict with the Khoikhoi.