HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Afrikaners () are a
Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
n
ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...
descended from predominantly Dutch
settlers A settler or a colonist is a person who establishes or joins a permanent presence that is separate to existing communities. The entity that a settler establishes is a Human settlement, settlement. A settler is called a pioneer if they are among ...
who first arrived at the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1933. James Louis Garvin, editor. Until 1994, they dominated
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
's politics as well as the country's commercial agricultural sector.
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, a language which evolved from the Dutch dialect of
South Holland South Holland ( ) is a province of the Netherlands with a population of over 3.8 million as of January 2023 and a population density of about , making it the country's most populous province and one of the world's most densely populated areas. ...
, is the mother tongue of Afrikaners and most
Cape Coloureds Cape Coloureds () are a South African group of Coloured 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 ...
. According to the South African National Census of 2022, 10.6% of South Africans claimed to speak Afrikaans as a first language at home, making it the country's third-largest home language after Zulu and Xhosa. The arrival of Portuguese explorer
Vasco da Gama Vasco da Gama ( , ; – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and nobleman who was the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India, first European to reach India by sea. Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link ...
at Calicut, India, in 1498 opened a gateway of free access to Asia from
Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...
around the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
. This access necessitated the founding and safeguarding of trade stations along the African and Asian coasts. The Portuguese landed in
Mossel Bay Mossel Bay () is a harbour town of about 170,000 people on the Garden Route of South Africa. It is an important tourism and farming region of the Western Cape Province. Mossel Bay lies 400 kilometres east of the country's seat of parliament, Ca ...
in 1498, explored Table Bay two years later, and by 1510 had started raiding inland. Shortly afterwards, the
Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...
sent merchant vessels to India and, in 1602, founded the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...
(; VOC). As the volume of traffic rounding the Cape increased, the VOC recognised its natural harbour as an ideal watering point for the long voyage around Africa to East Asia and established a victualling station there in 1652. VOC officials did not favour the
permanent settlement The Permanent Settlement, also known as the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, was an agreement between the East India Company and landlords of Bengal to fix revenues to be raised from land that had far-reaching consequences for both agricultural m ...
of Europeans in their trading empire, although during the 140 years of Dutch rule many VOC servants retired or were discharged and remained as private citizens. Furthermore, the exigencies of supplying local garrisons and passing fleets compelled the administration to confer free status on employees and oblige them to become independent farmers. Encouraged by the success of this experiment, the company extended free passage from 1685 to 1707 for Dutch families wishing to settle at the Cape. In 1688, it sponsored the settlement of 200 French
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
refugees forced into exile by the
Edict of Fontainebleau The Edict of Fontainebleau (18 October 1685, published 22 October 1685) was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to prac ...
. The terms under which the Huguenots agreed to immigrate were the same as those offered to other VOC subjects, including free passage and the requisite farm equipment on credit. Prior attempts at cultivating vineyards or exploiting olive groves for fruit had been unsuccessful, and it was hoped that Huguenot colonists accustomed to Mediterranean agriculture could succeed where the Dutch had failed.Theale, George McCall (4 May 1882). ''Chronicles of Cape Commanders, or, An abstract of original manuscripts in the Archives of the Cape Colony''. Cape Town: WA Richards & Sons 1882. pp 24—387. They were augmented by VOC soldiers returning from Asia, predominantly Germans channeled into Amsterdam by the company's extensive recruitment network and thence overseas. Despite their diverse nationalities, the colonists used a common language and adopted similar attitudes towards politics. The attributes they shared served as a basis for the evolution of Afrikaner identity and consciousness. In the twentieth century,
Afrikaner nationalism Afrikaner nationalism () is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnic nationalistic political ideology created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrikaner ...
took the form of political parties and closed societies, such as the . In 1914, the National Party was founded to promote Afrikaner interests. It gained power by winning South Africa's 1948 general elections. The party was noted for implementing a harsh policy of racial segregation (
apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English:  , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
) and declaring South Africa a republic in 1961. Following decades of domestic unrest and
international sanctions International sanctions are political and economic decisions that are part of diplomatic efforts by countries, multilateral or regional organizations against states or organizations either to protect national security interests, or to protect i ...
that resulted in bilateral and multi-party negotiations to end apartheid, South Africa held its first multiracial elections under a universal franchise in 1994. As a result of this election the National Party was ousted from power, and was eventually dissolved in 2005.


Nomenclature

The term "Afrikaner" currently denotes the politically, culturally, and socially dominant and majority group among
white South Africans 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 Afr ...
, or the
Afrikaans Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
-speaking population of Dutch origin. Their original progenitors, especially in paternal lines, also included smaller numbers of Flemish,
French Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
, German, Danish, Norwegian,
Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...
, and Swedish immigrants. Historically, the terms "" and "" have both been used to describe white Afrikaans-speakers as a group; neither is particularly objectionable, but "Afrikaner" has been considered a more appropriate term. By the late nineteenth century, the term was in common usage in both the Boer republics and the
Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
. At one time, ''burghers'' denoted
Cape Dutch Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, educated sect ...
: those settlers who were influential in the administration, able to participate in urban affairs, and did so regularly. '' Boers'' often refer to settled ethnic European farmers or nomadic cattleherders. During the
Batavian Republic The Batavian Republic (; ) was the Succession of states, successor state to the Dutch Republic, Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on 19 January 1795 after the Batavian Revolution and ended on 5 June 1806, with the acce ...
of 1795–1806, ('citizen') was popularised among Dutch communities both at home and abroad as a popular revolutionary form of address. In South Africa, it remained in use as late as the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
of 1899–1902. The first recorded instance of a colonist identifying as an Afrikaner occurred in March 1707, during a disturbance in
Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin ...
. When the
magistrate The term magistrate is used in a variety of systems of governments and laws to refer to a civilian officer who administers the law. In ancient Rome, a '' magistratus'' was one of the highest ranking government officers, and possessed both judi ...
, Johannes Starrenburg, ordered an unruly crowd to desist, a young white man named Hendrik Biebouw retorted, "" ("I will not leave, I am an African – even if the magistrate were to beat me to death or put me in jail, I shall not be, nor will I stay, silent!"). Biebouw was flogged for his insolence and later banished to Batavia (present-day Jakarta, Indonesia). The word ''Afrikaner'' is thought to have first been used to classify Cape Coloureds, or other groups of
mixed-race The term multiracial people refers to people who are mixed with two or more races and the term multi-ethnic people refers to people who are of more than one ethnicities. A variety of terms have been used both historically and presently for mul ...
ancestry. Biebouw had numerous "half-caste" (mixed race) siblings and may have identified with Coloureds socially. The growing use of the term appeared to express the rise of a new identity for white South Africans, suggesting for the first time a group identification with the
Cape Colony The Cape Colony (), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope. It existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with three ...
rather than with an ancestral homeland in Europe. Afrikaner culture and people are also commonly referred to as ''The Afrikaans'' or ''Afrikaans people''.


Population


1691 estimates

VOC initially had no intention of establishing a permanent Dutch settlement at the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
; until 1657, it devoted as little attention as possible to the development or administration of the Dutch Cape Colony. From the VOC's perspective, there was little financial incentive to regard the region as anything more than the site of a strategic manufacturing centre. Furthermore, the Cape was unpopular among VOC employees, who regarded it as a barren and insignificant outpost with little opportunity for advancement. A small number of longtime VOC employees who had been instrumental in the colony's founding and its first five years of existence, however, expressed interest in applying for grants of land with the objective of retiring at the Cape as farmers. In time, they came to form a class of former VOC employees, , also known as (free citizens, who stayed in Dutch territories overseas after serving their contracts. The were to be of Dutch birth (although exceptions were made for some Germans), married, "of good character", and had to undertake to spend at least twenty years in Southern Africa. In March 1657, when the first started receiving their farms, the white population of the Cape was only about 134. Although the soil and climate in
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
were suitable for farming, willing immigrants remained in short supply, including a number of orphans, refugees, and foreigners. From 1688 onward, the Cape attracted some French
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
s, most of them refugees from the protracted conflict between Protestants and Catholics in France. South Africa's white population in 1691 has been described as the Afrikaner "parent stock", as no significant effort was made to secure more colonist families after the dawn of the 18th century, and a majority of Afrikaners are descended from progenitors who arrived prior to 1700 in general and the late 1600s in particular. Although some two-thirds of this figure were Dutch-speaking Hollanders, there were at least 150 Huguenots and a nearly equal number of
Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
speakers. Also represented in smaller numbers were Swedes,
Danes Danes (, ), or Danish people, are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. History Early history Denmark ...
, and
Belgians Belgians ( ; ; ) are people identified with the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe. As Belgium is a multinational state, this connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural rather than ethnic. The majority ...
.


1754 estimates

In 1754, Cape Governor Ryk Tulbagh conducted a census of his non-indigenous subjects. White - now outnumbered by slaves brought from
West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
,
Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...
,
Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
and the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
- only totaled about 6,000.


