"Coloured" redirects here. For the component ethnic group originating in the Cape, see Cape Coloureds. For usage of the term outside southern Africa, see Colored. For other uses, see Color (disambiguation).
Ethnic group
Coloureds
An extended Coloured family with roots in Cape Town, Kimberley and Pretoria
Coloured people as a proportion of the total population in South Africa.
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20–40%
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80–100%
Density of the Coloured population in South Africa.
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Coloureds (Afrikaans: Kleurlinge) are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial marriages/interracial unions that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians.[6] Interracial mixing in South Africa began in the Dutch Cape Colony in the 17th century when the Dutch men mixed with Khoi Khoi women, Bantu women and Asian female slaves and mixed race children were conceived.[6] Eventually, interracial mixing occurred throughout South Africa and the rest of Southern Africa with various other European nationals such as the Portuguese, British, Germans, and Irish, who mixed with other African tribes which contributed to the growing number of mixed-race people, who would later be officially classified as Coloured by the apartheid government.[7][8][9]
Coloured was a legally defined racial classification during apartheid referring to anyone not white or of the black Bantu tribes, which effectively largely meant people of colour.[9][10]
The majority of coloureds are found in the Western Cape, but are prevalent throughout the country. According to the 2022 South African census, Coloureds represent 8.15% of people within South Africa, while they make up 42.1% of the population in the Western Cape and 41.6% in the Northern Cape, representing a plurality of the population in these two provinces of South Africa.[11] In the Western Cape, a distinctive Cape Coloured and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed. Genetic studies suggest the group has the highest levels of mixed ancestry in the world.
The apartheid-era Population Registration Act, 1950 and subsequent amendments, codified the Coloured identity and defined its subgroups, including Cape Coloureds and Malays. Indian South Africans were initially classified under the act as a subgroup of Coloured.[12] As a consequence of Apartheid policies and despite the abolition of the Population Registration Act in 1991, Coloureds are regarded as one of four race groups in South Africa. These groups (blacks, whites, Coloureds and Indians) still tend to have strong racial identities and to classify themselves and others as members of these race groups.[10][9] The classification continues to persist in government policy, to an extent, as a result of attempts at redress such as Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity.[9][13][14]
Ancestral Background
South Africa
South Africa is known as a 'Rainbow nation' because of its diverse cultures, tribes, races, religions and nationalities.[15] As a result of this diversity, Coloured people in South Africa have different ancestries as they come from different regions in the country that have different ethnic groups.[16]
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.[17] When the Dutch settled in the Cape in 1652, they met the Khoi Khoi who were the natives of the area.[18] 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.[19] 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.[20] To a smaller extent, slaves were also imported from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Madagascar, Mauritius and elsewhere in Africa.[21] 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.[22] These slaves were, however, dispersed and lost their cultural identity over the course of time.[23]
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.[24] 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).[24] 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".[25]
Krotoa, a Khoi Khoi woman who was the first indigenous person in South Africa to have an official interracial marriage
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").[26] Having conceived 3 mixed-race children, Krotoa was known as the mother that gave birth to the Coloured community in South Africa.[27]
With the arrival of more Europeans (such as the French Huguenots and the Germans) and the arrival of more African and Asian slaves in the Cape Colony, there were more interracial unions, whose mixed-race children were absorbed into the Cape Coloured community.[28][29][30] The predominant Asian slaves in the Cape were the Malay that came from Indonesia.[31] 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.[32] 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.[33] Therefore, many Cape Malays were forced to live in Coloured townships of Cape Town during Apartheid.[33]
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.[34] However, from the 18th century until the formation of the Union of South Africa in the year 1910, the territory of the Cape expanded gradually to the North and to the East.[35] 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.[35] 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.[36] By the mid 18th century, the territory of the Dutch Cape Colony had reached to 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.[37] With the gradual expansion of the Cape and the additional arrival of various European nationalities (such as the British, Irish etc.), 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.[38]
After British annexation in the early 19th century, slavery was abolished in the Cape, which lead to the Great Trek when the Boere left the Cape as Voortrekkers and migrated into the interior of South Africa to form the Boer republics.[39] Most of the freed slaves(who became Cape Coloureds) remained behind. Many freed slaves moved to an area in Cape Town that became known as District Six and by the turn of the 20th century, District six became more established and populated. Although its population was predominantly Cape Coloured, District Six (just like many places in the Cape) was diverse with different ethnicities, races and nationalities living there (this includes Blacks, Whites, Cape Malays and Asian immigrants such as the Indians, Chinese, and Japanese)[40] Many of these groups were absorbed into the Cape coloured community.[41] The Cape also attracted many European immigrants, many of whom married into the Cape Coloured community, adding to the ancestry of the Cape Coloureds.[24]
A genetic clustering of South African Coloured and five source populations. Each vertical bar represents individual.
