Extraction old and new: mining the desert in southwestern Africa
At the extreme southern tip of Africa in 1652, the world’s first trans-national corporation began establishing a new port. The powerful Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or VOC) initially just wanted a resupply point for ships rounding the Cape on their long and profitable ‘spice trading’ route to Indonesia. But despite resistance from local people, over the following decades the Cape Colony spread ever further east and north, pursuing a growing hun