Cape Coloureds

In Southern Africa Cape Coloureds (Afrikaans: Kaapse Kleurling) is the name given to an ethnic group composed primarily of persons of mixed race. Although Cape Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, they are the predominant population group in the Western Cape.

They are generally bilingual, though some speak only Afrikaans, and others primarily speak English. Some Cape Coloureds may "code switch", speaking a patois of Afrikaans and English called Kaapse Afrikaans. Cape Coloureds were defined under the apartheid regime as a subset of the larger Coloured race group.

At least one genetic study indicates that Cape Coloureds have an ancestry consisting of the following ethnic groups:

Origin and history

The Cape Coloureds are a heterogeneous South African ethnic group, with diverse ancestral links. Ancestry may include European settlers, indigenous Khoisan and Xhosa people, and slaves imported from the Dutch East Indies (or a combination of all). People from India and the islands within the Indian Ocean region were also taken to the Cape and sold into slavery by the Dutch settlers. The Indian slaves were almost invariably given Christian names but their places of origin were indicated in the records of sales and other documents so that it is possible to get an idea of the ratio of slaves from different regions. These slaves were, however, dispersed and lost their Indian cultural identity over the course of time. Slaves of Malay and other ancestry were brought from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, and Mozambique. This diverse assortment of people was subsequently classified as a single group under the Apartheid regime.

Coloured

In Southern Africa, the term Coloureds (also known as Bruinmense or Kleurlinge) is an ethnic label for people of mixed ethnic origin who possess ancestry from Europe, Asia, and various Khoisan and Bantu ethnic groups of southern Africa. Not all Coloured people share the same ethnic background. As a result, Coloured people can possess a variety of different features. Besides the extensive combining of these diverse heritages in the Western Cape — in which a distinctive Cape Coloured and affiliated Cape Malay culture developed — in other parts of Southern Africa, their development has usually been the result of the meeting of two distinct groups. Genetic studies suggest the group has the highest levels of mixed ancestry in the world. However, the maternal (female) contribution to the Coloured population, measured by mitochondrial DNA studies, was found to come mostly from the Khoisan population.

Background

The origins of the Coloured community stems from numerous interracial sexual unions between Western European males and Khoisan females in the Cape Colony from the 17th century onwards.