As a result, the Cape Coloureds ended up having the most diverse ancestry in the world with a blend of so many different cultures mixed together.[43] However, not every Cape Coloured has the same ancestry. At least one genetic study indicates that most Cape Coloureds have ancestries from the following ethnic groups:[44][45][46][47]
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".[53]
In the 21st century, Coloured people constitute a plurality of the population in the provinces of Western Cape (48.8%), and a large minority in the Northern Cape (40.3%), both areas of centuries of mixing among the populations. In the Eastern Cape, they make up (8.3%) of the population.
Adam Kok III, leader of the Coloured Griqua People
Interracial unions during the 17th and 18th century in the Dutch Cape Colony that were primarily between the West European, especially the Dutch, and the Khoi Khoi created a group of mixed-race individuals that became known as the Griqua.[54] The Griqua people could trace their forefathers to two clans, the Koks and Barendse, the first was made up mainly of Khoikhoi and the second of mixed European descent.[55] Genetic studies made in the 21st century have revealed that the Griquas also had Xhosa, San, and Tswana ancestry.[56] What separates the Griquas from the Cape Coloureds is that the Griquas do not have Asian ancestry within their bloodline and unlike the Cape Coloureds that have adapted the Western and Asian lifestyle, the Griquas clung more to the African lifestyle, most particularly that of the Khoi Khoi.[57]
The actual name 'Griqua' was derived from the Chariaguriqua people whose princess became the wife of the first Griqua leader, Adam Kok.[55] As a result of discrimination and the smallpox disease that occurred in the Cape Colony, Adam Kok (a Griqua leader who was also a liberated slave) led the Griquas in migrating to other regions in South Africa and formed two Griqua states: Griqualand West and Griqualand East.[57] Griqualand West was located in present-day Northern Cape while Griqualand East was located between present-day KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape.[55] Unfortunately, with the expansion of the Cape Colony, which was under British rule this time, the two Griqua states ceased to exist and were annexed into the Cape colony.[54]
During the Apartheid regime (1948-1994), Griquas were classified as Coloureds due to their mixed-race ancestry and they were forced to live in Coloured communities in South Africa under the Group Areas Act.[56] Due to the racial policies and the racial hierarchy of South Africa's demographics during Apartheid, many Griquas accepted the classification of "Coloured" for fear that their Griqua roots might place them at a lower level than other groups.[56] As a result, it is difficult to estimate and determine the actual size of the Griqua population, therefore, it remains unknown.[56]
Although Griquas are scattered across the country (due to historic migrations), the majority of Coloureds that come from the Griekwastad area in the Northern Cape, the Kokstad area in KwaZulu-Natal and the Kranshoek area in the Western Cape are either directly Griqua or they are the descendants of Griquas.[56]
Colony of Natal/Natal province
Coloured community of Nongoma, Natal on Christmas day in the early 1900s
Another phase of interracial marriages/miscegenation in South Africa happened in the Colony of Natal (present-day KwaZulu-Natal) during the 19th century and early 20th century.[58] This time, it was mainly between British/Irish and Zulu/Xhosa with an addition of British intermixing with Indians and the arrival of immigrants from St Helena, and Mauritius that married locally.[59]
Blood group phenotype and gene frequency studies showed that the Natal Coloured population contains a mixture of approximately 40% Black, 30% White and 30% Indian (Asian) genes.[60]
