Dutch hold on the Gold Coast was responsible for an enormous increase of the Slave Trade between West Africa and America and is the reason why such a large proportion of the United States, West Indian, and Guiana negroes are of Ashanti (Coromanti, Kormantyn) and Fanti descent; as is evident from their folk-lore, legends and the linguistic evidence of their dialects. The Dutch were not loath to mingle their blood with that of the Gold Coast negroes; and their long occupancy of these forts produced an impression in the shape of a race of Dutch half-castes, which endures to this day, and furnishes useful employés to the British Government in many minor capacities. But after the abolition of the slave trade Dutch commerce with the Guinea Coast began to wane, and their political influence disappeared also; so that by 1872 the last of the Dutch ports had been transferred to Great Britain in return for the cession on our part of rights we possessed over Sumatra. Meantime Dutch trade had begun to take firm hold over the Congo and Angola Coast; and it is possible that, had the cession of the Gold Coast forts been delayed a few years longer, it would never have been made, for Holland possesses a considerable trade with Africa, and there has been a strong feeling of regret in the Netherlands for some time past at the exclusion of that country’s flag from the African continent. But a far more important colonization than a foothold on the Slave-trade Coast was made indirectly for Holland in the middle of the 17th century; the Dutch East India Company, desirous of making the Cape of Good Hope something more than a port of call, which might fall into the hands of Portugal, France, England, or any other rival, decided to occupy that important station. The Dutch had taken possession of St Helena in 1645; but a Dutch ship having been wrecked at Table Bay in 1648, the crew landed, and encamped where Cape Town now stands. Here they were obliged to live for five months, until picked up by other Dutch ships; but during this period they sowed and reaped grain, and obtained plenty of meat from the natives, with whom they were on good terms. The favourable report they gave of this country on their return to Holland decided the Dutch Company, after years of hesitation, to take possession of Table Bay. An expedition was sent out under Jan van Riebeek, a ship’s surgeon, who had already visited South Africa. The three ships of Van Riebeek’s expedition reached Table Bay on the 6th of April, 1652[87].