An early modern entrepreneur: Hendrik Oostwald Eksteen and the creation of wealth in Cape Town, 1702�1741
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Date
2009
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Published by History Department, University of the Western Cape
Abstract
This article uses the career of Hendrik Oostwald Eksteen at the Cape between
1702 and 1741 to illustrate the mechanisms free burghers could use to create
wealth in an economically restrictive environment. By making use of the concept
of entrepreneurship and its attendant issues, the article describes Eksteen?s rise
to fortune and prestige through his exploitation of a combination of economic
opportunities afforded by Cape Town?s position as a port servicing passing ships.
Crucial to Eksteen?s later success was his successful use of the opportunities
provided by the monopolistic alcohol retail market at the Cape. Eksteen?s initial
success in this arena provided him with a capital base to pursue other opportunities
in agriculture, fishing and meat provision, making him the wealthiest man at
the Cape by the 1730s. The article also illustrates how Eksteen?s upward mobility
was linked to his use of social capital and the cultivation of large social networks
through kinship. It demonstrates, furthermore, that economic success was wound
up with social power and prestige. In using the biography of Eksteen, the article
argues for the importance of economic history in the study of the early modern
Cape, but calls also for a study which links economic developments with social
and cultural ones through a focus on individual entrepreneurs. Shown, too, is the
fact that the existing conception of the rise of a Cape gentry in the eighteenth century needs to be revised to take into account the role of entrepreneurship, the
urban foundations of wealth creation, as well as the role of the free black community
in this process.
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Keywords
Cape Town, History, Entrepreneurship, Economic history, Economic conditions, Dutch colonial
Citation
Groenewald, G. (2009). An early modern entrepreneur: Hendrik Oostwald Eksteen and the creation of wealth in Dutch colonial Cape Town, 1702�1741. Kronos, 35: 6-31