After the Boer republic Natalia was annexed by the British rulers, it became the Natal in 1845. When the British started settling in Natal from the mid-19th century, they established sugarcane plantations especially in the coastal regions (such as Durban, Stanger etc.) and these plantations required intensive labour as well.[61] Struggling to find labour from the local Zulu, the British decided to import thousands of labourers from India to work on the sugarcane plantations of Natal.[62]
Just like the Dutch settlers in the Cape, most of the British settlers in Natal were men, therefore, many of them married Zulu while some married Indians and mixed-race children were also conceived and eventually, mixed race people in Natal also became 'coloured'.[63] Sometimes the White administrators who had fathered children from Zulu women would put their mixed-race children in the care of Coloured families in the area.[63] Other times it was the African woman that conceived a mixed-race child from 'Umlungu' (a white person) that initiated giving up the child.[63] In this way, interracial unions and marriages became common and a separate community grew. The descendants of all these interracial unions remain in Nongoma, Eshowe, Mandeni, Mangete, Nqabeni, Umuziwabantu, and iziNqolwene.[63]
John Robert Dunn, the white Zulu chief with 48 Zulu wives and 118 mixed race children
Some of the British men with interracial marriages in Natal practised polygamy, having multiple Zulu wives while others had multiple Zulu concubines.[63] The perfect example of this is John Robert Dunn, a white trader with Scottish parents who became a Zulu chief with 48 Zulu wives and 118 mixed race children; and most of his mixed-race descendants (who became 'Coloureds' in Natal) still live in present-day KwaZulu-Natal.[64] Another British man who practised polygamy was Henry Fynn who had four Zulu wives and multiple mixed-race children.[65] Although Henry Ogle (a British trader from Yorkshire) married an English wife named Janie and had a son named Henry, he also fathered multiple mixed-race children with his Zulu concubines at his kraal near Umkomaas.[66]
Apartheid
During the apartheid era in South Africa of the second half of the 20th century, the government used the term "Coloured" to describe one of the four main racial groups it defined by law (the fourth was "Asian," later "Indian"). This was an effort to impose white supremacy and maintain racial divisions. Individuals were classified as White South Africans (formally classified as "European"), Black South Africans (formally classified as "Native", "Bantu" or simply "African" and constituting the majority of the population), Coloureds (mixed-race) and Indians (formally classified as "Asian").[9] 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.
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 Cape Coloureds, as a group of mixed-race individuals, also have African ancestry and can be considered as part of the broader African diaspora.[67]
Although the apartheid government recognised various coloured subgroups, including the Cape Malays and Cape Coloureds, the Coloured population, was for many purposes treated as a single group, despite their varying ancestries and cultures. Also during apartheid, many Griqua began to self-identify as Coloureds during the apartheid era, because of the benefits of such classification. For example, Coloureds did not have to carry a dompas (a pass, an identity document designed to limit the movements of the black population), while the Griqua, who were seen as an indigenous African group, though heavily mixed, did.
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean Coloureds are descended from Shona or Ndebele, British and Afrikaner settlers, as well as Arab and Asian people.
History
Pre-apartheid era
Coloured people played an important role in the struggle against apartheid and its predecessor policies. The African Political Organisation, established in 1902, had an exclusively Coloured membership; its leader Abdullah Abdurahman rallied Coloured political efforts for many years.[68] Many Coloured people later joined the African National Congress and the United Democratic Front. Whether in these organisations or others, many Coloured people were active in the fight against apartheid.
