AFRICA INDIGEON

Afrikaners are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers first arriving in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.[10] They have traditionally dominated South Africa's politics and agriculture.[11] Some of the more common Afrikaner surnames include Botha, Pretorius, and van der Merwe.[12]

Afrikaans, South Africa's third most widely spoken home language, is the mother tongue of Afrikaners and most Cape Coloureds.[11] The dialect evolved from the Dutch vernacular[13][14] of South Holland, incorporating words brought from Indonesia and Madagascar by slaves.[15] Afrikaners make up approximately 5.2% of the total South African population based on the number of white South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language in the South African National Census of 2011.[2][2]

The arrival of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama at Calicut in 1498 opened a gateway of free access to Asia from Western Europe around the Cape of Good Hope; however, it also necessitated the founding and safeguarding of trade stations in the East.[10] Very rapidly one European power followed another, all eager to trade along this route. The Portuguese landed in Mossel Bay in 1500, explored Table Bay two years later, and by 1510 had started raiding inland.[16] Shortly afterwards the Dutch Republic sent merchant vessels to India, and in 1602 founded the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company; VOC).[17] As the volume of traffic rounding the Cape increased, the Company recognised its natural harbour as an ideal watering point for the long voyage around Africa to the Orient and established a victualling station there in 1652.[10] VOC officials did not favour the permanent settlement 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.[17] Furthermore, the exigencies of supplying local garrisons and passing fleets compelled the administration to confer free status upon employees and oblige them to become independent farmers.[18]

Encouraged by the success of this experiment, the Company extended free passage from 1685 to 1707 for Hollanders wishing to settle at the Cape.[18] In 1688 it sponsored the immigration of 200 French Huguenot refugees forced into exile by the Edict of Fontainebleau.[19] The terms under which the Huguenots agreed to immigrate were the same offered to other VOC subjects, including free passage and 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.[20] They were augmented by VOC soldiers returning from Asia, predominantly Germans channeled into Amsterdam by the Company's extensive recruitment network and from thence overseas.[21][22] Despite their diverse nationalities, the colonists used a common language and adopted similar attitudes towards politics.[23] The attributes they shared came to serve as a basis for the evolution of Afrikaner identity and consciousness.[24]

Afrikaner nationalism has taken the form of political parties and secret societies such as the Broederbond in the twentieth century. In 1914 the National Party was formed to promote Afrikaner economic interests and sever South Africa's ties to the United Kingdom. Rising to prominence by winning the 1948 general elections, it has also been noted for enforcing a harsh policy of racial separation (apartheid) while simultaneously declaring South Africa a republic and withdrawing from the British Commonwealth.[11]

Nomenclature

The term "Afrikaner" presently denotes the politically, culturally, and socially dominant Germanic group[25] among white South Africans, or the Afrikaans-speaking populace of Netherlands Dutch origin - although their original progenitors also included Flemish, French Huguenot, and German immigrants.[10] Historically, the terms "burgher" and "Boer" 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.[11] At one time, burghers merely denoted Cape Dutch, settlers who were influential in the administration, able to participate in urban affairs, and did so regularly. Boers often referred to the settled European farmers or nomadic cattle herders. During the Batavian Republic, "burgher" was popularised among Dutch communities both at home and abroad as a popular revolutionary form of address, or citizen.[11] In South Africa, it remained in use as late as the Second Boer War.[26]

The first recorded instance of a colonist identifying as an "Afrikaner" occurred in March 1707, during a disturbance in Stellenbosch.[27] When the magistrate, Johannes Starrenburg, ordered an unruly crowd to desist, a white teenager named Hendrik Biebouw retorted, "Ik ben een Afrikaander - al slaat de landdrost mij dood, of al zetten hij mij in de tronk, ik zal, nog wil niet zwijgen!" ("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!").[28] Biebouw was flogged for his insolence and later banished to Jakarta.[29]:22 It is believed that "Afrikaner" in question initially indicated Cape Coloureds or other groups claiming mixed ancestry. Biebouw himself had numerous half-caste siblings and may have identified with Coloureds socially.[27] However, this defiant secession from Dutch law and sovereignty was a leap towards defining another consciousness for white South Africa, suggesting for the first time a group identification with the Cape Colony rather than any ancestral homeland in Europe.[30] In 1902, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became the earliest English author to use "Africander" in reference to the Boers' eastward expansion from the Cape.[31]

