Willem Adriaan van der Stel succeeds his father

On 11 February 1699, Willem Adriaan van der Stel was installed at the Castle as governor of the Cape and its dependency Mauritius. He succeeded his father Simon, who had governed the Cape since 1691 and retired to Constantia. Willem Adriaan inherited an expanding settlement with free-burgher farms, Company institutions, enslaved labour and growing administrative demands.

Significance

The succession continued the Cape's institutional and agricultural growth and began a governorship that would bring disputes over official farming, landholding, trade and political authority to the centre of Cape politics.