1806 estimates

Following the defeat and collapse of the Dutch Republic during Joseph Souham's Flanders Campaign,
William V, Prince of Orange William V (Willem Batavus; 8 March 1748 – 9 April 1806) was Prince of Orange and the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. He went into exile to London in 1795. He was furthermore ruler of the Principality of Orange-Nassau until his death in ...
, escaped to the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and appealed to the British to occupy his colonial possessions until he was restored. Holland's administration was never effectively reestablished; upon a new outbreak of hostilities with France, expeditionary forces led by Sir David Baird, 1st Baronet, finally permanently imposed British rule when they defeated Cape governor Jan Willem Janssens in 1806. At the onset of
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
's annexation to the
British Empire The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
, the original Afrikaners numbered 26,720 – or 36% of the colony's population.


1936 Census

The South African census of 1936 gave the following breakdown of language speakers of European origin.


1960 Census

The South African census of 1960 was the final census undertaken in the
Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
. The ethno-linguistic status of some 15,994,181 South African citizens was projected by various sources through sampling language, religion, and race. At least 1.6 million South Africans were white Afrikaans speakers, or 10% of the total population. They also constituted 9.3% of the population in neighbouring
South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
.


1985 Census

According to the 1985 South African census, there were 2,581,080 white Afrikaans speakers then residing in the country, or about 9.4% of the total population.


1996 Census

The South African National Census of 1996 was the first census conducted in post-
apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English:  , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
South Africa. It was calculated on Census Day and reported a population of 2,558,956 white Afrikaans speakers. The census noted that Afrikaners represented the eighth largest ethnic group in the country, or 6.3% of the total population. Even after the end of apartheid, the ethnic group only fell by 25,000 people.


2001 Census

The South African National Census of 2001 was the second census conducted in post-
apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English:  , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
South Africa. It was calculated on October 9 and reported a population of 2,576,184 white Afrikaans speakers. The census noted that Afrikaners represented the eighth largest ethnic group in the country, or 5.7% of the total population.


Distribution

Afrikaners make up approximately 58% of South Africa's white population, based on language used in the home. English speakers account for closer to 37%. As in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
or the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, most modern European immigrants elect to learn English and are likelier to identify with those descended from British colonials of the nineteenth century. Aside from coastal pockets in the
Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...
and
KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...
they remain heavily outnumbered by those of Afrikaans origin.


2011 Census

The South African National Census of 2011 counted 2,710,461
white South African 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 Afr ...
s who speak Afrikaans as a first language, or approximately 5.23% of the total South African population. The census also showed an increase of 5.21% in Afrikaner population compared to the previous, 2001 census.


History


Early Dutch settlement

The earliest Afrikaner communities in South Africa were formed at the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
, mainly through the introduction of Dutch colonists, French
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
refugees and erstwhile servants of the
Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...
. During the early colonial period, Afrikaners were generally known as "Christians", "colonists", "emigrants", or ''ingezeetenen'' ("inhabitants"). Their concept of being rooted in Africa—as opposed to the company's expatriate officialdom—did not find widespread expression until the late eighteenth century. It is to the ambitions of
Prince Henry the Navigator Princy Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''Infante Dom (title), Dom Henrique''; 4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator (), was a Infante of Portugal, Portuguese prince and a ...
that historians attribute the discovery of the Cape as a settling ground for Europeans. In 1424 Henry and Fernando de Castro besieged the
Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...
, under the impression that they might be of use to further Portuguese expeditions around Africa's coast. Although this attempt was unsuccessful, Portugal's continued interest in the continent made possible the later voyages of Bartholomew Dias in 1487 and Vasco de Gama ten years later. Dias made known to the world a "Cape of Storms", rechristened "Good Hope" by John II. As it was desirable to take formal possession of this territory the Portuguese erected a stone cross in
Algoa Bay Algoa Bay is a maritime bay in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. It is located on the east coast, east of the Cape of Good Hope. Algoa Bay is bounded in the west by Cape Recife and in the east by Cape Padrone. The bay is up to deep. The harbour ...
. Da Gama and his successors, however, did not take kindly to the notion, especially following a skirmish with the
Khoikhoi Khoikhoi (Help:IPA/English, /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''KOY-koy'') (or Khoekhoe in Namibian orthography) are the traditionally Nomad, nomadic pastoralist Indigenous peoples, indigenous population of South Africa. They ...
in 1497, when one of his admirals was wounded. After the
British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
was founded in 1599, London merchants began to take advantage of the route to India by the Cape. James Lancaster, who had visited
Robben Island Robben Island () is an island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometres (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, north of Cape Town, South Africa. It takes its name from the Dutch language, Dutch word for seals (''robben''), hence the Dutch/Afrika ...
some years earlier, anchored in Table Bay in 1601. By 1614 the British had planted a penal colony on the site, and in 1621 two Englishmen claimed Table Bay on behalf of King James I, but this action was not ratified. They eventually settled on
Saint Helena Saint Helena (, ) is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a remote British overseas territory. Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, some 1,874 km ...
as an alternative port of refuge. Due to the value of the spice trade between Europe and their outposts in the
East Indies The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in Eastern world, the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainl ...
, Dutch ships began to call sporadically at the Cape in search of provisions after 1598. In 1601 a Captain Paul van Corniden came ashore at St. Sebastion's Bay near
Overberg __NOTOC__ Overberg is a region in South Africa to the east of Cape Town beyond the Hottentots-Holland mountains. It lies along the Western Cape Province's south coast between the Cape Peninsula and the region known as the Garden Route in the e ...
. He discovered a small inlet which he named ''Vleesch Bay'', after the cattle trade, and another ''Visch Bay'' after the abundance of fish. Not long afterwards, Admiral Joris van Spilbergen reported catching penguins and sheep on Robben Island. In 1648, Dutch sailors Leendert Jansz and Nicholas Proot had been shipwrecked in Table Bay and marooned for five months until picked up by a returning ship. During this period they established friendly relations with the locals, who sold them sheep, cattle, and vegetables. Both men presented a report advocating the Table valley as a fort and garden for the East India fleets. Under recommendation from
Jan van Riebeeck Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (21 April 1619 – 18 January 1677) was a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company. Life Early life Jan van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg on 21 April ...
, the Heeren XVII authorised the establishment of a fort at the Cape, and this the more hurriedly to preempt any further imperial maneuvers by Britain, France or Portugal. Van Riebeeck, his family and seventy to eighty VOC personnel arrived there on 6 April 1652 after a journey of three and a half months. Their immediate task was the establishment of some gardens, "taking for this purpose all the best and richest ground"; following this they were instructed to conduct a survey to determine the best pastureland for the grazing of cattle. By 15 May they had nearly completed construction on the Castle of Good Hope, which was to be an easily defensible victualing station serving Dutch ships plying the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
. Dutch sailors appreciated the mild climate at the Cape, which allowed them to recuperate from their protracted periods of service in the tropical humidity of Southeast Asia. VOC fleets bearing cargo from the Orient anchored in the Cape for a month, usually from March or April, when they were resupplied with water and provisions prior to completing their return voyage to the Netherlands. In extent the new refreshment post was to be kept as confined as possible to reduce administrative expense. Residents would associate amiably with the natives for the sake of livestock trade, but otherwise keep to themselves and their task of becoming self-sufficient. As the VOC's primary goal was merchant enterprise, particularly its shipping network traversing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans between the Netherlands and various ports in Asia, most of its territories consisted of coastal forts, factories, and isolated trading posts dependent entirely on indigenous host states. The exercise of Dutch sovereignty, as well the large scale settlement of Dutch colonists, was therefore extremely limited at these sites. During the VOC's history only two primary exceptions to the rule emerged: the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...
and the Cape of Good Hope, through the formation of a large class of ''"vrijlieden"'', or ''"vrijburgers"'' (free citizens). The VOC operated under a strict corporate hierarchy which allowed it to formally assign classifications to those whom it determined fell within its legal purview. Most Europeans within the VOC's registration and identification system were denoted either as Company employees or vrijburgers. The legal classifications imposed upon every individual in the Company possessions determined their position in society and conferred restraints upon their actions. VOC ordinances made a clear distinction between the "bonded" period of service, and the period of "freedom" that began once an employment contract ended. In order to ensure former employees could be distinguished from workers still in the service of the company, it was decided to provide them a "letter of freedom", a licence known as a ''vrijbrief''. European employees were repatriated to the Netherlands upon the termination of their contract, unless they successfully applied for a vrijbrief, in which they were charged a small fee and registered as vrijburgers in a Company record known collectively as the ''vrijboeken''. Fairly strict conditions were levied on those who aspired to become vrijburgers at the Cape of Good Hope. They had to be married Dutch citizens who were regarded as being "of good character" by the VOC and committed to at least twenty years' residence in South Africa. Reflecting the multi-national nature of the workforce of the early modern trading companies, some foreigners, particularly Germans, were open to consideration as well. If their application for vrijburger status was successful, the Company granted them plots of farmland of thirteen and a half morgen, which were tax exempt for twelve years. They were also loaned tools and seeds. The extent of their farming activities, however, remained heavily regulated: for example, the vrijburgers were ordered to focus on the cultivation of grain. Each year their harvest was to be sold exclusively to the VOC at fixed prices. They were forbidden from growing tobacco, producing vegetables for any purpose other than personal consumption, or purchasing cattle from the native
Khoikhoi Khoikhoi (Help:IPA/English, /ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''KOY-koy'') (or Khoekhoe in Namibian orthography) are the traditionally Nomad, nomadic pastoralist Indigenous peoples, indigenous population of South Africa. They ...
at rates which differed from those set by the VOC. With time, these restrictions and other attempts by the VOC to control the settlers resulted in successive generations of vrijburgers and their descendants becoming increasingly localised in their loyalties and national identity and hostile towards the colonial government. Around March 1657, Rijcklof van Goens, a senior VOC officer appointed as commissioner to the fledgling Dutch Cape Colony, ordered Jan van Riebeeck to help more employees succeed as vrijburgers so the company could save on their wages. Although an overwhelming majority of the vrijburgers were farmers, some also stated their intention to seek employment as farm managers, fishermen, wagon-makers, tailors, or hunters. A ship's carpenter was granted a tract of forest, from which he was permitted to sell timber, and one miller from Holland opened his own water-operated corn mill, the first of its kind in Southern Africa. The colony initially did not do well, and many of the discouraged vrijburgers returned to VOC service or sought passage back to the Netherlands to pursue other opportunities. Vegetable gardens were frequently destroyed by storms, and cattle lost in raids by the Khoikhoi, who were known to the Dutch as ''Hottentots''. There was also an unskilled labour shortage, which the VOC later resolved by importing slaves from Angola, Madagascar, and the East Indies. In 1662 van Riebeeck was succeeded by Zacharias Wagenaer as governor of the Cape. Wagenaer was somewhat aloof towards the vrijburgers, whom he dismissed as "sodden, lazy, clumsy louts...since they do not pay proper attention to the laveslent to them, or to their work in the fields, nor to their animals, for that reason seem wedded to the low level and cannot rid themselves of their debts". When Wagenaer arrived, he observed that many of the unmarried vrijburgers were beginning to cohabit with their slaves, with the result that 75% of children born to Cape slaves at the time had a Dutch father. Wagenaer's response was to sponsor the immigration of Dutch women to the colony as potential wives for the settlers. Upon the outbreak of the
Second Anglo-Dutch War The Second Anglo-Dutch War, began on 4 March 1665, and concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Breda (1667), Treaty of Breda on 31 July 1667. It was one in a series of Anglo-Dutch Wars, naval wars between Kingdom of England, England and the D ...
, Wagenaer was perturbed by the British capture of
New Amsterdam New Amsterdam (, ) was a 17th-century Dutch Empire, Dutch settlement established at the southern tip of Manhattan Island that served as the seat of the colonial government in New Netherland. The initial trading ''Factory (trading post), fac ...
and attacks on other Dutch outposts in the Americas and on the west African coast. He increased the Cape garrison by about 300 troops and replaced the original earthen fortifications of the Castle of Good Hope with new ones of stone. In 1672 there were 300 VOC officials, employees, soldiers and sailors at the Cape, compared to only about 64 vrijburgers, 39 of whom were married, with 65 children. By 1687 the number had increased to about 254 vrijburgers, of whom 77 were married, with 231 children.
Simon van der Stel Simon van der Stel (14 October 1639 – 24 June 1712) was the first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony (1691), the settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. He was interested in botany, establishing vineyards Groot Constantia, Groot and Klein C ...
, who was appointed governor of the Cape in 1679, reversed the VOC's earlier policy of keeping the colony limited to the confines of the Cape peninsula itself and encouraged Dutch settlement further abroad, resulting in the founding of
Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin ...
. Van der Stel persuaded 30 vrijburgers to settle in Stellenbosch and a few years afterwards the town received its own municipal administration and school. The VOC was persuaded to seek more prospective European immigrants for the Cape after local officials noted that the cost of maintaining gardens to provision passing ships could be eliminated by outsourcing to a greater number of vrijburgers. Furthermore, the size of the Cape garrison could be reduced if there were many colonists capable of being called up for militia service as needed. Following the passage of the
Edict of Fontainebleau The Edict of Fontainebleau (18 October 1685, published 22 October 1685) was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to prac ...
, the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
served as a major destination for French
Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
refugees fleeing persecution at home. In April 1688, the VOC agreed to sponsor the resettlement of over 100 Huguenots at the Cape. Smaller numbers of Huguenots gradually arrived over the next decade, and by 1702 the community numbered close to 200. Between 1689 and 1707 they were augmented by additional numbers of Dutch settlers sponsored by the VOC with grants of land and free passage to Africa. Additionally, there were calls from the VOC administration to sponsor the immigration of more German settlers to the Cape, as long as they were Protestant. VOC pamphlets began circulating in German cities exhorting the urban poor to seek their fortune in southern Africa. Despite the increasing diversity of the colonial population, there was a degree of cultural assimilation due to intermarriage, and the almost universal adoption of the Dutch language. The use of other European languages was discouraged by a VOC edict declaring that Dutch should be the exclusive language of education, administrative record, and religious services. In 1752 the French astronomer
Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (; 15 March 171321 March 1762), formerly sometimes spelled de la Caille, was a kingdom of France, French astronomer and geodesist who named 14 out of the IAU designated constellations, 88 constellations. From 1750 ...
visited the Cape and observed that the nearly all the third generation descendants of the original Huguenot and German settlers spoke Dutch as a first language.