Bantu peoples is used as a general label for the 300–600 ethnic groups in Africa who speak Bantu languages.[1] They inhabit a geographical area stretching east and southward from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes region down to Southern Africa.[1] Bantu is a major branch of the Niger-Congo language family spoken by most populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. There are about 650 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility,[2] though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 languages.[3]

About 3000 years ago, speakers of the proto-Bantu language group began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their homeland between West Africa and Central Africa at the border of eastern Nigeria and Cameroon.[4] This Bantu expansion first introduced Bantu peoples to central, southern, and southeastern Africa, regions they had previously been absent from. The proto-Bantu migrants in the process assimilated and/or displaced a number of earlier inhabitants that they came across, including Khoisan populations in the south and Afro-Asiatic groups in the southeast.[5][6]

Individual Bantu groups today often include millions of people. Among these are the Luba of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with over 13.5 million people; the Zulu of South Africa, with over 10 million people; and the Kikuyu of Kenya, with over 6 million people. Although only around five million individuals speak the Bantu Swahili language as their mother tongue,[7] it is used as a lingua franca by over 140 million people throughout Southeast Africa.[8] Swahili also serves as one of the official languages of the African Union.

The word Bantu, and its variations, means "people" or "humans". Versions of this word occur in all Bantu languages: for example, as watu in Swahili; muntu in Kikongo; batu in Lingala; bato in Duala; abanto in Gusii; andũ in Kikuyu; abantu in Zulu, Runyakitara,[9] and Ganda; vanhu in Shona; batho in Sesotho; vandu in some Luhya dialects; and mbaityo in Tiv; and vhathu in Venda.

Current scholarly understanding places the ancestral proto-Bantu homeland in West Africa near the present-day southwestern border of Nigeria and Cameroon c. 4,000 years ago (2000 B.C.), and regards the Bantu languages as a branch of the Niger–Congo language family.[13] This view represents a resolution of debates in the 1960s over competing theories advanced by Joseph Greenberg and Malcolm Guthrie, in favor of refinements of Greenberg's theory. Based on wide comparisons including non-Bantu languages, Greenberg argued that Proto-Bantu, the hypothetical ancestor of the Bantu languages, had strong ancestral affinities with a group of languages spoken in Southeastern Nigeria. He proposed that Bantu languages had spread east and south from there, to secondary centers of further dispersion, over hundreds of years.

Using a different comparative method focused more exclusively on relationships among Bantu languages, Guthrie argued for a single Central African dispersal point spreading at a roughly equal rate in all directions. Subsequent research on loanwords for adaptations in agriculture and animal husbandry and on the wider Niger–Congo language family rendered that thesis untenable. In the 1990s Jan Vansina proposed a modification of Greenberg's ideas, in which dispersions from secondary and tertiary centers resembled Guthrie's central node idea, but from a number of regional centers rather than just one, creating linguistic clusters.[14]

It is unclear exactly when the spread of Bantu-speakers began from their core area as hypothesized c. 5,000 years ago (3000 B.C.). By 3,500 years ago (1500 B.C.) in the west, Bantu-speaking communities had reached the great Central African rain forest, and by 2,500 years ago (500 B.C.) pioneering groups had emerged into the savannahs to the south, in what are now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and Zambia. Another stream of migration, moving east, by 3,000 years ago (1000 B.C.) was creating a major new population center near the Great Lakes of East Africa, where a rich environment supported a dense population. Movements by small groups to the southeast from the Great Lakes region were more rapid, with initial settlements widely dispersed near the coast and near rivers, due to comparatively harsh farming conditions in areas farther from water. Pioneering groups had reached modern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa by A.D. 300 along the coast, and the modern Northern Province (encompassed within the former province of the Transvaal) by A.D. 500.[15]

Before the expansion of farming and herding peoples, including those speaking Bantu languages, Africa south of the equator was populated by neolithic hunting and foraging peoples. Some of them were ancestral to proto-Khoisan-speaking peoples, whose modern hunter-forager and linguistic descendants, the Khoekhoe and San, occupy the arid regions around the Kalahari desert. The Hadza and Sandawe populations in Tanzania comprise the other modern hunter-forager remnant in Africa of these proto-Khoisan-speaking peoples.

