Ethnic group in South Africa
Cape Coloureds () are a South African group of multiracial people who are from the Cape region in South Africa which consists of the Western Cape, Northern Cape and the Eastern Cape. Their ancestry comes from the interracial mixing between the White, the indigenous Khoi and San, the Xhosa plus other Bantu people, slaves imported from the Dutch East Indies, immigrants from the Levant or Yemen (or a combination of all). People from India and the islands within the Indian Ocean region were also taken to the Cape and sold into slavery by the Dutch settlers. Eventually all these ethnic and racial group intermixed with each forming a group of mixed race people that became the "Cape Coloureds".
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Demographics.
Although Coloureds represent only 8.15% of people within South Africa, they make up 42.1% of the population in the Western Cape, representing a plurality of the population of the province. (according to the 2022 South African census)
They are generally bilingual, speaking Afrikaans and English, though some speak only one of these. Some Cape Coloureds may code switch, speaking a patois of Afrikaans and English called Afrikaaps, also known as Cape Slang (Capy) or , meaning Kitchen Afrikaans. Cape Coloureds were classified under apartheid as a subset of the larger Coloured race group.
Recent studies of Cape Coloureds using genetic testing have found ancestry to vary by region. Khoe-San ancestry is higher in inland regions and towards the North into present-day Northern Cape. Although it is prevalent throughout the Cape, the partial Bantu-Speaking ancestry (most predominantly Xhosa) gets higher going Eastwards into present-day Eastern Cape. The European-related ancestry is highest along the coast. In Cape Town and the rest of the Western Cape province, the partial Asian ancestry is high and diverse due to the arrival of Asian &amp; African slaves that mixed with Europeans(colonists/immigrants/tourists) and existing mixed race (Khoisan-European) which formed the modern day Cape Coloureds &amp; Cape Malay due to the creolisation of all those populations. At least 4 genetic studies indicate that the average Cape Coloured has an ancestry consisting of the following, with large variation between individuals :
Below are the approximate ranges for each ancestral component based on genetic studies and historical accounts:
African Ancestry :
Range: ~ 30-68%
Origins: ~ Primarily from Khoe-San, Bantu, Malagasy &amp; to smaller extent West Africa, Sudan &amp; Ethiopia.
European Ancestry :
Range: ~ 20-70%
Origins: ~ Primarily from Dutch, British, French, German, Irish, Portuguese, Spanish &amp; to a smaller extent Polish, Italian, Greek, Scottish, Belgian, Norwegian &amp; Swedish.
Asian Ancestry:
Range: ~ 20-40%
Origins: ~ Primarily from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thai, Vietnam, Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Sri Lanka, China, Philippines &amp; to a smaller extent Japan, Korea &amp; Cambodia.
Middle Eastern Ancestry :
Range: ~ 5-15%
Origins: ~ Primarily from Lebanon, Syria, Yemeni, Israel &amp; Egypt to a smaller extent.
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list, and individual results may vary. The ancestry of Cape Coloureds can be diverse and complex.
The genetic reference cluster term "Khoisan" itself refers to a colonially admixed population cluster, hence the concatenation, and is not a straightforward reference to ancient African pastoralist and hunter ancestry, which is often demarcated by the L0 haplogroup ancestry common in the general South African native population, which is also integral part of other aboriginal genetic reference cluster terms like "South-East African Bantu".
Religion.
A separate Dutch Reformed Church, the "Dutch Reformed Mission Church" (DRMC), was formed in 1881 to serve the Cape Coloured Calvinist population separately from the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK). It was merged in 1994 with the "Dutch Reformed Church in Africa" (DRCA, formed 1963) to form the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa.
Success in the spread of Catholicism among Afrikaans speakers, including Coloured communities, remained minimal until the death throes of Apartheid during the mid to late 1980s. As Catholic texts began to be translated into Afrikaans, sympathetic Dutch Reformed pastors, who were defying the traditional anti-Catholicism of their Church, assisted in correcting linguistic errors. By 1996, the majority of Afrikaans-speaking Catholics came from the Coloured community, with a smaller number of Afrikaner converts, most of whom were from professional backgrounds.
Sunni Islam remains in practice among Cape Malays, who were generally regarded as a separate ethnoreligious group under apartheid.
Origin and history.
The first and the largest phase of interracial marriages/Miscegenation in South Africa happened in the Dutch Cape Colony which began from the 17th century, shortly after the arrival of Dutch settlers, who were led by Jan van Riebeeck. When the Dutch settled in the Cape in 1652, they met the Khoi Khoi who were the natives of the area. After settling in the Cape, the Dutch established farms that required intensive labour therefore, they enforced slavery in the Cape. Some of the Khoi Khoi became labourers in the Cape. Despite this, there was resistance by the Khoi Khoi, which led to the Khoikhoi-Dutch Wars. As a result of this resistance, the Dutch imported slaves from other parts of the world, especially the Malay people from present-day Indonesia and the Bantu people from various parts of Southern Africa. To a smaller extent, slaves were also imported from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Madagascar, Mauritius and elsewhere in Africa. The slaves were almost invariably given Christian names but their places of origin were indicated in the records of sales and other documents so that it is possible to estimate the ratio of slaves from different regions. Often, slaves were given their masters' surnames, surnames that were of biblical origin (e.g. Adams, Thomas, Jacobs, Matthews, Peters, Daniels) or surnames that reflected the month in which they arrived (e.g. September, March, October, April). These slaves were, however, dispersed and lost their cultural identity over the course of time.
