Indigenous Khoekhoe people had to repeatedly relocate in the colonial Cape, change locations or even move to places outside the Cape. Nevertheless, around the end of the seventeenth century, travellers reported a ‘Khoekhoe corral’ on the outskirts of the Dutch settlement. A map from c. 1700 shows a so-called ‘Hottentot village’ (the derogatory term used for the Khoekhoe people) on the slopes of Signal Hill. According to historian Karel Schoeman29 , this village was located somewhere between what is now Mouille Point and the Waterfront, possibly where the Green Point Urban Park is now located. This biodiversity garden offers a selection of Cape Town’s unique flora. You will find about three hundred native plant species and information about the use of these plants by the Khoekhoe and San peoples. It is known that enslaved people traded with the residents of the Khoekhoedorp to buy firewood. Khoekhoe villages that were further from the city were very willing to welcome escaped enslaved people and accept them into their communities.
