Editing Cape Town (section)

=== British period ===
{{See also|Cape Colony}}[[File:Adderley Street, Cape Town, looking NE - ca. 1897.jpg|thumb|[[Adderley Street]] in 1897 was an important commercial hub in Cape Town at a time when the city was the most important centre of economic activity in the Southern Africa region.]]

With the [[Dutch Republic]] being transformed into [[First French Republic|Revolutionary France]]'s vassal [[Batavian Republic]], Great Britain moved to take control of Dutch colonies, including the colonial possessions of the VOC.

Britain [[Invasion of the Cape Colony|captured Cape Town in 1795]], but it was returned to the Dutch by treaty in 1803. British forces occupied the Cape again in 1806 following the [[Battle of Blaauwberg]] when the Batavian Republic allied with Britain's rival, France, during the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. Following the conclusion of the war Cape Town was permanently ceded to the United Kingdom in the [[Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814]].

The city became the capital of the newly formed [[British Cape Colony|Cape Colony]], whose territory expanded very substantially through the 1800s, partially as a result of [[Xhosa Wars|numerous wars]] with the [[Xhosa people|amaXhosa]] on the colony's eastern frontier. In 1833 slavery was [[Slavery in South Africa#Abolition|abolished in the colony]] freeing over 5500 slaves in the city, almost a third of the city's population at the time.<ref name="Martin 1836 113">{{Cite book |last=Martin |first=Robert Montgomery |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ifk9AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA112 |title=The British Colonial Library: In 12 volumes |date=1836 |publisher=Mortimer |pages=113 |language=en}}</ref> The [[Convict Crisis]] of 1849, marked by substantial civil upheaval, bolstered the push for self-governance in the Cape.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal |last=Anderson |first=Clare |date=3 May 2016 |title=Convicts, Carcerality and Cape Colony Connections in the 19th Century |journal=Journal of Southern African Studies |language=en |volume=42 |issue=3 |pages=429–442 |doi=10.1080/03057070.2016.1175128 |issn=0305-7070 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name=":8">RFM Immelman: ''Men of Good Hope, 1804-1954''. CTCC: Cape Town, 1955. Chapter 6 ''The Anti-convict Agitation''. p.154.</ref>

With expansion came calls for greater independence from the UK, with the Cape attaining [[Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope|its own parliament]] (1854) and a [[Responsible government#Cape Colony|locally accountable]] Prime Minister (1872). Suffrage was established according to the non-racial [[Cape Qualified Franchise]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bell |first=Charles |title=A painting of the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck in Table Bay |url=http://www.rosebuds.co.za/Toere/Cape%20Town.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111230184319/http://www.rosebuds.co.za/Toere/Cape%20Town.htm |archive-date=30 December 2011 |access-date=11 April 2011}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=McCracken |first=J.L. |url=https://archive.org/details/capeparliament180000mccr |title=The Cape Parliament, 1854–1910 |publisher=Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1967 |year=1967 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

During the 1850s and 1860s, additional plant species were introduced from Australia by the British authorities. Notably [[Acacia cyclops|rooikrans]] was introduced to stabilise the sand of the [[Cape Flats]] to allow for a road connecting the peninsula with the rest of the African continent<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Carruthers |first=Jane |last2=Robin |first2=Libby |date=23 March 2010 |title=Taxonomic imperialism in the battles for Acacia:Identity and science in South Africa and Australia |journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=60 |bibcode=2010TRSSA..65...48C |doi=10.1080/00359191003652066 |s2cid=83630585 |doi-access=free}}</ref> and [[eucalyptus]] was used to drain marshes.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Contested Past and Present: Australian Trees in South Africa |url=https://www.ssrc.org/pages/A-Contested-Past-and-Present-Australian-Trees-in-South-Africa/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200727072156/https://www.ssrc.org/pages/A-Contested-Past-and-Present-Australian-Trees-in-South-Africa/ |archive-date=27 July 2020 |access-date=12 February 2020 |website=Social Science Research Council}}</ref>

In 1859 the first railway line was built by the [[Cape Government Railways]] and a system of railways rapidly expanded in the 1870s. The discovery of diamonds in [[Griqualand West]] in 1867, and the [[Witwatersrand Gold Rush]] in 1886, prompted a flood of immigration into South Africa.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mbenga |first=Bernard |title=New History of South Africa |url=http://www.tafelberg.com/Books/2652 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140422132145/http://www.tafelberg.com/Books/2652 |archive-date=22 April 2014 |access-date=18 January 2013 |publisher=Tafelberg, South Africa, 2007}}</ref> In 1895 the city's first public power station, the [[Graaff Electric Lighting Works]], was opened.

Conflicts between the [[Boer republics]] in the interior and the British colonial government resulted in the [[Second Boer War]] of 1899–1902. Britain's victory in this war led to the formation of a united South Africa. From 1891 to 1901, the city's population more than doubled from 67,000 to 171,000.<ref name="C1875">{{Cite book |last=Worden, Nigel |title=Cape Town: The Making of a City |last2=van Hyningen, Elizabeth |last3=Bickford-Smith, Vivian |publisher=David Philip Publishers |year=1998 |isbn=0-86486-435-3 |location=Claremont, Cape Town, South Africa |pages=212}}</ref>

As the 19th century came to an end, the economic and political dominance of Cape Town in the Southern Africa region during the 19th century started to give way to the dominance of Johannesburg and Pretoria in the 20th century.<ref name="AMad">{{Cite book |last=Mabin, Alan |title=The Angry Divide-The underdevelopment of the Western Cape, 1850–1900 |publisher=David Philip |year=1989 |isbn=0-86486-116-8 |location=Cape Town |pages=82–94}}</ref>