The Cape of Good Hope Colony and the British World Turned Upside-down, 1806-1836

The Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa was the largest European port on the continent for several hundred years. Despite its centuries-long importance, the Cape and its role in the rise of nineteenth-century globalisation remains largely unexamined and our dominant analytical frameworks have been constructed from a Northern Hemisphere perspective focused on Europe, Asia and North America. This article, based on an analysis of port data for Table Bay (Cape Town) from 1806 to 1836, examines what happened to global trade from the perspective of the Cape Colony. Through this Southern Hemisphere lens, a new aperture opens onto the British world, making it possible to observe how the Empire reintegrated and reconfigured itself in the decades after losing its American colonies, how new economies developed in the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific and Southern oceans and how they were linked.