1795 — Britain Seizes the Cape

On September 16, 1795, British forces under General Sir James Henry Craig took possession of Cape Town, ending 143 years of Dutch East India Company rule at the Cape. Britain moved to secure the colony after revolutionary France overran the Netherlands, fearing the strategic refreshment station on the sea route to India would fall into French hands. The Dutch governor surrendered following the British victory at the Battle of Muizenberg.

The Cape was briefly returned to the Dutch in 1803 under the Treaty of Amiens, but Britain seized it again in 1806 and held it for the next century — the springboard for British expansion across southern Africa.