Impact of the British occupation of the Cape

Long before the British annexed the Cape Colony, there were already large Dutch-speaking European settlements in the
Cape Peninsula The Cape Peninsula () of South Africa is a generally mountainous peninsula that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean at the south-western extremity of the African continent. At the southern end of the peninsula are Cape Point and the Cape of Good ...
and beyond; by the time British rule became permanent in 1806, these had a population of over 26,000. There were, however, two distinct subgroups in the population settled under the VOC. The first were itinerant farmers who began to progressively settle further and further inland, seeking better pastures for their livestock and freedom from the VOC's regulations. This community of settlers collectively identified themselves as Boers to describe their agricultural way of life. Their farms were enormous by European standards, as the land was free and relatively underpopulated; they merely had to register them with the VOC, a process that was little more than a formality and became more irrelevant the further the Boers moved inland. A few Boers adopted a semi-nomadic lifestyle permanently and became known as . The Boers were deeply suspicious of the centralised government and increasing complexities of administration at the Cape; they constantly migrated further from the reaches of the colonial officialdom whenever it attempted to regulate their activities. By the mid-eighteenth century the Boers had penetrated almost a thousand kilometres into South Africa's interior beyond the Cape of Good Hope, at which point they encountered the
Xhosa people The Xhosa people ( , ; ) are a Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group that migrated over centuries into Southern Africa eventually settling in South Africa. They are the second largest ethnic group in South Africa and are native speakers of the Xho ...
, who were migrating southwards from the opposite direction. Competition between the two communities over resources on the frontier sparked the
Xhosa Wars The Xhosa Wars (also known as the Cape Frontier Wars or the Kaffir Wars) were a series of nine wars (from 1779 to 1879) between the Xhosa Kingdom and the British Empire as well as Trekboers from the Dutch colonial empire in what is now the ...
. Harsh Boer attitudes towards black Africans were permanently shaped by their contact with the Xhosa, which bred insecurity and fear on the frontier. The second subgroup of the population became known as the
Cape Dutch Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, educated sect ...
and remained concentrated in the southwestern Cape and especially the areas closer to Cape Town. They were likelier to be urban dwellers, more educated, and typically maintained greater cultural ties to the Netherlands than the Boers. The Cape Dutch formed the backbone of the colony's market economy and included the small entrepreneurial class. These colonists had vested economic interests in the Cape peninsula and were not inclined to venture inland because of the great difficulties in maintaining contact with a viable market. This was in sharp contrast with the Boers on the frontier, who lived on the margins of the market economy. For this reason the Cape Dutch could not easily participate in migrations to escape the colonial system, and the Boer strategy of social and economic withdrawal was not viable for them. Their response to grievances with the Cape government was to demand political reform and greater representation, a practice that became commonplace under Dutch and subsequently British rule. In 1779, for example, hundreds of Cape smuggled a petition to Amsterdam demanding an end to VOC corruption and contradictory laws. Unlike the Boers, the contact most Cape Dutch had with black Africans were predominantly peaceful, and their racial attitudes were more paternal than outright hostile. Meanwhile, the VOC underwent a period of commercial decline beginning in the late eighteenth century which ultimately resulted in its bankruptcy. The company had suffered immense losses to its trade profits as a result of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War and was heavily in debt with European creditors. In 1794, the Dutch government intervened and assumed formal administration of the Cape Colony. However, events at the Cape were overtaken by turmoil in the Netherlands, which was occupied by
Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
during the Flanders Campaign. This opened the Cape to French naval fleets. To protect her own prosperous maritime shipping routes,
Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
occupied the fledgling colony by force until 1803. From 1806 to 1814 the Cape was again governed as a British military dependency, whose sole importance to the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
was its strategic relation to Indian maritime traffic. The British formally assumed permanent administrative control around 1815, as a result of the Treaty of Paris. Relations between some of the colonists and the new British administration quickly soured. The British brought more liberal attitudes towards slavery and treatment of the indigenous peoples to the Cape, which were utterly alien to the colonists. Furthermore, they insisted that the Cape Colony finance its own affairs by taxes levied on the white population, an unpopular measure which bred resentment. By 1812, new attorneys-general and judges had been imported from England and many of the preexisting VOC-era institutions abolished, namely the Dutch magistrate system and the only vestige of representative government at the Cape, the senate. The new judiciary then established circuit courts, which brought colonial authority directly to the frontier. These circuit courts were permitted to try colonists for allegations of abuse of slaves or indentured servants. Most of those tried for these offences were frontier Boers; the charges were usually brought by British missionaries and the courts themselves staffed by unsympathetic and liberal Cape Dutch. The Boers, who perceived most of the charges levelled against them to be flimsy or exaggerated, often refused to answer their court summons. In 1815, a Cape police unit was dispatched to arrest a Boer for failure to appear in court on charges of cruelty towards indentured Khoisan servants; the colonist fired on the troopers when they entered his property and was killed. The controversy which surrounded the incident led to the abortive Slachter's Nek Rebellion, in which a number of Boers took up arms against the British. British officials retaliated by hanging five Boers for insurrection. In 1828, the Cape governor declared that all native inhabitants but slaves were to have the rights of citizens, in respect of security and property ownership, on parity with whites. This had the effect of further alienating the Boers. Boer resentment of successive British administrators continued to grow throughout the late 1820s and early 1830s, especially with the official imposition of the English language. This replaced Dutch with English as the language used in the Cape's judicial system, putting the Boers at a disadvantage, as most spoke little or no English at all. Bridling at what they considered an unwarranted intrusion into their way of life, some in the Boer community began to consider selling their farms and venturing deep into South Africa's unmapped interior to preempt further disputes and live completely independent from British rule. From their perspective, the Slachter's Nek Rebellion had demonstrated the futility of an armed uprising against the new order the British had entrenched at the Cape; one result was that the Boers who might have otherwise been inclined to take up arms began preparing for a mass emigration from the colony instead.


