Wheat and wine farming expand in the south-western Cape

From the 1680s, free-burgher and Company agriculture expanded around Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, Constantia and the Berg River valleys. Wheat supplied the settlement and passing ships, while vineyards developed into a commercial crop as land grants and farming infrastructure moved beyond the Peninsula.

Significance

The expansion created a durable export-oriented farming economy based on settler land grants, livestock exchange and increasing use of enslaved labour.