The political rights of Coloured people varied by location and over time. In the 19th century they theoretically had similar rights to Whites in the Cape Colony (though income and property qualifications affected them disproportionately). In the Transvaal Republic or the Orange Free State, they had few rights. Coloured members were elected to Cape Town's municipal authority (including, for many years, Abdurahman). The establishment of the Union of South Africa gave Coloured people the franchise, although by 1930 they were restricted to electing White representatives. They conducted frequent voting boycotts in protest. Such boycotts may have contributed to the victory of the National Party in 1948. It carried out an apartheid programme that stripped Coloured people of their remaining voting powers.
The term "kaffir" is a racial slur used to refer to Black African people in South Africa. While it is still used against black people, it is not as prevalent as it is against coloured people.[69][70]
Apartheid era
Explanation of South African identity numbers in an identity document during apartheid in terms of official White, Coloured and Indian population subgroups
Coloured people were subject to forced relocation. For instance, the government relocated Coloured from the urban Cape Town areas of District Six, which was later bulldozed. Other areas they were forced to leave included Constantia, Claremont, Simon's Town. Inhabitants were moved to racially designated sections of the metropolitan area on the Cape Flats. Additionally, under apartheid, Coloured people received education inferior to that of Whites. It was, however, better than that provided to Black South Africans.
J. G. Strijdom, known as "the Lion of the North", continued the impetus to restrict Coloured rights, in order to entrench the new-won National Party majority. Coloured participation on juries was removed in 1954, and efforts to abolish their participation on the common voters' roll in the Cape Province escalated drastically; it was accomplished in 1956 by a supermajority amendment to the 1951 Separate Representation of Voters Act, passed by Malan but held back by the judiciary as unconstitutional under the South Africa Act, the Union's effective constitution. In order to bypass this safeguard, enforced since 1909 to ensure Coloured political rights in the then-British Cape Colony, Strijdom's government passed legislation to expand the number of Senate seats from 48 to 89. All of the additional 41 members hailed from the National Party, increasing its representation in the Senate to 77 in total. The Appellate Division Quorum Bill increased the number of judges necessary for constitutional decisions in the Appeal Court from five to eleven. Strijdom, knowing that he had his two-thirds majority, held a joint sitting of parliament in May 1956. The entrenchment clause regarding the Coloured vote, known as the South Africa Act, were thus eliminated and the Separate Representation of Voters Act passed, now successfully.
Coloureds were placed on a separate voters' roll from the 1958 election to the House of Assembly and forward. They could elect four Whites to represent them in the House of Assembly. Two Whites would be elected to the Cape Provincial Council and the governor general could appoint one senator. Both blacks and Whites opposed this measure, particularly from the United Partyand more liberal opposition. The Torch Commando was prominent, while the Black Sash (White women, uniformly dressed, standing on street corners with placards) also made themselves heard. In this way, the question of the Coloured vote became one of the first measures of the regime's unscrupulous nature and flagrant willingness to manipulate its inherited Westminster system. It would remain in power until 1994.
Many Coloureds refused to register for the new voters' roll and the number of Coloured voters dropped dramatically. In the next election, only 50.2% of them voted. They had no interest in voting for White representatives — an activity which many of them saw as pointless, and only persisted for ten years.
In 1958, the government established the Department of Coloured Affairs, followed in 1959 by the Union for Coloured Affairs. The latter had 27 members and served as an advisory link between the government and the Coloured people.
The 1964 Coloured Persons Representative Council turned out to be a constitutional hitch[clarification needed] which never really proceeded. In 1969, the Coloureds elected forty onto the council to supplement the twenty nominated by the government, taking the total number to sixty.