The Great Trek

Between 1834 and 1840 about 15 000 Afrikaners left the Cape Colony permanently. They called themselves 'emigrants' and their mass-trek an 'emigration', but in the late 19th century this mass-movement became known as the Great Trek ie Groot Trek Kaalvoet oor die Drakensberge"and the emigrants . The departed the colony in a series of parties, taking with them all their livestock and portable property, as well as slaves, and their dependents. They had the skills to maintain their own wagons and firearms, but remained dependent on equally mobile traders for vital commodities such as gunpowder and sugar. Nevertheless, one of their goals was to sever their ties with the Cape's commercial network by gaining access to foreign traders and ports in east Africa, well beyond the British sphere of influence. The various motives for the Great Trek are laid out in the Voortrekker leader, Piet Retief's 1837 manifesto. On the one hand, there was an ongoing conflict between the Boers and the Xhosa inhabitants on the frontier, as well as growing resentment between the farmers and the restrictions imposed upon them by British colonial authorities. Land prices had also increased considerably during the 1820s and 1830s, which meant that the younger generation could not afford their own pieces of land, a problem that would only grow. Another reason was concerns about labour loss and financial retribution with the passing of Ordinance 50 in 1828, which outlawed slavery. The Great Trek split the Afrikaner community along social and geographical lines, driving a wedge between the and those who remained in the Cape Colony. Only about a fifth of the colony's Dutch-speaking white population at the time participated in the Great Trek. The
Dutch Reformed Church The Dutch Reformed Church (, , abbreviated NHK ) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal famil ...
, to which most of the Boers belonged, condemned the migration. Despite their hostility towards the British, there were also Boers who chose to remain in the Cape of their own accord. For its part, the distinct Cape Dutch community remained loyal to the British Crown and focused its efforts on building political organisations seeking representative government; its lobbying efforts were partly responsible for the establishment of the
Cape Qualified Franchise The Cape Qualified Franchise was the system of multi-racial Suffrage, franchise that was adhered to in the Cape Colony, and in the Cape Province in the early years of the Union of South Africa. Qualifications for the right to vote at parliamenta ...
in 1853. As important as the Trek was to the formation of Boer ethnic identity, so were the running conflicts with various indigenous groups along the way. One conflict central to the construction of Boer identity occurred with the Zulu in the area of present-day
KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...
. The Boers who entered Natal discovered that the land they wanted came under the authority of the Zulu King
Dingane kaSenzangakhona Dingane ka Senzangakhona Zulu (–29 January 1840), commonly referred to as Dingane, Dingarn or Dingaan, was a Zulu people, Zulu prince who became king of the Zulu Kingdom in 1828, after assassinating his half-brother Shaka Zulu. He set up his ...
, who ruled that part of what subsequently became KwaZulu-Natal. The British had a small port colony (the future Durban) there but were unable to seize the whole area from the war-ready Zulus and only kept to the Port of Natal. The Boers found the land safe from the British and sent an unarmed Boer land treaty delegation under Piet Retief on February 6, 1838, to negotiate with the Zulu King. The negotiations went well, and a contract between Retief and Dingane was signed. However, the agreement between Retief's and Dingane's people was that no weapons would be present during their negotiation time. Dingane and his people did not keep to this treaty, kicked their assegaai's from their burried hiding places, and killed the members of the delegation while they were still in the kraal; a large-scale massacre of the Boers followed: see
Weenen massacre The Weenen Massacre, also known as the Bloukrans Massacre, was a series of coordinated attacks by Zulu forces under Dingane, King Dingane on Voortrekker encampments in Natal, present-day South Africa, on 17–18 February 1838. Following the kill ...
. Zulu ('regiments') attacked Boer encampments in the
Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Zulu language, Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho language, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, Southern Africa, Great Escarpment, which encloses the central South Africa#Geography, Sout ...
foothills at what was later called Blaauwkrans and
Weenen Weenen (Dutch for "wept") is the second oldest European settlement in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is situated on the banks of the Bushman River. The farms around the town grow vegetables, lucerne, groundnuts, and citrus fruit. History The p ...
, killing women and children along with men. (By contrast, in earlier conflicts the had experienced along the eastern Cape frontier, the Xhosa had refrained from harming women and children.) A commando of 470 men arrived to help the settlers. On 16 December 1838, the under the command of
Andries Pretorius Andries Wilhelmus Jacobus Pretorius (27 November 179823 July 1853) was a leader of the Boers who was instrumental in the creation of the South African Republic, as well as the earlier but short-lived Natalia Republic, in present-day South Africa ...
confronted about 10,000 Zulus at the prepared positions. The Boers had three injuries without any fatalities. Due to the blood of 3,000 slain Zulus that stained the Ncome River, the conflict afterwards became known as the
Battle of Blood River The Battle of Blood River or Voortrekker-Zulu War (16 December 1838) was fought on the bank of the Blood River, Ncome River, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa between 464 Voortrekkers ("Pioneers"), led by Andries Pretorius, and an es ...
. In present-day South Africa, 16 December remains a celebrated public holiday, initially called "Dingane's Day". After 1952, the holiday was officially recognised and named the Day of the Covenant, changed to Day of the Vow "Geloftedag" in 1980 (Mackenzie 1999:69) and, after the abolition of apartheid, to Day of Reconciliation in 1994. The Boers saw their victory at the Battle of Blood River as evidence that they had found divine favour from The Lord for their exodus from British rule.


