why did the people of the netherlands choose to settle in south africa?

Cape Town in what is now South Africa was established as a Dutch colonial outpost in the 1652 because it was on the sea route to the East Indies. People from the Netherlands settled there because it was better agricultural land than what they had back home, as did Germans and Huguenot (Protestant) refugees from France who eventually adopted the Dutch language. Over the next 2 and a half centuries they spread throughout South Africa, as well as into what would come to be known as Namibia, and established their own settler states, which eventually the British, who had taken Cape Town from the Dutch in the early 19th century, conquered. The Dutch language as it evolved in South Africa is known as Afrikaans, and the people speaking it are known as Afrikaners.

There was also some mingling between the Afrikaners in and around Cape Town, local Africans and slaves brought in from the East Indies, leading to a group of peoples known the Cape Coloured. The Cape Coloured, who also speak Afrikaans, form a majority in the sparsely-populated western third of South Africa; some also live in Namibia.

There are also Whites* who descend not from the original Dutch and Huguenot settlers but from those Brits who came in after the British annexation or from immigrants from other parts of the world who came in during the late 19th and 20th centuries. They speak English, not Afrikaans.

In South Africa, Whites make up 9.2% of the population, 59% of whom are Afrikaners, and Coloureds 8.8%. So if you meet an Afrikaans-speaker in South Africa, his or her skin is statistically more likely to be brown (Cape Coloured) than white. In Namibia, whites make up 6.4% of the population, 60% of whom are Afrikaners**, and Coloureds 6.7% (including the group known as the Rehoboth Basters).

*The words "White" and "Black" in reference to race are capitalized in South African English.

**Most of the rests are Germans, since almost all of Namibia was once a German colony

In the early 1700's the French settled components of Canada and a ways North america (Quebec, Newfoundland, fort Nashwaak). Additionally they controlled the Windward Islands (within the Caribbean) and French Guyana (South the us). The Spanish controlled Florida, New Mexico, and areas of South the usa such as New Grenada and Bogota. Cuba and Hispaniola (within the Caribbean) were additionally underneath Spanish impact. The British owned the Bahamas and Jamaica, along with a few colonies on the East coast of the united statesA (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Boston - Confederation of recent England, Maine etc). In vital-east united statesA (Kentucky for example) and northern regions (Algonquin territory, Michigan and so on), native American Indians lived - tribes such as the Plains international locations, Cherokees, Huron-Wyandot and Iroquois Confederacy. EDIT: stop complicating the question Muighan. The understanding I supplied for the early 1700's was correct, I have no idea the place you're getting Scandinavia from lol? Scandinavia wasn't a principal European energy or minor European energy for that subject. It is now not a nation-state in any respect, it's a word we use to consult the Nordic men and women (Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Danish) and is accordingly inappropriate. You've gotten many flaws for your writing manner, go learn some grammar books. EDIT: Lol you got an anger trouble little woman, I do not envy you and your deluded views of historical past.

They were colonists around the world and the Dutch just saw it as one more of their colonies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DutchEmpire15.pn...

An anachronous map of the Dutch colonial Empire. Light green: territories administered by or originating from territories administered by the Dutch East India Company; dark green the Dutch West India Company

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Empire

Hman