Kaapse Kleurlinge | |
---|---|
![]() An extended Coloured South African family with roots in Cape Town, Kimberley and Pretoria | |
Total population | |
5,247,740 [1] (In South Africa only, 2020) | |
Regions with significant populations | |
South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho | |
Languages | |
Afrikaans, South African English | |
Religion | |
Christian (80%, largely Dutch Reformed, Anglican, Roman Catholic), Muslim (5%, largely Sunni) [2] | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Afrikaners, Khoisan, Basters, Oorlam, Griqua people, Cape Malays, Bantu peoples of South Africa, Indian South Africans |
Cape Coloureds (Afrikaans : Kaapse Kleurlinge) are a South African ethnic classification consisting primarily of persons of mixed race African, Asian and European descent.
Although Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, they are the predominant population group in the Western Cape.
They are generally bilingual, speaking Afrikaans and English, though some speak only one of these. Some Cape Coloureds may code switch, [3] speaking a patois of Afrikaans and English called Afrikaaps, also known as Cape Slang (Capy) or Kombuis Afrikaans, meaning Kitchen Afrikaans. Cape Coloureds were classified under apartheid as a subset of the larger Coloured race group.
At least one genetic study indicates that Cape Coloureds have an ancestry consisting of the following cultural frames: [4]
It is important to note here that 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" [5] .
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.[ citation needed ]
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. [6]
Sunni Islam remains in practice among Cape Malays, who were generally regarded as a separate ethnoreligious group under apartheid.
The Cape Coloureds are a heterogeneous South African ethnic group, with diverse ancestral links. Ancestry may include European settlers, indigenous Khoi and San and Xhosa people, and slaves imported from the Dutch East Indies (or a combination of all). [7] 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. The Indian 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 get an idea of the ratio of slaves from different regions. These slaves were, however, dispersed and lost their Indian cultural identity over the course of time. Slaves of Malay and other ancestry were brought from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, and Mozambique. This diverse assortment of people was subsequently classified as a single group under the Apartheid regime. [8]
The census in South Africa during 1911 played a significant role in defining racial identities in the country. One of the most noteworthy aspects of this census was the instructions given to enumerators on how to classify individuals into different racial categories. The category of "coloured persons" was used to refer to all people of mixed race, and this category included various ethnic groups such as Hottentots, Bushmen, Cape Malays, Griquas, Korannas, Creoles, Negroes, and Cape Coloureds. [ citation needed ]
Of particular importance is the fact that the instruction to classify "coloured persons" as a distinct racial group included individuals of African descent, commonly referred to as Negroes. Therefore, it is important to note that Coloureds or Cape Coloureds, as a group of mixed-race individuals, also have African ancestry and can be considered as part of the broader African diaspora. [9]
Under Apartheid, under the Population Registration Act as amended, the term Cape Coloured referred to a subset of Coloured South Africans, with subjective criteria having been used by the bureaucracy to determine whether a person was a Cape Coloured, or belonged to one of a number of other related subgroups such as the "Cape Malays", or "Other Coloureds". [10] [11]
A group of Cape Coloureds were interviewed in the documentary series Ross Kemp on Gangs . One of the gang members who participated in the interview mentioned that black South Africans have been the main beneficiaries of South African social promotion initiatives while the Cape Coloureds have been further marginalised.[ citation needed ]
The 2009 film I'm Not Black, I'm Coloured – Identity Crisis at the Cape of Good Hope (Monde World Films, US release) is one of the first historical documentary films to explore the legacy of Apartheid through the viewpoint of the Cape Coloured community, including interviews with elders, pastors, members of Parliament, students and everyday people struggling to find their identity in the new South Africa. The film's 2016 sequel Word of Honour: Reclaiming Mandela’s Promise (Monde World Films, US release) [12]
Various books have covered the subject matter of Coloured identity and heritage.[ who? ]
Patric Tariq Mellet, heritage activist and author of 'The Camissa Embrace' and co-creator of The Camissa Museum, has composed a vast online blog archive ('Camissa People') of heritage information concerning Coloured ancestry tracing to the Indigenous San and Khoe and Malagasy, East African, Indonesian, Indian, Bengal and Sri Lankan slaves.[ citation needed ]
The term "coloureds" is currently treated as a neutral description in Southern Africa, classifying people of mixed race ancestry. "Coloured" may be seen as offensive in some other western countries, such as Britain and the United States of America. [13]
The most used racial slurs against Cape Coloureds are Hottentot or hotnot and Kaffir. The term "hotnot" is a derogatory term used to refer to Khoisan people and coloureds in South Africa. The term originated from the Dutch language, where "Hottentot" was used to describe a language spoken by the Khoisan people. It later came to be used as a derogatory term for the people themselves, based on European perceptions of their physical appearance and culture. The term is often used to demean and dehumanize Khoisan and coloured people, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and discrimination against them. [14] The term "Kaffir" is a racial slur used to refer to coloured people and black people in South Africa. It originated from Arabic and was used to refer to non-Muslims. Later, it was used by European-descended South Africans to refer to black and coloured people during the apartheid era, and the term became associated with racism and oppression. While it is still used against Coloured people, it is not as prevalent as it is against black people. [15] [16]
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification in the Western world, the term "black" is used to describe persons who are perceived as dark-skinned compared to other populations. It is most commonly used for people of sub-Saharan African ancestry, Indigenous Australians and Melanesians, though it has been applied in many contexts to other groups, and is no indicator of any close ancestral relationship whatsoever. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.