Boer republics

After defeating the Zulu and the recovery of the treaty between Dingane and Retief, the Voortrekkers proclaimed the
Natalia Republic The Natalia Republic was a short-lived Boer republic founded in 1839 after a Voortrekker victory against the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. The area was previously named ''Natália'' by Portuguese sailors, due to its discovery on Christm ...
. In 1843, Britain annexed Natal and many Boers trekked inwards again. Due to the return of British rule, Boers fled to the frontiers to the north-west of the
Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Zulu language, Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho language, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, Southern Africa, Great Escarpment, which encloses the central South Africa#Geography, Sout ...
mountains, and onto the
highveld The Highveld (Afrikaans: ''Hoëveld,'' , ) is the portion of the South African inland plateau which has an altitude above roughly , but below , thus excluding the Lesotho mountain regions to the south-east of the Highveld. It is home to some of t ...
of the and . These areas were mostly unoccupied due to conflicts in the course of the genocidal wars of the Zulus on the local Basuthu population who used it as summer grazing for their cattle. Some Boers ventured beyond the present-day borders of South Africa, north as far as present-day Zambia and Angola. Others reached the Portuguese colony of
Delagoa Bay Delagoa is a marine ecoregion along the eastern coast of Africa. It extends along the coast of Mozambique and South Africa from the Bazaruto Archipelago (21°14’ S) to Lake St. Lucia in South Africa (28° 10' S) in South Africa's Kwazulu-Nat ...
, later called and subsequently
Maputo Maputo () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Mozambique. Located near the southern end of the country, it is within of the borders with Eswatini and South Africa. The city has a population of 1,088,449 (as of 2017) distributed ov ...
– the capital of Mozambique. A significant number of Afrikaners also went as to
Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
, where a large group settled on the Huíla Plateau, in Humpata, and smaller communities on the Central Highlands. They constituted a closed community which rejected integration as well as innovation, became impoverished in the course of several decades, and returned to
South West Africa South West Africa was a territory under Union of South Africa, South African administration from 1915 to 1990. Renamed ''Namibia'' by the United Nations in 1968, Independence of Namibia, it became independent under this name on 21 March 1990. ...
and South Africa in waves. The Boers created sovereign states in what is now South Africa: (the
South African Republic The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...
) and the Orange Free State were the most prominent and lasted the longest. The discovery of goldfields awakened British interest in the Boer republics, and the two Boer Wars resulted: The
First Boer War The First Boer War (, ), was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and Boers of the Transvaal (as the South African Republic was known while under British ad ...
(1880–1881) and the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
(1899–1902). The Boers won the first war and retained their independence. The second ended with British victory and annexation of the Boer areas into the British colonies. The British employed
scorched earth A scorched-earth policy is a military strategy of destroying everything that allows an enemy military force to be able to fight a war, including the deprivation and destruction of water, food, humans, animals, plants and any kind of tools and i ...
tactics and held many Boers in
concentration camps A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
as a means to separate commandos from their source of shelter, food and supply. The strategy had its intended effect, but an estimated 27,000 Boers (mainly women and children under sixteen) died in these camps from
hunger In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic nutritional needs for a sustained period. In t ...
and
disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that adversely affects the structure or function (biology), function of all or part of an organism and is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical condi ...
.


Post Boer War diaspora

In the 1890s, some Boers trekked into
Mashonaland Mashonaland is a region in northeastern Zimbabwe. It is home to nearly half of the population of Zimbabwe. The majority of the Mashonaland people are from the Shona tribe while the Zezuru and Korekore dialects are most common. Harare is the larg ...
, where they were concentrated at the town of Enkeldoorn, now
Chivhu Chivhu, originally known as Enkeldoorn, is a small town in Zimbabwe, with an estimated population of 10,000 in 2007. It is located south of Harare on the main road south to Masvingo and South Africa. Name Chivhu's original name, Enkeldoorn, i ...
. After the second Boer War, more Boers left South Africa. Starting in 1902 to 1908 a large group of around 650 Afrikaners emigrated to the
Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...
region of
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
, under the leadership Louis Baumann and the Italian Camillo Ricchiardi (most notably to the towns of Comodoro Rivadavia and Sarmiento), choosing to settle there due to its similarity to the Karoo region of South Africa. Another group emigrated to British-ruled Kenya, from where most returned to South Africa during the 1930s as a result of warfare there amongst indigenous people. A third group, under the leadership of General Ben Viljoen, emigrated to Chihuahua in northern Mexico and to the states of
Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
, California,
New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...
and
Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
in the south-western US. Others migrated to other parts of Africa, including German East Africa (present day Tanzania, mostly near Arusha).
Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...
is the country in
Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
with the largest community of Afrikaners, they mostly live in
Southeastern Brazil The Southeast Region of Brazil ( ) is composed of the states of Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro (state), Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo State, São Paulo. It is the richest region of the country, responsible for approximately 53% of t ...
, the most populous area of the country. In 2020, they numbered 2,895 people. A relatively large group of Boers settled in Kenya. The first wave of migrants consisted of individual families, followed by larger multiple-family treks. Some had arrived by 1904, as documented by the caption of a newspaper photograph noting a tent town for "some of the early settlers from South Africa" on what became the campus of the
University of Nairobi The University of Nairobi (uonbi or UoN; ) is a college, collegiate research university based in Nairobi and is the largest List of universities and colleges in Kenya, university in Kenya. Although its history as an educational institution dat ...
. Probably the first to arrive was W.J. van Breda (1903), followed by John de Waal and Frans Arnoldi at Nakuru (1906). Jannie De Beer's family resided at
Athi River Athi River is a town outside Nairobi, Kenya in Machakos County. The town is named after the Athi-Galana-Sabaki River, Athi River, which passes through. It is also known as Mavoko. Athi River hosts the Mavoko Municipal Council and is the headq ...
, while Ignatius Gouws resided at Solai. The second wave of migrants is exemplified by Jan Janse van Rensburg's trek. Janse van Rensburg left the Transvaal on an exploratory trip to
British East Africa East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes, occupying roughly the same area as present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Cont ...
in 1906 from (then Portuguese), Mozambique. Van Rensburg was inspired by an earlier Boer migrant, Abraham Joubert, who had moved to Nairobi from Arusha in 1906, along with others. When Joubert visited the Transvaal that year, van Rensburg met with him. Sources disagree about whether van Rensburg received guarantees for land from the Governor of the East Africa Protectorate, Sir James Hayes Sadler. On his return to the Transvaal, van Rensburg recruited about 280 Afrikaners (comprising either 47 or 60 families) to accompany him to British East Africa. On 9 July 1908 his party sailed in the chartered ship ''SS '' from to Mombasa, from where they boarded a train for Nairobi. The party travelled by five trains to Nakuru. In 1911, the last of the large trek groups departed for Kenya, when some 60 families from the Orange Free State boarded the ''SS '' in Durban under leadership of C.J. Cloete. But migration dwindled, partly due to the British secretary of state's (then Lord Crewe) cash requirements for immigrants. When the British granted self-government to the former Boer republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in 1906 and 1907, respectively, the pressure for emigration decreased. A trickle of individual families continued to migrate into the 1950s. A combination of factors spurred on Boer migration. Some, like van Rensburg and Cloete, had collaborated with the British, or had surrendered during the Boer War. These joiners and ("hands-uppers") subsequently experienced hostility from other Afrikaners. Many migrants were extremely poor and had subsisted on others' property. Collaborators tended to move to British East Africa, while those who had fought to the end (called , "bitter-enders") initially preferred German South West Africa. One of the best known Boer settlements in the British East Africa Protectorate became established at
Eldoret Eldoret is a city in the Rift Valley region of Kenya. It serves as the capital of Uasin Gishu County. Located in western Kenya and lying south of the Cherangani Hills, the local elevation varies from about at the Eldoret International Air ...
, in the south west of what became known as Kenya in 1920. By 1934, some 700 Boers lived here, near the Ugandan border.


South West Africa

With the onset of the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
in 1914, the Allies asked the Union of South Africa to attack the German territory of South West Africa, resulting in the South West Africa Campaign (1914–1915). Armed forces under the leadership of General Louis Botha defeated the German forces, who were unable to put up much resistance to the overwhelming South African forces. Many Boers, who had little love or respect for Britain, objected to the use of the " children from the concentration camps" to attack the anti-British Germans, resulting in the Maritz Rebellion of 1914, which was quickly quelled by the government forces. Some Boers subsequently moved to South West Africa, which was administered by South Africa until its independence in 1990, after which the country adopted the name Namibia.