Following the 1983 referendum, in which 66.3% of White voters supported the change, the Constitution was reformed to allow the Coloured and Indian minorities limited participation in separate and subordinate Houses in a tricameralParliament. This was part of a change in which the Coloured minority was to be allowed limited rights and self-governance in "Coloured areas", but continuing the policy of denationalising the Black majority and making them involuntary citizens of independent homelands. The internal rationale was that South African whites, more numerous at the time than Coloureds and Indians combined, could bolster its popular support and divide the democratic opposition while maintaining a working majority. The effort largely failed, with the 1980s seeing increased disintegration of civil society and numerous states of emergency, with violence increasing from all racial groups. The separate arrangements were removed by the negotiations which took place from 1990 to hold the first universal election.
During the 1994 all-race elections, Coloured people voted heavily for the white National Party, which in its first contest with a non-white majority won 20% of the vote and a majority in the new Western Cape province – much due to Cape Coloured support. The National Party recast itself as the New National Party after De Klerk's departure in 1996, partly to attract non-White voters, and grew closer to the ANC. This political alliance, often perplexing to outsiders, has sometimes been explained in terms of the culture and language shared by White and Coloured New National Party members, who both spoke Afrikaans. In addition, both groups opposed affirmative action programmes that might give preference to Black South Africans, and some Coloured people feared giving up older privileges, such as access to municipal jobs, if African National Congress gained leadership in the government. After the absorption of the NNP into the ANC in 2005, Coloured voters have generally drawn to the Democratic Alliance, with some opting for minor parties such as Vryheidsfront and Patricia de Lille's Independent Democrats, with lukewarm support for the ANC.
Since the late 20th century, Coloured identity politics have grown in influence. The Western Cape has been a site of the rise of opposition parties, such as the Democratic Alliance (DA). The Western Cape is considered as an area in which this party might gain ground against the dominant African National Congress. The Democratic Alliance drew in some former New National Party voters and won considerable Coloured support. The New National Party collapsed in the 2004 elections. Coloured support aided the Democratic Alliance's victory in the 2006 Cape Town municipal elections.
Patricia de Lille, who became the mayor of Cape Town in 2011 on the platform of the now-defunct Independent Democrats, does not use the label Coloured but many observers would consider her as Coloured by visible appearance. The Independent Democrats party sought the Coloured vote and gained significant ground in the municipal and local elections in 2006, particularly in districts in the Western Cape with high proportions of Coloured residents. The firebrand Peter Marais (formerly a provincial leader of the New National Party) has sought to portray his New Labour Party as the political voice for Coloured people.
Coloured people supported and were members of the African National Congress before, during and after the apartheid era: notable politicians include Ebrahim Rasool (previously Western Cape premier), Beatrice Marshoff, John Schuurman, Allan Hendrickse and Trevor Manuel, longtime Minister of Finance. The Democratic Alliance won control over the Western Cape during the 2009 National and Provincial Elections and subsequently brokered an alliance with the Independent Democrats.
The ANC has had some success in winning Coloured votes, particularly among labour-affiliated and middle-class Coloured voters. Some Coloureds express distrust of the ANC with the comment, saying that the Coloured were considered "not white enough under apartheid and not black enough under the ANC."[73] In the 2004 election, voter apathy was high in historically Coloured areas.[74] The ANC faces the dilemma of having to balance the increasingly nationalistic economic aspirations of its core black African support base, with its ambition to regain control of the Western Cape, which would require support from Coloureds.[14]
Racial-demographic map of South Africa published by the CIA in 1979, with data from the 1970 South African census.
The term Coloured is also used in Namibia, to describe persons of mixed race, specifically part Khoisan, and part European. The Basters of Namibia constitute a separate ethnic group that are sometimes considered a sub-group of the Coloured population of that country. Under South African rule, the policies and laws of apartheid were extended to what was then called South West Africa. In Namibia, Coloureds were treated by the government in a way comparable to that of South African Coloureds.
In Zimbabwe and to a lesser extent Zambia, the term Coloured or Goffal was used to refer to people of mixed race. Most are descended from mixed African and British, or African and Indian, progenitors. Some Coloured families descended from Cape Coloured migrants from South Africa who had children with local women. Under Rhodesia's predominantly white government, Coloureds had more privileges than black Africans, including full voting rights, but still faced social discrimination. The term Coloured is also used in Eswatini.
