This Day in History: 23 June 1792
On 23 June 1792, Simon Hendrik Freykenius and Sebastiaan Cornelis Nederburgh arrived in the Cape.
Both Freykenius and Nederburgh were Commissioner-Generals of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), and were sent to assist dissatisfied free burghers, or farmers who had been given land independent of the VOC, on how to better earn a living.
However, the VOC had a monopoly over trade and industry in the Cape, which made matters difficult for free burghers. Freykenius and Nederburgh therefore encouraged whaling and free trade with passing ships, in order to boost the burgher economy.
Nederburgh, who was a conservative Dutch statesman, was later responsible for the Charter of 1801, or Nederburgh's Charter, which established Dutch colonial policy after the government took over the VOC.