Jan van Riebeeck

January Anthoniszoon van Riebeeck ( Afrikaans: / jɑn ɑntʊə̯nəsʊə̯n fɑnribiə̯k, jɑn ɑntʊə̯nəsʊə̯n fɑribiə̯k / ) (* April 16, 1619 in Culemborg, The Netherlands, † January 18, 1677 in Batavia (today's Jakarta ) ) was a Dutch ship's doctor, businessman and the founder and first administrator of the Cape Colony in South Africa.

Van Riebeeck first worked from 1639 to 1648 as a physician ( " chirurgijn " = surgeon: in the Netherlands to about 1800, the name of a doctor because he lack of specialists and operations performed ) in East Asia, including at Dejima in Japan.

Van Riebeeck was in 1651 on behalf of the Dutch East India Company head an expedition to South Africa. The ships reached the Cape of Good Hope and landed on April 6, 1652 in Table Bay. Van Riebeeck people should create a base to ensure the supply of merchant ships trading company with food. They built the Fort de Goede Hoop at the foot of Table Mountain and began to grow fruits and vegetables and to trade with the locals. In a relatively short time evolved from this office because it was in a strategic point, the City of Cape Town - the first permanent European settlement on South African soil.

Van Riebeeck administered the colony until 1662 (see also: Cape Colony ). Then he went back to the Dutch East Indies, where he still held several offices until he died in 1677.

He discovered on December 17, 1652 the first European to a comet from South African soil, the comet C/1652 Y1.