Over a period of many centuries, most hunting-foraging peoples were displaced and absorbed by incoming Bantu-speaking communities, as well as by Ubangian, Nilotic, and Sudanic language-speakers in North Central and Eastern Africa. The Bantu expansion was a long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighboring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas.

After their movements from their original homeland in West Africa, Bantus also encountered in East Africa peoples of Afro-Asiatic (mainly Cushitic) and Nilo-Saharan (mainly Nilotic and Sudanic) origin. As cattle terminology in use amongst the few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests, the Bantu migrants would acquire cattle from their new Cushitic neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that Bantus likely borrowed the custom of milking cattle directly from Cushitic peoples in the area.[16] Later interactions between Bantu and Cushitic peoples resulted in Bantu groups with significant Cushitic ethnic admixture, such as the Tutsi of the African Great Lakes region; and culturo-linguistic influences, such as the Herero herdsmen of southern Africa.[17][18]

On the coastal section of East Africa, another mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders. The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people. With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Zanzibar, Kenya, and Tanzania – a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast – the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loan-words as a result of these interactions.[19]

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, Bantu-speaking states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region in the savannah south of the Central African rainforest. On the Zambezi river, the Monomatapa kings built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex, a civilization whose origins and ethnic affiliations are uncertain. From the 16th century onward, the processes of state formation amongst Bantu peoples increased in frequency. This was probably due to denser population (which led to more specialized divisions of labor, including military power, while making emigration more difficult); to increased interaction amongst Bantu-speaking communities with Chinese, European, Indonesian, and Arab traders on the coasts; to technological developments in economic activity; and to new techniques in the political-spiritual ritualization of royalty as the source of national strength and health.[20]

Between the 14th and 15th centuries, Bantu states began to emerge in the Great Lakes region in the savanna south of the Central African rain-forest. In Southern Africa on the Zambezi river, the Monomatapa kings built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex, the largest of over 200 such sites in Southern Africa, such as Bumbusi in Zimbabwe and Manyikeni in Mozambique. From the 16th century onward, the processes of state formation among Bantu peoples increased in frequency. Some examples of such Bantu states include: in Central Africa, the Kingdom of Kongo,[21] Lunda Empire,[22] and Luba Empire[23] of Angola, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo; in the Great Lakes Region, the Buganda[24] and Karagwe[24] Kingdoms of Uganda and Tanzania; and in Southern Africa, the Mutapa Empire,[25] Rozwi Empire,[26] and the Danamombe, Khami, and Naletale Kingdoms of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.[25]

Toward the 18th and 19th centuries, the flow of Bantu slaves from Southeast Africa increased with the rise of the Omani Sultanate of Zanzibar, based in Zanzibar, Tanzania. With the arrival of European colonialists, the Zanzibar Sultanate came into direct trade conflict and competition with Portuguese and other Europeans along the Swahili coast, leading eventually to the fall of the Sultanate and the end of slave trading on the Swahili Coast in the mid-20th century.

In the 1920s, relatively liberal South Africans, missionaries, and the small black intelligentsia began to use the term "Bantu" in preference to "Native" and more derogatory terms (such as "Kaffir") to refer collectively to Bantu-speaking South Africans. After World War II, the racialist National Party governments adopted that usage officially, while the growing African nationalist movement and its liberal allies turned to the term "African" instead, so that "Bantu" became identified with the policies of apartheid. By the 1970s this so discredited "Bantu" as an ethno-racial designation that the apartheid government switched to the term "Black" in its official racial categorizations, restricting it to Bantu-speaking Africans, at about the same time that the Black Consciousness Movement led by Steve Biko and others were defining "Black" to mean all racially oppressed South Africans (Africans, Coloureds, and Indians).

