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De Waterkant: History, culture, convenience, and class all in the heart of the Mother City
Welcome to our home, a spectacular Cape Georgian home built around 1860 with slate from Signal Hill next door still visible on the exposed western wall of the living room!
Enjoy de Waterkant’s incredible proximity to the V&A Waterfront (one of South Africa’s most popular attractions), Green Point and its gorgeous DHL Stadium and trendy restaurants, Table Mountain and its famed cable car, and the bustling central business district (CBD – great food, clubs, and history). And the wine farms of the Swartland, Stellenbosch, and Paarl are less than 1 hours drive, and the entrance gate to Cape Point National Park is also ~ 1 hour away! Experience it all from 118 Waterkant.
De Waterkant was originally part of Bo Kaap, a colourful neighborhood reflecting the history of Cape Town itself in its wonderful complexity, complications, joy, and pain. For over a century the western boundary of Cape Town was Buitengracht (“outer moat”), a canal bringing run off water from Lion’s Head and Signal Hill down to the historic waterkant (“water area”) where fisherman, docks, boats, slaves (from Indonesia, India, Mozambique, and Madagascar mainly), free slaves, free burghers, Khoi, various Bantu-speaking tribes of
Southern Africa, and Dutch East Indian employees laboured, loved, hated, hurt, and resiliently pushed through life in the outpost of Cape Town. The first joint stock company in the history of the world, the Dutch East India Company colonized South Africa. Cape Town’s population was not even 100,000 as late as 1890 when the gold rush around Johannesburg sparked a burst of trade activity at the port of Cape Town.
Jan de Waal developed the first settlement in Bo Kaap only in 1760, building huurhuisjes (“hire houses”) for rent to immigrant artisans and craftsmen of various, but also free blacks (some Muslim immigrants) and free slaves. Today Bo Kaap is closely associated with its coloured, Muslim look and feel. Tuan Guru was a member of royal household in Indonesia before the Dutch East India Company banished him in 1780 and interred him on the infamous Robben Island (home to Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists) for 18 years.
When Tuan Guru left prison he set up the first mosque in South Africa in 1794, the Auwal Mosque (only a 15 minute walk away). After the end of slavery in 1834, some slaves were “manumitted” to freedom instantaneously, whilst others spent nearly 20 years of “apprenticeships” before finally achieving freedom in the 1850s. Many of these slaves ended up living and working in the melting pot of Bo Kaap (including de Waterkant) until the infamous Group Area’s Act of 1956 in which as many as 200,000 non-white inhabitants of Cape Town were forcibly moved to townships and settled in hostels.
A white apartheid administrator named ID du Plessis petitioned the apartheid government to preserve a uniquely Cape Muslim neighborhood in Bo Kaap. Bo Kaap was declared a “Malay” area and other black/brown South Africans were evicted from the neighborhood. Yet still St. Andrews Presbyterian Church just off Somerset Road was the first church where free slaves joined Capetonians in an integrated worship service in 1834. Strand/High Level Road eventually severed De Waterkant from Bo Kaap, and De Waterkant developed an independent identity and village-feel that markets Cape Town’s cosmopolitan, diverse, beautiful hideaway in the heart of the Mother City. Enjoy some of Cape Town’s incredible history, it’s best food (and coffee), and diverse people! A warm welcome to you from all the staff at Liberty Homes 1834.