As far as family life, housing, eating habits, clothing and so on are concerned, the Christian Coloureds generally maintain a Western lifestyle. Marriages are strictly monogamous, although extramarital and premarital sexual relationships can occur and are perceived differently from family to family. Among the working and agrarian classes, permanent relationships are often officially ratified only after a while if at all.
The average family size of six does not differ from those of other Western families and, as with the latter, is generally related to socio-economic status. Extended families are common. Coloured children are often expected to refer to any extended relatives as their "auntie" or "uncle" as a formality.
While many affluent families live in large, modern, and sometimes luxurious homes, many urban coloured people rely on state-owned economic and sub-economic housing.
Cultural aspects
There are many singing and choir associations as well as orchestras in the Coloured community. The Eoan Group Theatre Company performs opera and ballet in Cape Town. The Kaapse Klopse carnival, held annually on 2 January in Cape Town, and the Cape Malay choir and orchestral performances are an important part of the city's holiday season. Kaapse Klopse consists of several competing groups that have been singing and dancing through Cape Town's streets on New Year's Day earlier this year. Nowadays the drumlines in cheerful, brightly Coloured costumes perform in a stadium. Christmas festivities take place in a sacred atmosphere but are no less vivid, mainly including choirs and orchestras that sing and play Christmas songs in the streets. In the field of performing arts and literature, several Coloureds performed with the CAPAB (Cape Performing Arts Board) ballet and opera company, and the community yielded three major Afrikaans poets the well-known poets, Adam Small, S.V. Petersen, and P.J. Philander. In 1968, the Culture and Recreation Council was established to promote the cultural activities of the Coloured Community.
Education
Until 1841 missionary societies provided all the school facilities for Coloured children.
All South African children are expected to attend school from the age of seven to sixteen years, at the minimum.
Initially, Coloureds were mainly semi-skilled and unskilled labourers who, as builders, masons, carpenters and painters, made an important contribution to the early construction industry in the Cape. Many were also fishermen and farm workers, and the latter had an important share in the development of the wine, fruit and grain farms in the Western Cape.
The Malays were, and still are, skilled furniture makers, dressmakers and coopers. In recent years, more and more Coloureds have been working in the manufacturing and construction industry. There are still many Coloured fishermen, and most Coloureds in the countryside are farm workers and even farmers. The largest percentage of economically active Coloureds is found in the manufacturing industry. About 35% of the economically active Coloured women are employed in clothing, textile, food and other factories.
Another important field of work is the service sector, while an ever-increasing number of Coloureds operate in administrative, clerical and sales positions. All the more professional and managerial posts are. In order to stimulate the economic development of Coloureds, the Coloured Development Corporation was established in 1962. The corporation provided capital to businessmen, offered training courses and undertook the establishment of shopping centres, factories and the like.