Examples of South African usages of "Bantu" include:

1. One of South Africa's politicians of recent times, General Bantubonke Harrington Holomisa (Bantubonke is a compound noun meaning "all the people"), is known as Bantu Holomisa.
2. The South African apartheid governments originally gave the name "bantustans" to the eleven rural reserve areas intended for a spurious, ersatz independence to deny Africans South African citizenship. "Bantustan" originally reflected an analogy to the various ethnic "-stans" of Western and Central Asia. Again association with apartheid discredited the term, and the South African government shifted to the politically appealing but historically deceptive term "ethnic homelands". Meanwhile the anti-apartheid movement persisted in calling the areas bantustans, to drive home their political illegitimacy.
3. The abstract noun ubuntu, humanity or humaneness, is derived regularly from the Nguni noun stem -ntu in isiXhosa, isiZulu, and siNdebele. In siSwati the stem is -ntfu and the noun is buntfu.
4. In the Sotho–Tswana languages of southern Africa, batho is the cognate term to Nguni abantu, illustrating that such cognates need not actually look like the -ntu root exactly. The early African National Congress of South Africa had a newspaper called Abantu-Batho from 1912–1933, which carried columns in English, isiZulu, Sesotho, and isiXhosa.

• Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment
• Centre International des Civilisations Bantu

The Zulu (Zulu: amaZulu) are a Bantu ethnic group of Southern Africa and the largest ethnic group in South Africa, with an estimated 10–11 million people living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Small numbers also live in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. Their language, Zulu, is a Bantu language; more specifically, part of the Nguni subgroup.

Origins

The Zulu were originally a major clan in what is today Northern KwaZulu-Natal, founded ca. 1709 by Zulu kaNtombela. In the Nguni languages, iZulu/iliZulu/liTulu means heaven, or sky.[3] At that time, the area was occupied by many large Nguni communities and clans (also called isizwe=nation, people or isibongo=clan). Nguni communities had migrated down Africa's east coast over centuries, as part of the Bantu migrations probably arriving in what is now South Africa in about the 9th century.[citation needed]

Kingdom

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The Zulu formed a powerful state in 1818[4] under the leader Shaka. Shaka, as the Zulu King, gained a large amount of power over the tribe. As commander in the army of the powerful Mthethwa Empire, he became leader of his mentor Dingiswayo's paramouncy and united what was once a confederation of tribes into an imposing empire under Zulu hegemony.

Conflict with the British

On 11 December 1878, agents of the British delivered an ultimatum to 11 chiefs representing Cetshwayo. The terms forced upon Cetshwayo required him to disband his army and accept British authority. Cetshwayo refused, and war followed January 12, 1879. During the war, the Zulus defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January. The British managed to get the upper hand after the battle at Rorke's Drift, and subsequently win the war with the Zulu being defeated at the Battle of Ulundi on 4 July.

Absorption into Natal

After Cetshwayo's capture a month following his defeat, the British divided the Zulu Empire into 13 "kinglets". The sub-kingdoms fought amongst each other until 1883 when Cetshwayo was reinstated as king over Zululand. This still did not stop the fighting and the Zulu monarch was forced to flee his realm by Zibhebhu, one of the 13 kinglets, supported by Boer mercenaries. Cetshwayo died in February 1884, killed by Zibhebhu's regime, leaving his son, the 15 year-old Dinuzulu, to inherit the throne. In-fighting between the Zulu continued for years, until Zululand was absorbed fully into the British colony of Natal.

Apartheid yearsKwaZulu homeland

Under apartheid, the homeland of KwaZulu (Kwa meaning place of) was created for Zulu people. In 1970, the Bantu Homeland Citizenship Act provided that all Zulus would become citizens of KwaZulu, losing their South African citizenship. KwaZulu consisted of a large number of disconnected pieces of land, in what is now KwaZulu-Natal. Hundreds of thousands of Zulu people living on privately owned "black spots" outside of KwaZulu were dispossessed and forcibly moved to bantustans – worse land previously reserved for whites contiguous to existing areas of KwaZulu – in the name of "consolidation." By 1993, approximately 5.2 million Zulu people lived in KwaZulu, and approximately 2 million lived in the rest of South Africa. The Chief Minister of KwaZulu, from its creation in 1970 (as Zululand) was Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi. In 1994, KwaZulu was joined with the province of Natal, to form modern KwaZulu-Natal.

