Dutch founder in 1652 of Cape Town, thus opening South Africa for white settlement.

Van Riebeeck joined the Dutch East India Company as an assistant surgeon and sailed to Batavia in April 1639. From there he went to Japan; in 1645 he took charge of the company trading station at Tongking (Tonkin; now in Vietnam). He was dismissed, having defied the ban on private trading, but was reinstated to command an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope (at the tip of southern Africa) to build a fort and establish a provisioning station for ships traveling to East India. His expedition arrived in Table Bay on April 6, 1652, but work on the fort was slow owing to crop failures and disorderliness. Van Riebeeck reported in 1655 that his mission would fail unless free burghers, working their own farms, were introduced. Accordingly, in 1657, former company servants were granted “letters of freedom” that protected company interests. Van Riebeeck also encouraged the importation of slaves and exploration of the interior and fought a war with the Hottentots (1659–60). When van Riebeeck left the Cape in 1662, the settlement there had more than 100 colonists.

In 1665 he became secretary to the Council of India. His Daghregister (Journal) was edited and published in Dutch and English (3 vol., 1952–58).