Carte de l’Afrique Meridionale ou pays entre la Ligne & Cap de Bonne Esperance, et l’Isle de Madagascar.

Title

Carte de l’Afrique Meridionale ou pays entre la Ligne & Cap de Bonne Esperance, et l’Isle de Madagascar.

Description

Map depicts Southafrica with Madacascar, on inset map the cape of good hope with its bay and mountain.

ca. 1740

Artist

Visscher (1618-1679)

Nicolaes Visscher I (1618 -1679) Amsterdam was a Dutch engraver, cartographer and publisher. He belonged to the Dutch art dealer, engraver and publisher dynasty founded by his father Claes Janszoon Visscher. After his father's death in 1652, he took over his father's art publishing house and initially continued publishing the atlases and maps that his father had begun. He then began publishing works under his own name. Together with his son Nicolaes Visscher II (1649-1702), he engraved a large number of printing plates, further replenishing the publisher's stock. The atlases "Atlas Contractus", "Atlas Minor" and "Germania Inferior" contain about 170 plates. After N. Visscher's death, some of Visscher's copper plates passed to Petrus Schenk II (1693-1775), who used them for numerous reprints.

Historical Description

Some of the world's oldest paleoanthropological fossils have been unearthed in South Africa. After these pre-humans, various species of the Homo genus such as Homo habilis, Homo naledi, Homo erectus and finally modern man, Homo sapiens, lived here. The beginning of modern historiography in South Africa is set on April 6, 1652, when the Dutchman Jan van Riebeeck built a supply station on the Cape of Good Hope on behalf of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC). Due to its strategically favorable location, it was supposed to be a rest stop for merchant ships traveling between Europe and Southeast Asia. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the settlement, which slowly but steadily expanded, was owned by the Netherlands. The settlers initially spread to the western Cape region, which at that time was a retreat for the Khoisan. Several hundred French Huguenots, after being persecuted in France from 1686, came into the country via the Netherlands from 1688 and brought the viticulture culture with them. The French-speaking names of wineries and fruit-growing farms in the western Cape can be traced back to them. After reaching the Bantu settlement border eastwards in 1770, they waged a series of wars - the border wars - against the Xhosa people. The Cape Dutch brought numerous slaves into the country from Indonesia, Madagascar and India.