The back story
The Bo-Kaap: the Back Story of Cape Town’s Painted Quarter
How the Bo-Kaap grew from rented cottages to the heart of the Cape Muslim community.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsThe story of the Bo-Kaap on the slopes of Signal Hill: the cottages of the 1760s, the first mosque at the Cape, freedom of religion in 1804, emancipation in 1834, the New Year Carnival and the Iziko Bo-Kaap Museum. Facts from Iziko Museums of South Africa.
Climb Wale Street from the city centre and the houses turn to colour: pink, lime, turquoise, each with its flat roof and stoep. The Bo-Kaap is one of Cape Town’s oldest neighbourhoods and the historic heart of its Muslim community, and its story is the story of the Cape itself.
Waalendorp
In the 1760s Jan de Waal began building small rented houses on the slope of Signal Hill, and the area became known as Waalendorp. Most of the neighbourhood went up between 1760 and 1840. The modest flat-roofed houses were often let to immigrant artisans, while free Black residents and freed slaves lived here too.
One of De Waal’s houses, built in 1768, is the only one that keeps its original form. It is now the Iziko Bo-Kaap Museum.
Faith and freedom
The Auwal Mosque, the first mosque at the Cape, stands here on land given by Saartjie van die Kaap; Iziko gives its founding as 1798 or 1804. Religious freedom came in 1804 and the Muslim community grew: by 1824 the area had two mosques, five prayer rooms and four madrassas.
Photo Credit
Image courtesy of © Dietmar Rabich · CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia CommonsSlavery ended in 1834, and many freed slaves moved into the Bo-Kaap, taking over houses from earlier tenants. In the mid-1800s minarets rose on mosques that had looked like ordinary buildings, and by 1885 the Bo-Kaap had taken the shape you walk today.
Most of the Bo-Kaap was built between 1760 and 1840, and by 1885 it had taken the shape you walk today.
The twentieth century
In 1907 the New Year Carnival, closely linked to the Bo-Kaap and District Six, became an official tradition. In the early 1900s about half the Bo-Kaap was Muslim. In the 1950s and 1960s, under the Group Areas Act, parts of it were reserved for Cape Muslims and other residents were forced to leave, while nearby District Six was cleared. The community resisted segregation until 1994.
Did you know? The Bo-Kaap Museum opened on 22 April 1978, furnished as the home of a 19th-century Cape Muslim family.
Visiting today
Start at the museum at 71 Wale Street, open Monday to Saturday, then walk the streets around it. The Bo-Kaap is a living neighbourhood, so be quiet and respectful, and ask before you photograph people or their homes. Lunch is Cape Malay, at Bo-Kaap Kombuis on August Street.
Our advice
Our advice: go in the morning, when the light is soft on the colours and the streets are calm, and pair the Bo-Kaap with the Slave Lodge and the District Six Museum to see the whole story.
Why it's on our list
- Waalendorp
- Faith and freedom
- The twentieth century
- Visiting today
- Our advice
Location
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