The Cape Colony (Dutch: Kaapkolonie) was a Dutch East India Company colony in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, whence it derived its name. The original colony and its successive states that the colony was incorporated into occupied much of modern South Africa.
After some early trading expeditions, the first Dutch settlement in the Americas was founded in 1615: Fort Nassau, on Castle Island along the Hudson, near present-day Albany. The settlement served mostly as an outpost for trading in fur with the native Lenape tribespeople, but was later replaced by Fort Orange.
