WI the Dutch found gold in Cape colony.

So let's say there was gold around Cape town and some lucky boer strikes rich around the 1680s, how would the VOC proceed and would this lead to more immigrants going to South Africa.
 
You'd probably see Gold Rush mentality hit many enterprising Dutchmen and the early settlement of the Cape would be degrees of magnitude larger. If I had to guess anywhere from 30,000 to something exceeding 100,000 settlers not just from the Netherlands proper but likely Flanders, Scandinavia, Germany, and England could arrive; the Dutch certainly have the ship capacity to move that many people over the span of say, two decades, especially if they're recruiting foreigners. It may also break the historical Dutch aversion to settler colonization and we could see larger creole communities in Ceylon and Java.

Additionally, the Dutch may view Portuguese territories in Africa with a lot more interest due to either the potential for gold or the threat they could pose to their newfound mint.
 
Alternately it could lead to the British deciding to "acquire" the colony which would lead to lots of British settlers flooding in. After all the English had seized New Amsterdam a few years earlier for reasons a lot worse than gold being discovered.
 
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Alternately it could lead to the British deciding to "acquire" the colony which would lead to lots of British settlers flooding in. After all the English had simply seized New Amsterdam a few years earlier for reasons a lot worse than gold being discovered.

Ahem the WIC traded New Amsterdam for Suriname....

Let those greedy Brits try..., then the gold can be put to good use.

Moreover during the Dutch Golden Age, when the Republic had great commanders such as De Ruyter, Tromp etc. it was the Republic with the naval superiority. Alas during a Stadtholderless era the mercantile regents preferred business over defence; IOTL 1672, the disaster year, France and England, were responsible for the restoration of the house of Orange-Nassau in the person of William III (son of Mary Stuart and married to another Mary Stuart). As in the proper monarchies ruled by relatives of the house of Orange-Nassau, the military (Army and Navy) was and is traditionally close to the monarch (OTOH he did (in part) get a military education), so neglecting the military also weakened the house of Orange-Nassau. That ended up backfiring in 1672, when the Republic was attacked from all sides, including England (with friends like these, moreover Charles spend part of his exile with and/or on the lands of his Orange-Nassau relatives(,
 
Trans-Oceanic gold rushes 19th century style seem a bit unlikely in the 17th century, but some gold might encourage the VOC to invest a bit more in the colony. Long term this could lead to a significantly larger Boer population, 10 000 extra people in 1700 would lead to a heck of a lot more by 1850-1900...
 
Trans-Oceanic gold rushes 19th century style seem a bit unlikely in the 17th century, but some gold might encourage the VOC to invest a bit more in the colony. Long term this could lead to a significantly larger Boer population, 10 000 extra people in 1700 would lead to a heck of a lot more by 1850-1900...

Potosi peaked around 200,000 in the 17th century, the original boom town of the Americas

Transatlantic gold rushes were definitely a thing back then. And most importantly, sailing to the Cape is a hell of a lot easier than sailing to Cartagena de Indias and then traversing along the Andes. Whether it be with settling mass amounts of Europeans, or if you're inclined via this route, utilizing slaves to extract the gold.
 
Potosi peaked around 200,000 in the 17th century, the original boom town of the Americas

Transatlantic gold rushes were definitely a thing back then. And most importantly, sailing to the Cape is a hell of a lot easier than sailing to Cartagena de Indias and then traversing along the Andes. Whether it be with settling mass amounts of Europeans, or if you're inclined via this route, utilizing slaves to extract the gold.

This could also lead to a faster expansion into South Africa as after the gold rush people would be looking to settle and with little land left in the Cape they'd have look into the continents interior.
 
Maybe expanded Dutch settlement in ZA leads them to settle in Australia where they eventually discover more precious minerals?
 
utilizing slaves to extract the gold.

i somehow doubt they will use slaves, gold is to precious to let slaves near it
also increased slave use will lead to a gigantic collision with the VOC, slaves in the cape colony were in OTL already a major point of argument between the cape colonists and the VOC (who pretty much opposed increasing it)

in fact the gold rush will reduce use of slaves, most people getting there for the gold rush will have little luck and have to resort to normal (and often low paying) jobs.
these down on their luck people will remove the need for more slaves, since in otl the slaves were brought in because of a lack of manpower for agriculture.
 
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So let's say there was gold around Cape town and some lucky boer strikes rich around the 1680s, how would the VOC proceed and would this lead to more immigrants going to South Africa.

As specified on this forum, geological PODs be long to the ASB section.

Otherwise you could have a what if 50% of oil, natural gas, gold, coal, silver, iron, uranium, and rare earth metals were in OTL Brazil, Italy, US, ... etc.
 
As specified on this forum, geological PODs be long to the ASB section.

Otherwise you could have a what if 50% of oil, natural gas, gold, coal, silver, iron, uranium, and rare earth metals were in OTL Brazil, Italy, US, ... etc.

It's not ASB since there is gold in the Cape
 
i somehow doubt they will use slaves, gold is to precious to let slaves near it
also increased slave use will lead to a gigantic collision with the VOC, slaves in the cape colony were in OTL already a major point of argument between the cape colonists and the VOC (who pretty much opposed increasing it)

in fact the gold rush will reduce use of slaves, most people getting there for the gold rush will have little luck and have to resort to normal (and often low paying) jobs.
these down on their luck people will remove the need for more slaves, since in otl the slaves were brought in because of a lack of manpower for agriculture.

Fair point, but the Spanish already set precedent for the use of slaves to extract mass amounts of precious metals over in Potosi. Who's to say the Dutch won't be tempted to use slave labor when it's so abundant and nearby? Plus, the original settlers are likely to get completely overwhelmed and their attitude towards slaves may or may not prevail. I suppose what the demographic outcome is would be heavily tied to who controls the mining process, the VOC or the Dutch government.
 
Sure but this was not the question.

The question was : WI there were gold in Cape Town location.

And not just an ounce.

So let's say there was gold around Cape town and some lucky boer strikes rich around the 1680s, how would the VOC proceed and would this lead to more immigrants going to South Africa.
 
Sure but this was not the question.

The question was : WI there were gold in Cape Town location.

And not just an ounce.

I see the confusion I'm not asking if there were to be more gold, but if the gild already there was discovered earlier that otl.
 
Note the word "around."

Sure. But I strongly doubt "around" can in any way be the appropriate word for 1,000 kilometers away.

So the settlers would have had to go much further into the lands to find gold.

ANd to have such a great trek to what was to become Transvaal, you would need :
- either the same process as happened in the british colonies on the north american continent or in Australia (a big enough population base on the coast so that there is demographic pressure for pushing deeper into the continent in order to grab new lands),
- or the same process as happened in South Africa OTL (a first group of settlers living on the cost is conquered by a foreign power and, not wanting to live under these conquerors' rule, moves deeper inside the continents).

I strongly doubt the second hypothesis could have happened much earlier than it did OTL.

The first hypothesis would be possible if you have a significant flux dutch of immigration heading directly towards South African rather than heading towards the Americas as it did OTL.

You need much more than the 1300 european settlers that lived in South Africa by 1700. And you need to butterfly away the halt on immigration that was implemented OTL in 1706. You need far more than only 60,000 people, slaves included, by 1800, or you need them to have a strong inventive to move inland which would be weird because they naturally need to be close to the coasts.
 
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