The colorful Bo Kaap district has a long history, dating back to the mid-colonial eighteenth century. Jan de Waal from Amsterdam worked for the VOC on the Cape and moved with his family to this area where he built small white rental houses for all kinds of people. These were white immigrants, people of color who performed indentured servitude, and enslaved people. Wale Street refers to the family name De Waal. After slavery was abolished in 1834-1838, many newly liberated people came to Bo Kaap to live there. It became a place where tailors, workers, craftsmen, and musicians settled, including a large Muslim community, which held worship services and established the first mosque (see Auwal Mosque, No. 4) and cemeteries (see Tana Baru, No. 3). To celebrate freedom, the houses have become colorful, but nowadays they form the backdrop for fashion shoots. During apartheid, Bo Kaap was assigned to Cape Malays, after failed attempts to house exclusively white people in this neighborhood.

Sources

• Dawjee, Haji Mohamed; Davis, Rebecca & Deysel, Gavin. (2019). The Story of Bo-Kaap. [podcast] https://omny.fm/shows/ewn/a-long-and-surprising-history.
• Wilcox, Michael. (N.d.). “Early Bo-Kaap part 1”. Tusk Adventures and Tours. [online] https://tuskadventures.co.za/2023/07/07/early-bo-kaap-part-1/.
• South African History Online. (2021). Jan De Waal House, 93 Bree Street, Cape Town. [online] https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/jan-de-waal-house-93-bree-street-cape-town.