Genealogy

Scholars have traditionally considered Afrikaners to be a homogeneous population of Dutch ancestry, subject to a significant
founder effect In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population. It was first fully outlined by Ernst Mayr in 1942, us ...
. This simplistic viewpoint has been challenged by recent studies suggesting multiple uncertainties regarding the genetic composition of white South Africans at large and Afrikaners in particular. Afrikaners are descended, to varying degrees, from Dutch, German and French Huguenot immigrants, along with minor percentages of other Europeans and indigenous African peoples. The first mixed race marriage which took place in Cape Town in 1664 was that of
Krotoa The "!Oroǀõas" ("Ward (law), Ward-girl"), spelled in Dutch language, Dutch as Krotoa or Kroket, otherwise known by her Christian name Eva (c. 1643 – 29 July 1674), was a Strandloper peoples, !Uriǁ'aeǀona translator who worked for the Dutch ...
, a Khoi woman, and Peder Havgaard, a Danish surgeon. Krotoa and Peder's descendants are the Pelzer, Kruger, Steenkamp and other Afrikaner families. Although the Cape Colony was administered and initially settled by VOC, a number of foreigners also boarded ships in the Netherlands to settle there. Their numbers can be reconstructed from censuses of the Cape rather than passenger lists, taking into account VOC employees who later returned to Europe. Some Europeans also arrived from elsewhere in Holland's sphere, especially German soldiers being discharged from colonial service. As a result, by 1691 over a quarter of the white population of South Africa was not ethnically Dutch. The number of permanent settlers of both sexes and all ages, according to figures available at the onset of British rule, numbered 26,720, of whom 50% were Dutch, 27% German, 17% French and 5.5% other. This demographic breakdown of the community just prior to the end of the Dutch administration has been used in many subsequent studies to represent the ethnic makeup of modern Afrikaners, a practise criticised by some academics such as Dr. Johannes Heese. Based on Heese's genealogical research of the period from 1657 to 1867, his study ' ("The Origins of the Afrikaners") estimated an average ethnic admixture for Afrikaners of 35.5% Dutch, 34.4% German, 13.9% French, 7.2% non-European, 2.6% English, 2.8% other European and 3.6% unknown. Heese reached this conclusion by recording all the wedding dates and number of children of each immigrant. He then divided the period between 1657 and 1867 into six thirty-year blocs, and working under the assumption that earlier colonists contributed more to the gene pool, multiplied each child's bloodline by 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 and 1 according to respective period. Heese argued that previous studies wrongly classified some German progenitors as Dutch, although for the purposes of his own study he also reclassified a number of Scandinavian (especially Danish) progenitors as German. Drawing heavily on Christoffel Coetzee de Villiers' ', British historian George McCall Theal estimated an admixture of 67% Dutch, with a nearly equal contribution of roughly 17% from the Huguenots and Germans. Theal argued that most studies suggesting a higher percentage of German ancestry among Afrikaners wrongly counted as "German" all those who came from German-speaking Swiss cantons or the Baltics and ignored the VOC's policy of recruiting settlers among the Dutch diaspora living in the border regions of several German states. The degree of intermixing among Afrikaners may be attributed to the unbalanced sex ratio which existed under Dutch governance.Shell, Robert (1992) Tender Ties: Women and the slave household, 1652-1834. Collected Seminar Papers. Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 42. pp. 1-33. . Only a handful of VOC employees who sailed from the Netherlands were allowed to bring their families with them, and the Dutch never employed European women in a full-time capacity. Between 1657 and 1806 no more than 454 women arrived at the Cape, as compared to the 1,590 male colonists. One of the most fundamental demographic consequences was that white South African women, much like their counterparts in colonial
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
, began to marry much younger and consequently bear more children than Western Europeans. Another was the high occurrence of inter-family marriages from the matrilineal aspect. These were reinforced by the familial interdependence of the Cape's credit and mortgage obligations. Afrikaner families thus became larger in size, more interconnected, and clannish than those of any other colonial establishment in the world. Some of the more common Afrikaner surnames include Botha, Pretorius and van der Merwe. As in other cases where large population groups have been propagated by a relatively small pool of progenitors, Afrikaners have also experienced an increase in the frequency of some otherwise rare deleterious ailments, including
variegate porphyria Variegate porphyria, also known by several other names, is an autosomal dominant porphyria that can have acute (severe but usually not long-lasting) symptoms along with symptoms that affect the skin. The disorder results from low levels of the enz ...
and familial hypercholesterolaemia.


Non-European ancestry

According to a genetic study in February 2019, almost all Afrikaners have admixture from non-Europeans. The total amount of non-European ancestry - on average - is 4.8%, of which 2.1% are of African ancestry and 2.7% Asian/ Native American ancestry. Among the 77 Afrikaners investigated, 6.5% had more than 10% non-European admixture, 27.3% had between 5 and 10%, 59.7% had between 1 and 5%, and 6.5% below 1%. It appears that some 3.4% of the non-European admixture can be traced to enslaved peoples who were brought to the Cape from other regions during colonial times. Only 1.38% of the admixture is attributed to the local Khoisan people.


Black Afrikaners

Approximately 100 black families who identify as Afrikaners live in the settlement of Onverwacht, established in 1886 near the mining town of Cullinan. Members of the community descend from the freed slaves who had been with the Voortrekkers who settled in the area.


Modern history


Apartheid era

In South Africa, the National Party came to power in 1948 and enacted a series of segregation laws known as ''apartheid'', meaning "separateness". The apartheid laws allowed for sporadic persecution of opposition leaders and enforced general segregation by classifying all South African inhabitants into racial groups. Non-White political participation was outlawed, and the entire public sphere, including education, residential areas, medical care, and common areas such as public transport, beaches, and amenities, were segregated. Apartheid was officially abolished in 1991 after decades of widespread unrest by opponents who were seeking equal rights, led by supporters of the United Democratic Front,
Pan-African Congress The Pan-African Congress (PAC) is a regular series of meetings which first took place on the back of the Pan-African Conference held in London in 1900. The Pan-African Congress first gained a reputation as a peacemaker for decolonization in ...
,
South African Communist Party The South African Communist Party (SACP) is a communist party in South Africa. It was founded on 12 February 1921 as the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA), and tactically dissolved itself in 1950 in the face of being declared illegal by t ...
, and
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
, and a long international embargo against South Africa. The effective end to apartheid, however, is widely regarded as the 1994 general election, the first fully-democratic multi-racial election. It took place following negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa, a long series of negotiations involving the National Party government under President Frederik Willem de Klerk (FW de Klerk), the ANC under
Nelson Mandela Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela ( , ; born Rolihlahla Mandela; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served as the first president of South Africa f ...
, and other parties. The
African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...
won and Mandela was elected as president.


Post-apartheid era

In 2006 some 350,000 Afrikaners were classified as poor, with some research claiming that up to 150,000 were struggling to survive. In the early 2000s, Genocide Watch theorised that farm attacks constituted early warning signs of genocide against Afrikaners. It criticized the South African government for its inaction on the issue. As of the 1996 census, 68,606 out of the 749,637 people in the agriculture and hunting sector were white.
The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...
has advanced that since 1994, close to 3,000 farmers have been murdered in farm attacks.


Geography

Afrikaners originated in the Dutch Cape Colony (after 1806, the British Cape Colony), and thus their present-day numbers are concentrated in
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
. Afrikaners also have a significant presence in
Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
due to the country's long political administration and de facto incorporation into South Africa between 1915 and 1990. An Afrikaner diaspora has developed since the end of the South African white minority government in 1994. Emigrants have settled predominantly in English-speaking countries, with their largest concentrations in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
and
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
.


South Africa

The South African National Census of 2011 shows the greatest geographic concentration of Afrikaners is in the City of Tshwane, with over 453,000 white Afrikaans-speakers there overall. Afrikaners are particularly prevalent in
Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...
and
Centurion In the Roman army during classical antiquity, a centurion (; , . ; , or ), was a commander, nominally of a century (), a military unit originally consisting of 100 legionaries. The size of the century changed over time; from the 1st century BC ...
. At the time of the census, over 331,000 residents of Pretoria spoke Afrikaans as their first language and the city was majority (52%) white. In nearby Centurion (formerly Verwoerdburg), also majority white (59%), 115,000 residents spoke Afrikaans as their first language. The importance of this region to post-apartheid Afrikaner society can be seen in the building of campuses for two new Afrikaans-medium institutions of higher education in the vicinity, Sol-Tech in 2020 (Pretoria) and
Akademia The Academy (), variously known as Plato's Academy, or the Platonic Academy, was founded in Athens by Plato ''circa'' 387 BC. The academy is regarded as the first institution of higher education in the west, where subjects as diverse as biolog ...
in 2021 (Centurion). The importance of the City of Tshwane can also be gleaned from the numbers of high schools in the area. In 2022, 20 Afrikaans-medium secondary schools and another 6 dual- or parallel-medium (Afrikaans and English) secondary schools existed in Pretoria and Centurion graduating 4,515 students. Significant concentrations of Afrikaners also exist in the
East Rand The East Rand is a major urban area located in the Gauteng province of South Africa. It is the urban eastern part of Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation. The region extends from Alberton in the west to ...
/ City of Ekurhuleni,
Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
(especially the northern suburbs around Bellville and Strand in the Helderberg), the West Rand,
Port Elizabeth Gqeberha ( , ), formerly named Port Elizabeth, and colloquially referred to as P.E., is a major seaport and the most populous city in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is the seat of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipal ...
,
Bloemfontein Bloemfontein ( ; ), also known as Bloem, is the capital and the largest city of the Free State (province), Free State province in South Africa. It is often, and has been traditionally, referred to as the country's "judicial capital", alongsi ...
and the Vaal Triangle.


Namibia

The chief site of Afrikaner settlement in Namibia is the country's capital city,
Windhoek Windhoek (; ; ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, almost exactly at the country's geographical centre. The population of Windhoek, which ...
. Afrikaners are concentrated in the sections of the city east of the Western Bypass road, areas historically reserved for whites prior to the end of legal residential apartheid in 1977. In the 2011 Namibian Census, 29,717 residents spoke Afrikaans in the constituencies of Windhoek East and Windhoek West combined, both located for the most part east of the Western Bypass. This is a fair estimate of the size of the Afrikaner resident population in the city at that time. Smaller concentrations of Afrikaners exist in the coastal Namibian cities of
Swakopmund Swakopmund ("Mouth of the Swakop River, Swakop") is a city on the coast of western Namibia, west of the Namibian capital Windhoek via the B2 road (Namibia), B2 main road. It is the capital of the Erongo Region, Erongo administrative district. It ...
and
Walvis Bay Walvis Bay (; ; ) is a city in Namibia and the name of the bay on which it lies. It is the List of cities in Namibia, second largest city in Namibia and the largest coastal city in the country. The city covers an area of of land. The bay is a ...
, the latter an exclave of South Africa until 1994.


