The first people that lived in the Cape Town area were the Khoisan people (San and the Khoikhoi). The San (Bushmen) were the first people to inhabit Southern Africa. There are many various reports about when the first settlement was started. The San mainly survived by hunting and picking berries and other fruits.

The Khoikhoi were closely related to the San peole of Southern Africa. The Khoikhoi were known to the Europeans as Hottentots ("hottentot" meant someone who stutters in the Dutch dialect of the Colonists). They were named that because of the clicking sounds typical to their language. The Khoikhois were traditional herders who had many sheeps and cattle.

In 1488, the Portugese sailor and explorer Bartholomeu Diaz was the first to surround the Southern tip of Africa. His duty was to find a way to India by sailing around the South of the African continent. He set foot on the Cape in May 1488 and called it "Cabo Tormenteso" - The Cape of Storms. Diaz returned to Portugal in the end of 1488 to bring the king the good news of probably having found a sea way to India. The king was the one who named the Cape, "The Cape of Good Hope", because he hoped for the trade route to India to soon be fully discovered. Bartholomeu Diaz died in 1500 on a ship close to the Cape.

In April 1652, the Dutch Jan van Riebeeck founded a base for the Dutch-Indian Trade Company, which wanted to stop the British occupation of the Cape area. The base provided the sailors that were on their way to India with Freshwater and food. Van Riebeeck grew his famous company garden and traded for animals with the natives, the Khois. However, food was short soon and some of the Company’s employees had to begin farming. In order to develop the settlement further, slaves (mainly from Asia) were brought to the Cape to help out on the farms.

The new European immigrants needed more land and numerous battles were fought with the natives. The Khoi eventually had to give in to the superior weapons of the Europeans and had to pull back further into rougher landscapes of South Africa.

French Huguenots arrived at the Cape in 1688 when experiencing religious pursuit in their own country.

The settlers moved more into central South Africa from the mid of the 18th century onwards where they met the indigenous Xhosa. Many battles for land and power were fought.