Distribution
A majority of those who identify as Coloured live in the Western Cape, where they make up almost half of the province's population. In the 2022 South African census the distribution of the group per province was as follows:[1]
The majority of Coloureds in South Africa speak Afrikaans as their home language, while a smaller minority of the Coloureds speak English as their home language.[75] Most English-speaking Coloureds live in KwaZulu-Natal(especiallly in its biggest city, Durban) mainly because of their partial British heritage that is mainly mixed with Zulu and because of the extreme anglicisation of Natal.[25] English-speaking Coloureds are also found in a few other areas in South Africa. Almost all Coloureds from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi speak English as their home language as well because their heritage and history is similar with the Coloureds of Natal as these countries were also British colonies.[76]
While the history behind the English-speaking Coloureds is straightforward, the history behind the Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds is more complicated because Afrikaans has a more detailed, complex, and controversial history.[77] During the 17th and 18th century in the Dutch Cape colony, Dutch was obviously the official language that had to be spoken by everyone living there.[78] Despite discrimination and slavery, the population of the Cape was extremely diverse with so many different ethnic groups and nationalities that spoke their own languages such as the Dutch settlers, French Huguenots, Germans, Khoi Khoi, Bantu, Indonesians, etc.[79]
With this diversity in the Cape, most people could not speak Dutch fluently, therefore, they spoke broken Dutch. Eventually, broken Dutch was blended with other languages (Malay, Portuguese, Khoekhoegowab etc.) and new dialects were formed.[80] As a way to break the language barrier between the different groups of people living in the Cape, Creolised Dutch evolved through different dialects throughout many years until a new language was eventually born: Afrikaans.[81] It is because of this mixture that Afrikaans borrowed many words from different languages despite being the daughter language of Dutch.[82] This is why Afrikaans is common in the Western region of South Africa and the reason why most Coloureds speak Afrikaans as their home language.[83] And it is why there are more Afrikaans-speaking Coloureds than the Afrikaans-speaking whites.[83] This is also the reason why the type of Afrikaans that's spoken in Cape Town and the rest of the Western Cape by the Cape Coloureds, Cape Malays and Blacks is a bit different than the Afrikaans that is spoken by the Afrikaners in other parts of SA as it is spoken in a dialect called Kaaps with more influence from Malay, Portuguese, Khoekhoe and other languages.[84] Kaaps is viewed as the older dialect of Afrikaans because it was spoken by the slaves of the Cape from the 17th century.[84]
Colin speaking Afrikaans.
However, not every Afrikaans-speaking coloured has a Dutch/Afrikaner ancestor within their bloodline, nor do they have ancestry from the slaves in the Cape Colony.[85] Some Coloureds (especially those whose forefathers were interracially mixed during the late 19th century and 20th century) have totally different ancestries (other European nationalities mixed with other African tribes) but because they moved to predominantly Afrikaans-speaking communities or they were born and bred in predominantly Afrikaans-speaking communities, they ended up speaking Afrikaans as their home language as well.[86][87][88] Afrikaans-speaking coloureds are also found in Namibia, especially in the southern region of the country.[86] Although it is rare, there are also Coloureds who can speak South African Bantu languages, such as Zulu, and Xhosa and the Khoi Khoi and San languages of southern Africa, such as Khoekhoe and Khoemana.[75] The Coloureds that can speak Khoisan languages mostly live in the Northern Cape.[89]
Numerous South African cuisines can be traced back to Coloured people. Bobotie, snoek-based dishes, koe'sisters, bredies, Malay roti and gatsbies are staple diets of Coloureds and other South Africans as well.[90]
South African English is the set of English language dialects native to South Africans.
The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. South Africa's first known inhabitants have been collectively referred to as the Khoisan, the Khoekhoe and the San. Starting in about 400 AD, these groups were then joined by the Bantu ethnic groups who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion. These Bantu groups were mainly limited to the area north of the Soutpansberg and the northeastern part of South Africa until the later Middle Iron Age, after which they started migrating south into the interior of the country.
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 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. 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".
Khoisan 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. When speaking or writing about a singular woman in English, the word is mulatta. The use of this term began in the United States of America shortly after the Atlantic Slave Trade began and its use was widespread, derogatory and disrespectful. After the post Civil Rights Era, the term is now considered to be both outdated and offensive in America. In other Anglophone countries such as the British Isles, and English and Dutch-speaking West Indian countries, the word mulatto is still used. The use of this word does not have the same negative associations found among English speakers. Among Latinos in both the US and Latin America, the word is used in every day speech and its meaning is a source of racial and ethnic pride. In four of the Latin-based languages, the default, masculine word ends with the letter "o" and is written as follows: Spanish and Portuguese – mulato; Italian – mulatto. The French equivalent is mulâtre. In English, the masculine plural is written as mulattoes while in Spanish and Portuguese it is mulatos. The masculine plural in Italian is mulatti and in French it is mulâtres. The feminine plurals are: English – mulattas; Spanish and Portuguese – mulatas; Italian – mulatte; French – mulâtresses.