Botswana

Botswana has a small group of Afrikaners historically concentrated in the Ghanzi area, as well more recent arrivals as in the Kgalagadi District along the country's southwest border with South Africa. Afrikaners have lived in the Ghanzi area since 1898 when the
British South Africa Company The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expecte ...
offered land to settlers who moved to the region. According to the 2001 Botswana Census, 6,750 residents of the country spoke Afrikaans at home making up 0.4% of the total population. As some unknown number of those counted were Coloured, the number of Afrikaners in Botswana is some degree less than the stated census figure.


Afrikaner diaspora

White South Africans began emigrating in significant numbers in the mid-1970s in the wake of the Soweto uprising and again in the mid-1980s after the 1985 declaration of the state of emergency and the intensification of the
South African Border War The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes denoted in South Africa as the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Zambia, and Angol ...
. These early waves were overwhelmingly Anglo in character, however. Not until the early 1990s, during the transition period out of apartheid and white minority rule, did Afrikaners begin leaving the country. Statistics South Africa estimated a net 304,112 white residents left the country over the years 1986–2000 with another 341,000 over the period 2001–2016. This emigration is the source of a notable Afrikaner diaspora today.


Australia and New Zealand

Outside South Africa and Namibia, the largest population of Afrikaners resides in Australia and New Zealand. According to the
2021 Australian census The 2021 Australian census, simply called the 2021 Census, was the eighteenth national Census of Population and Housing in Australia. The 2021 Census took place on 10 August 2021, and was conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). ...
, 49,375 residents spoke Afrikaans at home. While not all of those are Afrikaners, they are likely the overwhelming majority. In 2018, 36,966 residents of New Zealand spoke Afrikaans. The largest geographic concentration of Afrikaners outside Africa is likely Auckland, New Zealand. In 2018, 1.1% of all
Auckland region Auckland () is one of the 16 regions of New Zealand, which takes its name from the eponymous urban areas of New Zealand, urban area. The region encompasses the Auckland, Auckland metropolitan area, smaller towns, rural areas, and the islands o ...
residents spoke Afrikaans, or roughly 16,980 people. The North Shore is a site of notable Afrikaner settlement, especially Browns Bay and the surrounding suburbs.
East Auckland East Auckland () is one of the major geographical regions of Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Settled in the 14th century, the area is part of the traditional lands of Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki. The area was developed into farmland in the ...
is a secondary site, especially Howick. A second major overseas concentration is Greater Perth, Australia. In 2021, 0.6% of the population of
Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
's capital and its environs, or 11,870 persons, spoke Afrikaans. The city's northwest suburbs, particularly the City of Wanneroo and City of Joondalup, have the highest concentrations of Afrikaans-speakers. The South African, and especially Afrikaans-speaking, community is so large there that South Africans have nicknamed the city "Perthfontein" and "Bloemfontein by the sea".


North America


=Canada

= According to the 2021 Canadian Census, 14,665 residents of Canada spoke Afrikaans. The largest concentration was in the Vancouver metropolitan area at 1,860 persons.


=United States

= Over the period 2009–13, the
American Community Survey The American Community Survey (ACS) is an annual demographics survey program conducted by the United States Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the United States census, decennial census ...
recorded 23,010 Afrikaans-speakers age 5 and over in the United States. The
Atlanta metropolitan area Metro Atlanta, designated by the United States Office of Management and Budget as the Atlanta–Sandy Springs–Roswell metropolitan statistical area, is the most populous metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Georgia and the sixt ...
had the highest concentration with 1,900 speakers. On 7 February 2025, U.S. President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
signed an
executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the ...
, addressing South Africa's Expropriation Act 13 of 2024, which allowed land seizures targeting Afrikaner farmers. In addition, the U.S. would be halting aid to South Africa and prioritizing refugee resettlement for Afrikaners facing discrimination. A month later, the U.S. State Department reported receiving approximately 8,000 inquiries from Afrikaners, seeking refugee resettlement. In addition, the Trump administration indicated that up to 1,000 Afrikaners could be admitted to the United States within the year. Two months later, on 12 May, nearly 60 Afrikaner refugees arrived at
Dulles International Airport Washington Dulles International Airport ( ) – commonly known by its former name of Dulles International Airport, by its airport code of IAD, or simply as Dulles Airport – is an international airport in the Eastern United States, located w ...
under a new U.S. policy prioritizing their resettlement. In the meantime, the Episcopal Church ended its refugee resettlement partnership with the U.S. government, claiming their policy is racially biased and inconsistent with their values of justice and equity.


The United Kingdom

While the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
is the leading destination for white South African emigrants, very few Afrikaners move to the country. In England and Wales in 2021, over 217,000 residents were born in South Africa but only 7,489 spoke Afrikaans as their main language.


Netherlands

The Netherlands, due to persistent skilled labor shortages in the 2020s, is increasingly recruiting Afrikaners. Their distance to the Dutch labor market is significantly lessened due to the partial mutual intelligibility of Afrikaans and Dutch as well as the rapid pace at which Afrikaners can typically learn Dutch.


Other

Since the early 1990s, the country of
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
has attracted a small number of Afrikaner farmers to help revive its agricultural sector. As of 2018 Russia has begun attempts of attracting Afrikaner farmers to deal with declining population.


Culture


Religion

At the time of settlement, Dutch traders and others came out of a majority- Protestant area, where the Reformation had resulted in high rates of literacy in the Netherlands. Boers in South Africa were part of the Calvinist tradition in the northern Europe Protestant countries. The original South African Boer republics were founded on the principles of the Dutch Reformed Church. Missionaries established new congregations on the frontier and churches were the center of communities. In 1985, 92% of Afrikaners identified as members of the Reformed churches that developed from this background. Pentecostal churches have also attracted new members.


Language

The Afrikaans language changed over time from the Dutch spoken by the first white settlers at the Cape. From the late 17th century, the form of Dutch spoken at the Cape developed differences, mostly in morphology but also in pronunciation and accent and, to a lesser extent, in syntax and vocabulary, from that of the Netherlands, although the languages are still similar enough to be
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...
. Settlers who arrived speaking German and French soon shifted to using Dutch and later Afrikaans. The process of
language change Language change is the process of alteration in the features of a single language, or of languages in general, over time. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistic ...
was influenced by the languages spoken by slaves, Khoikhoi, and people of mixed descent, as well as by
Cape Malay Cape Malays (, in Arabic Afrikaans, Arabic script) 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, specifi ...
, Zulu, British and Portuguese. While the Dutch of the Netherlands remained the official language, the new dialect, often known as Cape Dutch, African Dutch, kitchen Dutch, or (meaning "language" in Afrikaans) developed into a separate language by the 19th century, with much work done by the and writers such as Cornelis Jacobus Langenhoven. In a 1925 act of Parliament, Afrikaans was given equal status with Dutch as one of the two official languages (English being the second) of the
Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
. There was much objection to the attempt to legislate the creation of Afrikaans as a new language.
Marthinus Steyn Martinus (or Marthinus) Theunis Steyn (; 2 October 185728 November 1916) was a South African lawyer, politician, and statesman. He was the sixth and last president of the independent Orange Free State from 1896 to 1902. Early life The Ste ...
, a prominent jurist and politician, and others were vocal in their opposition. Today, Afrikaans is recognised as one of the eleven official
languages of South Africa At least thirty-five languages are spoken in South Africa, twelve of which are official languages of South Africa: Southern Ndebele language, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Pedi, Sotho language, Sotho, South African Sign Language, Swazi language, ...
, and is the third most common first language in South Africa. In June 2013, the Department of Basic Education included Afrikaans as an African language to be compulsory for all pupils. Afrikaans is offered at many universities outside of South Africa including in the
Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
,
Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...
,
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
,
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
and the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
.


Literature

Afrikaners have a long literary tradition, and have produced a number of notable novelists and poets, including Eugene Marais, Uys Krige, Elisabeth Eybers,
Breyten Breytenbach Breyten Breytenbach (; 16 September 193924 November 2024) was a South African writer, poet, and painter. He became internationally well-known as a dissident poet and vocal critic of South Africa under apartheid, and as a political prisoner of ...
, André Brink, C. J. Langenhoven and Etienne Leroux. Nobel Prize winner
J. M. Coetzee John Maxwell Coetzee Order of Australia, AC Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, FRSL Order of Mapungubwe, OMG (born 9 February 1940) is a South African and Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, and translator. The recipient of the 2003 ...
is of Afrikaner descent, although he spoke English at home as a child in Cape Town. He has translated some works from Afrikaans and Dutch into English, but writes only in English.


