VOC expeditions search for Namaqua trade and mineral resources

From 1659 the VOC sent repeated parties north from the Cape to find routes to Namaqua communities, obtain livestock through trade and investigate reports of mineral wealth. The first attempt in this sequence, led by Christiaan Jansen van Hoesum, left on 3 February 1659 and returned on 7 March without reaching the Namaqua. The journal records the dryness of the route and information that the party would still have needed to travel several days before reaching them. Pieter Cruythoff's encounter with Namaqua communities on 31 January 1661 is treated separately.

These parties travelled through country organized by local communities and depended on information, guides and exchanges with people encountered along the way. Their journals describe distances, water, livestock, material goods and the search for copper or other mineral indications.

Significance

The expeditions extended VOC intelligence and commercial ambitions beyond the south-western Cape and established a recurring pattern of reconnaissance and attempted trade that informed later journeys to Namaqualand.