The Great Trek was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial administration. The Great Trek resulted from the culmination of tensions between rural descendants of the Cape's original European settlers, known collectively as Boers, and the British. It was also reflective of an increasingly common trend among individual Boer communities to pursue an isolationist and semi-nomadic lifestyle away from the developing administrative complexities in Cape Town. Boers who took part in the Great Trek identified themselves as voortrekkers, meaning "pioneers" or "pathfinders" in Dutch and Afrikaans.
Khoekhoe are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San peoples. The accepted term for the two people being Khoisan. 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.
In South Africa, Asian usually refers to people of South Asian ancestry, more commonly called Indians. They are largely descended from people who migrated to South Africa in the late 19th and early 20th century from British ruled South Asia.
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.
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.
Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, who established several states outside the expanding frontier of the Cape Colony. It was also ancestral home to the Tswana and Khoisan peoples.
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.
At least thirty-five languages are spoken in South Africa, twelve of which are official languages of South Africa: Ndebele, Pedi, Sotho, South African Sign Language, Swazi, Tsonga, Tswana, Venda, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, and English, which is the primary language used in parliamentary and state discourse, though all official languages are equal in legal status. In addition, South African Sign Language was recognised as the twelfth official language of South Africa by the National Assembly on 3 May 2023. Unofficial languages are protected under the Constitution of South Africa, though few are mentioned by any name.
The area known today as Cape Town has no written history before it was first mentioned by Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias in 1488. The German anthropologist Theophilus Hahn recorded that the original name of the area was '||Hui !Gais' – a toponym in the indigenous Khoi language meaning "where clouds gather."
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.
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Cape Colony was annexed by the British and officially became their colony in 1815. Britain encouraged settlers to the Cape, and in particular, sponsored the 1820 Settlers to farm in the disputed area between the colony and the Xhosa in what is now the Eastern Cape. The changing image of the Cape from Dutch to British excluded the Dutch farmers in the area, the Boers who in the 1820s started their Great Trek to the northern areas of modern South Africa. This period also marked the rise in power of the Zulu under their king Shaka Zulu. Subsequently, several conflicts arose between the British, Boers and Zulus, which led to the Zulu defeat and the ultimate Boer defeat in the Second Anglo-Boer War. However, the Treaty of Vereeniging established the framework of South African limited independence as the Union of South Africa.
Prior to the arrival of the European settlers in the 17th century the economy of what was to become South Africa was dominated by subsistence agriculture and hunting.
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.
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 four colonial-era constructed racial groups: Whites, Indians, Coloureds and Blacks.
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.
Gekonsolideerde Algemene Bibliografie: Die Kleurlinge Van Suid-Afrika, South Africa Department of Coloured Affairs, Inligtingsafdeling, 1960, 79 p.
Mohamed Adhikari, Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community, Ohio University Press, 2005, 252 p. ISBN9780896802445
Vernie A. February, Mind Your Colour: The "coloured" Stereotype in South African Literature, Routledge, 1981, 248 p. ISBN9780710300027
R. E. Van der Ross, 100 Questions about Coloured South Africans, 1993, 36 p. ISBN9780620178044
Philippe Gervais-Lambony, La nouvelle Afrique du Sud, problèmes politiques et sociaux, la Documentation française, 1998
François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar, Histoire de l'Afrique du Sud, 2006, Seuil
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South Africa 
Namibia 
Zimbabwe 
Zambia ![Coloured people as a proportion of the total population in South Africa.
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80-100% South Africa 2011 Coloured population proportion map.svg](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/South_Africa_2011_Coloured_population_proportion_map.svg/250px-South_Africa_2011_Coloured_population_proportion_map.svg.png)
