Hasselt brings a second large group of enslaved Africans

On 6 May 1658 the VOC yacht Hasselt reached Table Bay from the Gulf of Guinea. It had acquired 271 captives at Popo, on the coast of the region now associated with Benin; 43 died during the voyage, leaving 228 people to be brought ashore. The Cape journal recorded the ship's arrival and, on 8 May, discussed the Company's instructions about the trade and whether the vessel should return for another cargo. The voyage was organised to acquire enslaved people for the VOC, not as incidental transport.

The 228 survivors entered the same system of Company allocation and labour as the Amersfoort arrivals. Some were later sent onward to Batavia, while others remained at the Cape and were employed by the Company or transferred to private owners. The surviving records provide counts, the trading location and administrative decisions, but only limited evidence about the captives' own communities and the conditions of their seizure and transport.

Significance

Together with the Amersfoort arrival, the Hasselt shipment made forced labour central to the Cape settlement's economy and administration. It also established a documented West African component within a population that later included people brought from across the Indian Ocean and Atlantic worlds.