Everything about Cape Coloureds totally explained
The term
Cape Coloureds refers to the modern-day descendants of
slave labourers imported into
South Africa by
Dutch settlers as well as to other groups of mixed ancestry originating in the present-day
Western Cape. They are the predominant "population group" found in the
Western Cape Province. Their population size is roughly 4 million. Most "Cape Coloureds" are mother tongue
Afrikaans speakers, as a result of their cultural development in the
Dutch and Afrikaans-speaking areas of South Africa; but many of those living in predominantly
Anglophone areas of South Africa, are English speaking. Slaves of "Malay" ancestry were brought from
Indonesia,
Malaysia,
Madagascar, and
Mozambique; and from these diverse origins they gradually developed into a grouping; along with coloured people (african and european origin); that was subsequently classified as a single major ethnical grouping under the
Apartheid regime. In many cases the slaves were imported to be concubines and wives to single male Dutch settlers. People from
India and the islands within the india 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's possible to get an idea of the ratio of slaves from different regions. These slaves were, however, dispersed and lost their cultural Indian identity in the course of time, hence being labelled "Cape Coloureds". Much racial mixture has thus occurred over the generations, between the Europeans, Indians, Malays, various
Bantu tribes, along with indigenous
Khoi and
San.
Technically, the term "Cape Coloured" referred to a subset of
Coloured South Africans, with subjective criteria having been used by the
Apartheid bureaucracy to determine whether a person was a "Cape Coloured", or belonged to one of a number of other related "Coloured" subgroups such as the "
Cape Malays", or "Other Coloureds". Currently this term is used very crudely to distinguish people of mixed ancestry from the phenotypically (and generally more genetically homogeneous) paler South Africans of European descent, and the darker "black" South Africans. There are often exceptions to this generalization, and consequently Apartheid classifications often led to tragi-comic consequences, with some paler family members being classified as "white" and others "coloured". This contentious classification had in the past no consistent meaning among South Africans – opinion, more than anything else, dictates who is classified as "Cape Coloured".
The "Cape Coloured" group is far from being homogeneous: the divisions within it were accentuated by the
Apartheid classifications which defined type hierarchies with this grouping. As a consequence, there's much racial intolerance between self-defined groups of "Cape Coloureds". Many "Cape Coloureds" are from totally different heritages, some having mostly European and others mostly black South African heritage. Many also have mostly Indian or mostly Indonesian/Malay heritage. Religious differences also exist, many being Christian and others Muslim. Therefore many "Cape Coloureds" feel very insulted being classified into the single "Coloured" racial category.
Cape Coloureds in the media
A group of "Cape Coloureds" were interviewed in the documentary series
Ross Kemp on Gangs. One of the gang members who participated in the interview mentioned that black South Africans have been the main beneficiaries of South African social promotion initiatives while the "Cape Coloureds" have been further marginalized.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Cape Coloureds'.
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