Because most of the Dutch settlers in the Cape were men, many of them married and conceived mixed-race children with the Khoi Khoi, the southern African Bantu, the Malay from Indonesia and other enslaved ethnic groups in the Cape. There was also interracial mixing between the slaves and mixed-race children were also conceived from these unions as well because the slaves were of different races (African and Asian). Unlike the One-drop rule in the USA, mixed-race children in the Cape were not viewed as "white enough to be white", "black enough to be black" nor "asian enough to be asian", therefore, mixed race children from all these interracial unions in the Cape grew up and married amongst themselves, forming their own community that would later be known as the "Cape Coloured".
The first interracial marriage in the Cape was between Krotoa (a Khoi Khoi woman who was a servant, a translator and a crucial negotiator between the Dutch and the Khoi Khoi. Her Dutch name was "Eva Van Meerhof") and Peter Havgard (a Danish surgeon whom the Dutch renamed as "Pieter Van Meerhof"). Having conceived 3 mixed-race children, Krotoa was known as the mother that gave birth to the Coloured community in South Africa.
Eventually, more Dutch people settled in the Cape, amongst them were the Van Wijk family (whose descendants became 'Van Wyk') who arrived in the Cape in 1686 and the Erasmus family that arrived in 1689. The Huguenots (also known as 'French Huguenots') were French Protestants who escaped from the banishment and persecution of Protestants in France during the late 1600s. Many French Huguenots sought refuge in the Dutch Cape Colony and integrated with the Dutch and other ethnic groups there. Although many Huguenots who arrived in the Cape were already married, their children and descendants soon integrated with the Dutch and other ethnic groups in the Dutch Cape Colony and after a few generations, they spoke Dutch, not French. These French refugees pioneered the vineyards of the Cape Winelands, turning it into one of the biggest wine producers in the world. Due to integration with the Dutch and other ethnic groups in the Cape, there are many Afrikaans surnames of French origin e.g. Le Roux, De Villiers, Joubert, Marais, Visagie, Du Plessis, Pienaar, De Klerk(from 'Le Clerc'), Meyer, Fourie, Theron, Cronje, Viljoen(from 'Villion'), Du Toit, Reyneke, Malan, Naude, De Lille, Fouche, Blignaut, Retief, Boshoff, Rossouw, and Louw.
During the 1600s and the 1700s, Germany was the Netherlands' biggest trading partner in Europe and due to their good relations, hundreds of thousands of Germans were recruited by the VOC making Germans the largest foreign Europeans in the Dutch empire. Throughout the Dutch rule, the VOC sent nearly 15 000 Germans to the Dutch Cape Colony to work as officials, sailors, administrators and soldiers. The Germans learnt Dutch and it replaced German. Eventually, Germans in the Cape became farmers, teachers, traders and ministers. Almost all Germans who settled in the Cape throughout the Dutch rule were men and therefore, almost all German men in the Cape married women outside their culture (especially African and Asian women). Due to integration with the Dutch and other ethnic groups in the Cape, there are many Afrikaans surnames of German origin e.g. Coetzee (from 'Kotze'), Pretorius, Booysen, Steenkamp, Kruger (from 'Krüger'), Botha, Venter, Cloete, Schoeman, Mulder, Kriel, Breytenbach, Engelbrecht, Potgieter, Maritz, Liebenberg, Fleischman, Weimers, and Schuster. Some few Portuguese people also settled in the Cape and were integrated into the community which is how the Portuguese surname 'Ferreira' ended up being an Afrikaans surname as well.
With the arrival of more Europeans (as mentioned above),the arrival of more African and Asian slaves and the recruitment of more Khoi Khoi labourers in the Cape Colony, there were more interracial unions, whose mixed-race children were absorbed into the Cape Coloured community. The predominant Asian slaves in the Cape were the Malay who came from Indonesia. Although most of them were interracially mixed into the Cape Coloured community, a small minority of them have retained their community and culture, therefore, they became known as the Cape Malay. However, during the Apartheid regime, the Cape Malays were classified as a sub-group of the Cape Coloured due to similar ancestries and because South Africa's population was grouped into four races under the Population Registration Act, 1950: Black, White, Coloured and Indian. Therefore, many Cape Malays were forced to live in Coloured townships of Cape Town during Apartheid.
During the 17th century (in this case, from 1652-1700), the Dutch Cape Colony consisted only of present-day Cape Town with its surrounding areas such as Paarl, Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. However, from the 18th century until the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the territory of the Cape expanded gradually to the north and east. The expansion of the Dutch Cape Colony was mainly caused by the dry and infertile nature of its immediate interior, therefore farmers needed fertile land because farms could only be settled where there were springs to provide permanent water. However, it was also influenced by emigration of the Trekboers who left the Cape and migrated into the Karoo during the 18th century and after British annexation of the Cape in the 19th century. By the mid-18th century, the territory of the Dutch Cape Colony had reached present-day Swellendam and by the end of the Dutch rule (after British annexation in 1814), the territory of the Cape had already reached certain parts of the Eastern Cape and the Northern Cape, leading to the arrival of the Afrikaner/Boer with their multiracial slaves in different parts of the Cape. With the gradual expansion of the Cape, the migration of the trekboer, the arrival of the Afrikaner/Boer with their slaves and the additional arrival of various European nationalities, such as the British and Irish, there were more interracial unions, this time between the white and the Khoisans in the Northern Cape and between the white and the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape with more mixed race children being conceived, adding on to the Coloured population of the entire Cape.
Miscegenation in the eastern part of the Cape (which is now the Eastern Cape) dates to the late 1600s which began as a result of the shipwrecks. The Wild Coast Region of the Eastern Cape (which stretches from the provincial border with Natal to East London and Port Alfred) is named after its wilderness and the stormy seas that caused thousands of shipwrecks. Survivors of the shipwrecks (most of whom were Europeans while some were Asians) settled on the Wild Coast. Having no means to return home, most survivors remained permanently in the Eastern Cape and mixed with the Xhosa. Within the