page_title: Simon van der Stel
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Simon van der Stel / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Simon van der Stel and his son Willem Adriaan. The original was destroyed in a fire in 1962; a replica was created based on photographs.
context_page_description: Simon van der Stel was the last commander and first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony, the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.
context_section_description: The town of Stellenbosch (founded in 1679) was named after him and Simon's Town is also named after him, as well as the Simonsberg mountain. An early ship of the South African Navy, SAS Simon van der Stel was also named for him, in 1952.
  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his Discourse on Inequality, refers to Governor Van der Stel by name in a story about a Hottentot raised by the Dutch who chooses to "return to his equals" rather than remain in civilised society. According to Rousseau, Van der Stel himself raised the "Hottentot" from birth "in the principles of the Christian religion and in the practices of European customs." The frontispiece of the Discourse features Van der Stel and the "Hottentot" above the phrase, Il retourne chez ses Egaux.
  Widely known for his development of the South African wine industry, Van der Stel was also the first Cape Governor to be of mixed race-origin, a fact that was largely unacknowledged by the Apartheid government.
caption: Van der Stel and his son Willem Adriaan
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