Arts

Music is a popular art form among Afrikaners. While the traditional ("Boer music") and ('folk dancing', lit. 'people games') enjoyed popularity in the past, most Afrikaners today favour a variety of international genres and light popular Afrikaans music. American country and western music has enjoyed great popularity and has a strong following among many South Africans. Some also enjoy a social dance event called a . The South African rock band
Seether Seether are a South African Rock music, rock band founded in 1999 in Pretoria, Gauteng. The band originally performed under the name Saron Gas until 2002, when they moved to the United States and changed it to Seether to avoid confusion with ...
has a hidden track on their album ''
Karma and Effect ''Karma and Effect'' is the third studio album by South African rock band Seether. It was released on 24 May 2005 by Wind-up Records. It is the band's second and final album with guitarist Pat Callahan prior to his departure from the band in ...
'' titled ("Come With Me"), sung in Afrikaans. There is also an underground rock music movement and bands like the controversial ('Fuck-off-police-car') have a large following. The television Channel MK (channel) also supports local Afrikaans music and mainly screens videos from the Afrikaans Rock genre. Afrikaner classical musicians include the pianists Wessel van Wyk, Ben Schoeman, and Petronel Malan, and the music departments of the various universities (
Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...
,
Stellenbosch Stellenbosch (; )A Universal Pronouncing Gazetteer.
Thomas Baldwin ...
,
Potchefstroom Potchefstroom ( ; ), colloquially known as Potch, is an college town, academic city in the North West (South African province), North West Province of South Africa. It hosts the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University. Potchefstro ...
, Free State) that started as Afrikaans universities still are renowned. In the 20th century, Mimi Coertse was an internationally renowned opera singer. She is also known as African Lieder interpreter by Stephanus Le Roux Marais. The world-renowned
UNISA The University of South Australia is a Public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1991, it is the successor of the former South Australian Institute of Technology. Its main campuses along ...
music exams include a section of South African contemporary music, which acknowledges Afrikaner composers. The contemporary musical ('Us for you'), dealing with the Second Boer War, featured a book by Deon Opperman and a score by Sean Else and Johan Vorster of the band Eden. Afrikaner film musicals flourished in the 1950s and 1960s, and have returned in the 21st century with two popular films, Liefling and Pretville, featuring singers such as
Bobby van Jaarsveld Pieter van Jaarsveld, professionally known as Bobby van Jaarsveld, (born 6 March 1987) is a South African Afrikaans-language pop singer-songwriter and actor. Early life Van Jaarsveld, who was nicknamed "Bobby" after his father, was born on 6 Ma ...
,
Steve Hofmeyr Steve Hofmeyr (born 29 August 1964) is a South African musician, writer and actor known for his prominence in the Afrikaans music scene. Outside of music, he is best known for his long-running role as Doug Durand on Egoli: Place of Gold, as well ...
, and Kevin Leo.


Cuisine

Afrikaner cuisine has contributed three unique terms to the South African lexicon, namely ('farmer/Boer food'), ('small pot food') and ('grilled meat'; frequently just , 'grilled'), although the latter (meaning "grilled meat") has actually expanded to a common South African habit. A typical recipe for consists of meat (usually roasted in a pan or oven), vegetables such as green beans, roots or peas, and starch such as
potatoes The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...
or
rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...
, with sauce made in the pot in which the meat is cooked. The dish can also use pumpkins or
sweet potatoes The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant in the morning glory family, Convolvulaceae. Its sizeable, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a root vegetable, which is a staple food in parts of the ...
, and some of the ingredients may be further processed into ('pumpkin biscuits', pumpkin baked in a kind of puff) or ("Farm beans") consisting of green beans cooked and crushed with potatoes and onions. Afrikaners eat most types of meat such as mutton, beef, chicken, pork and various game species, but the meat of draft animals such as horses and donkeys is rarely eaten and is not part of traditional cuisine. East Indian influence emerges in dishes such as and curry, and the use of turmeric and other spices in cooking. Afrikaner households often eat combinations such as -and-sausage, meat curry and rice, and even fish and chips (although the latter are bought rather than self-prepared). Other traditional Afrikaner dishes include , , , , and a variety of traditionally homemade but increasingly storebought pastries.


Sport

Rugby,
cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
,
golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...
and shot-put are the most popular sports among Afrikaners. Rugby in particular is considered one of the central pillars of the Afrikaner community. The national rugby team, the Springboks, did not compete in the first two rugby world cups in
1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...
and
1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...
because of anti-apartheid sporting boycotts of South Africa, but later on the Springboks won the
1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...
,
2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...
,
2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding COVID-19 pandemic, the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as ...
and
2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...
Rugby World Cups. ('farmer/Boer sport') also played a big role in the Afrikaner history. It consisted of a variety of sports like
tug of war Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport in which two teams compete by pulling on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal of bringing the rope a certain distance in one direction against ...
, three-legged races, , ('tortoise walk') and other games.


Numismatics

The world's first ounce-denominated gold coin, the , was struck at the
South African Mint The South African Mint is responsible for Mint (facility), minting all coins of the South African rand on behalf of its owner, the South African Reserve Bank. Located in Centurion, Gauteng near South Africa's administrative capital Pretoria, the ...
on 3 July 1967. The name Krugerrand was derived from ''Kruger'' (after president
Paul Kruger Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger, was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and State Preside ...
) and the ''
rand The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...
'' monetary unit of South Africa. In April 2007, the
South African Mint The South African Mint is responsible for Mint (facility), minting all coins of the South African rand on behalf of its owner, the South African Reserve Bank. Located in Centurion, Gauteng near South Africa's administrative capital Pretoria, the ...
coined a collectors R1 gold coin commemorating the Afrikaner people as part of its cultural series, depicting the
Great Trek 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 adminis ...
across the
Drakensberg The Drakensberg (Zulu language, Zulu: uKhahlamba, Sotho language, Sotho: Maloti, Afrikaans: Drakensberge) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, Southern Africa, Great Escarpment, which encloses the central South Africa#Geography, Sout ...
mountains.


Institutions


Cultural

The ("Afrikaans Language and Culture Association"), referred to by its initials, ''ATKV'', promotes Afrikaans language and culture. is a youth movement for Afrikaners in South Africa and Namibia with a membership of over 10,000 active members to promote cultural values, maintaining norms and standards as Christians, and being accountable members of public society.


Political

The vast majority of Afrikaners supported the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition party, in the 2014 general election. The DA is a liberal party and a full member of Liberal International. Smaller numbers are involved in nationalist or separatist political organisations. The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) is an Afrikaner ethnic political party which lobbies for minority rights to be extended to Afrikaners. The FF+ is also leading the
Volkstaat A Volkstaat (, ), also called a Boerestaat, is a proposed white ethnostate, White homeland for Afrikaners within the borders of South Africa, most commonly proposed as a Afrikaner nationalism, fully independent Boer/Afrikaner nation. The propos ...
initiative and is closely associated with the small town of
Orania Orania () is a Volkstaat, white separatistSources for "white separatist": * * * Additional sources for "whites-only": * * * South Africa, South African town founded by Afrikaners. It is located along the Orange River in the Karoo region o ...
. Then-Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder served as Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in the Cabinet of
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television *'' Præsident ...
Jacob Zuma Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (; born 12 April 1942) is a South African politician who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018. He is also referred to by his initials JZ and clan names Nxamalala and Msholozi. Zuma was a for ...
from 2009 to 2014. Very few Afrikaners vote for the ruling ANC. Some prominent Afrikaner ANC politicians include Derek Hanekom, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Andries Nel, Gert Oosthuizen and Carl Niehaus. In an online poll of the Beeld newspaper during November 2012, in which nearly 11,000 Afrikaners participated, 42% described themselves as conservative and 36% as liberal. In the 2019 general elections, the FF+'s support surged in former strongholds of the DA. Senior FF+ member Philip van Staden said that his party had grown significantly in the election due to the DA leader Mmusi Maimane's positions on race and ethnic identity resulting in the estrangement of many Afrikaans-speaking white voters. The party has since gone on to win previous DA wards with concentrated Afrikaner populations.


Notable people


See also

* Afrikaners in Zimbabwe * Afrikaner Calvinism *
Afrikaner nationalism Afrikaner nationalism () is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnic nationalistic political ideology created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrikaner ...
* Afrikaner-Jews * Afrikaans-speaking population of South Africa *
Boer Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
*
Cape Dutch Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a historic socioeconomic class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe an affluent, educated sect ...
* Huguenots in South Africa * Afrikaner Argentines


Notes


References


Further reading

* * *Du Toit, André. "No Chosen People: The Myth of the Calvinist Origins of Afrikaner Nationalism and Racial Ideology." The American Historical Review 88, no. 4 (1983): 920–52. doi:10.2307/1874025. * * * * * Contains details of prominent British and Afrikaner people in the British Empire in Africa.
South Africa – Poor Whites
(Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Foreign Correspondent, transcript)

(Strategy Leader Resource Kit: People Profile)
South Africa
(Rita M. Byrnes, ed. ''South Africa: A Country Study''. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1996.)


External links

{{Authority control Dutch Cape Colony Ethnic groups in Namibia Ethnic groups in Zimbabwe Members of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization Articles containing video clips Dutch diaspora in South Africa