English East India Company commanders claim Table Bay for King James I

In June 1620, four English East India Company ships bound for Surat under Andrew Shillinge were joined at Table Bay by two ships bound for Bantam under Humphrey Fitzherbert. The commanders heard from Dutch officers that the Dutch intended to establish a settlement at the Cape and convened a council of officers. On 1 July they resolved to proclaim English possession; on 3 July they raised the English flag and subscribed a formal declaration claiming Table Bay and adjoining territory in the name of King James I. They raised a stone monument on the hill now associated with Signal Hill, which they called “King James his Mount.”

The declaration was a company commanders’ action, not an established English settlement. No permanent garrison or agricultural station followed, and the English Crown did not ratify the claim. The surviving record also reflects the commanders’ strategic aims: securing a refreshment station and preventing a rival Dutch occupation.

Significance

The proclamation records an early English attempt to secure the Cape as a strategic refreshment station, while its failure to produce ratified sovereignty or settlement shows the difference between symbolic possession and effective occupation.