KhoisanKOY-sahn, or Khoe-Sān, is a catch-all term for the indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen and the Sān peoples. Khoisan populations traditionally speak click languages and are considered to be the historical communities throughout Southern Africa, remaining predominant until European colonisation in areas climatically unfavorable to Bantu (sorghum-based) agriculture, such as the Cape region, through to Namibia, where Khoekhoe populations of Nama and Damara people are prevalent groups, and Botswana. Considerable mingling with Bantu-speaking groups is evidenced by prevalence of click phonemes in many especially Xhosa Southern African Bantu languages.
Mulatto is a racial classification that refers to people of mixed African and European ancestry only, beginning in the United States of America. Its use is considered to be outdated and offensive in some countries and languages, such as English with the exceptions of some Anglophone Caribbean or West Indian countries and Dutch, but it does not have the same associations in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese. Among Latin Americans in the US, for instance, the term can be a source of pride. A mulatta is a female mulatto.
Coloureds refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia who have ancestry from African, European, and Asian people. The intermixing of different races began in the Cape province of South Africa, with European settlers intermixing with the indigenous Khoi tribes, and Asian slaves of the region. Later various other European nationals also contributed to the growing mixed race people, who would later be officially classified as coloured by the apartheid government in the 1950s.
Khoekhoe are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San peoples. The designation "Khoekhoe" is actually a kare or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the Griqua, Gona, Nama, Khoemana and Damara nations. The Khoekhoe were once known as Hottentots, a term now considered offensive.
Hottentot is a term that was historically used by Europeans to refer to the Khoekhoe, the indigenous nomadic pastoralists in South Africa.
The Griquas are a subgroup of mixed-race heterogeneous formerly Xiri-speaking nations in South Africa with a unique origin in the early history of the Dutch Cape Colony. Like the Boers they migrated inland from the Cape and in the 19th century established several states in what is now South Africa and Namibia. The Griqua consider themselves as being South Africa’s first multiracial nation with people descended directly from Dutch settlers in the Cape, and local peoples.
Colored is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur. It has taken on a special meaning in Southern Africa referring to a person of mixed or Cape Coloured heritage.
The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid.
Cape Malays also known as Cape Muslims or Malays, are a Muslim community or ethnic group in South Africa. They are the descendants of enslaved and free Muslims from different parts of the world, specifically Indonesia and other Asian countries, who lived at the Cape during Dutch and British rule.
Kaffir, also spelled Cafri, is an exonym and an ethnic slur – the use of it in reference to black people being particularly common in South Africa. In Arabic, the word kāfir ("unbeliever") was originally applied to non-Muslims before becoming predominantly focused on pagan zanj who were increasingly used as slaves. During the Age of Exploration in early modern Europe, variants of the Latin term cafer were adopted in reference to non-Muslim Bantu peoples even when they were monotheistic. It was eventually used, particularly in Afrikaans, for any black person during the Apartheid and Post-Apartheid eras, closely associated with South African racism. While originally not pejorative, it became a pejorative by the mid-20th century and is now considered extremely offensive hate speech. Punishing continuing use of the term was one of the concerns of the Promotion of Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act enacted by the South African parliament in the year 2000 and it is now euphemistically addressed as the K-word in South African English.
White South Africans are South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original colonists, known as Afrikaners, and the Anglophone descendants of predominantly British colonists of South Africa. In 2016, 57.9% were native Afrikaans speakers, 40.2% were native English speakers, and 1.9% spoke another language as their mother tongue, such as Portuguese, Greek, or German. White South Africans are by far the largest population of White Africans. White was a legally defined racial classification during apartheid.
Brown is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a light to moderate brown complexion.
The Khoikhoi–Dutch Wars refers to a series of armed conflicts that took place in the latter half of the 17th century in what was then known as the Cape of Good Hope, in the area of present-day Cape Town, South Africa, fought primarily between Dutch colonisers, who came mostly from the Dutch Republic and the local African people, the indigenous Khoikhoi.
Indian South Africans are South Africans who descend from indentured labourers and free migrants who arrived from British India during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The majority live in and around the city of Durban, making it one of the largest ethnically Indian-populated cities outside of India.
Afrikaners are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Until 1994, they dominated South Africa's politics as well as the country's commercial agricultural sector.
Coloured people in Namibia are people with both European and African, especially Khoisan and Bantu ancestry, as well as Indian, Malay, and Malagasy ancestry especially along the coast and areas bordering South Africa. Coloureds have immigrated to Namibia, been born in Namibia or returned to the country. These distinctively different periods of arrivals, from diverse backgrounds and origins have led to a diverse Coloured population. This diversity was even further exploited by South African officials who referred to three distinct groups amongst the coloureds, namely: "Baster", "Cape Coloureds" and "Namibian Coloureds".
Ethnic groups in South Africa have a variety of origins. The racial categories introduced by the colonial apartheid regime remain ingrained in South African society with the governing party of South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) continuing to classify the population as belonging to one of the three colonial-era constructed racial groups: Africans, 'Whites', and 'Coloureds' as well as Indians.
Kaaps, also known as Afrikaaps, is a West Germanic African language that evolved in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Its status as a sister language of Afrikaans or a dialect of Afrikaans is unclear. Since the early 2020s there has been a significant increase in the number of works of literature published in Kaaps. Most works in Kaaps come from authors located in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa where it is most commonly spoken. Although Kaaps is considered a growing phenomenon, it is more specifically a colloquial dialect of Afrikaans. All other distinct colloquial variations of Afrikaans, including Kaaps, are organically connected to Standard Afrikaans as a widely spoken unitary variety and interact with it.
Khoisan revivalism is the phenomenon of individuals claiming to be Khoisan (descendants) and defending indigenous rights. The Khoisan revival movement aims to confirm and demarginalize the cultural identity of the Khoisan in modern-day South Africa. Khoisan revival is most active and likely to impact policy-making in Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The Koranna, Nama, San, Griqua, and Cape Khoi are among the Khoisan revivalist groups of the Western Cape.