Inkatha YeSizwe

Inkatha YeSizwe means "the crown of the nation". In 1975, Buthelezi revived the Inkatha YaKwaZulu, predecessor of the Inkatha Freedom Party. This organization was nominally a protest movement against apartheid, but held more conservative views than the ANC. For example, Inkatha was opposed to the armed struggle, and to sanctions against South Africa. Inkatha was initially on good terms with the ANC, but the two organizations came into increasing conflict beginning in 1976 in the aftermath of the Soweto Uprising.

Modern Zulu population

The modern Zulu population is fairly evenly distributed in both urban and rural areas. Although KwaZulu-Natal is still their heartland, large numbers have been attracted to the relative economic prosperity of Gauteng province. Indeed, Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in the province, followed by Sotho.

Language

The language of the Zulu people is "isiZulu", a Bantu language; more specifically, part of the Nguni subgroup. Zulu is the most widely spoken language in South Africa, where it is an official language. More than half of the South African population are able to understand it, with over 9 million first-language and over 15 million second-language speakers.[5] Many Zulu people also speak Afrikaans, English, Portuguese, Xitsonga, Sesotho and others from among South Africa's 11 official languages.

White South African is a term which refers to people from South Africa who are of European descent and who do not regard themselves, or are not regarded as, being part of another racial group, for example, as Coloured.[2] In linguistic, cultural and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original settlers, known as Afrikaners, mainly of Dutch, German, French, Belgian and Scandinavian colonists and the Anglophone descendants of mainly English, Irish and Scottish colonists. South Africa's white population is divided into 61% Afrikaans-speakers, 36% English-speakers, and 3% who speak another language,[3] such as Portuguese. White South Africans are by far the largest European-descended population group in Africa.

White South Africans differ significantly from other white African groups, because they have developed nationhood, as in the case of the Afrikaners, who established a distinct language, culture and faith in Africa.[4]

The history of the Afrikaner nation can be traced back to the first white settlement of Africa with the arrival of the Dutch under Jan van Riebeeck in 1652. Therefore, their presence in Africa long predates the arrival of other white groups on the continent although the Portuguese began trading African slaves in the 1550s. White South Africans are also considered to be the last major white population group on the African continent, since the number of white people in other African states has declined to negligible figures. Whites continue to play a role in the South African economy and across the political spectrum. Whites number approximately 4.5 to 5 million, or between 9% and 10% of South Africa's population. This represents a decline, both numerically and proportionately, since white rule ended. It is estimated[by whom?] that as many as 800,000 whites have emigrated since the end of apartheid in 1994, however some have since returned.

Under the 1950 Population Registration Act, each inhabitant of South Africa was classified into one of several different race groups, of which White was one. The Office for Race Classification defined a white person as one who "in appearance is obviously a white person who is generally not accepted as a coloured person; or is generally accepted as a white person and is not in appearance obviously not a white person." Many criteria, both physical (e.g. examination of head and body hair) and social (e.g. eating and drinking habits, knowledge of Afrikaans) were used when the board decided to classify someone as white or coloured.[2][5] The Act was repealed on 17 June 1991.

The 1994 Employment Equity Act aimed at achieving equality in South African workplaces. In order to do this, the act required that it be possible to distinguish between black and white South Africans. It was necessary to know if someone was considered to be black or white when evaluating the racial composition of a company's workforce.[2]

In recent decades there has been a steady proportional (and possibly also numerical) decline in the white African population, due to higher birthrates among the non-white population of South Africa, as well as high emigration. In 1977, there were 4.3 million whites, constituting 16.4% of the population at the time. It is estimated that at least 800,000 white Africans have moved abroad since 1995.[6]

Like many other communities strongly affiliated with the West and Europe's colonial legacy in Africa, the white Africans are often economically better off than their black African neighbors and have only relatively recently surrendered political dominance to majority rule. There were also some white Africans in South Africa who lived in poverty—especially during the 1930s and increasingly since the end of minority rule. Current estimates of white poverty in South Africa run as high as 12%, though fact-checking website Africa Check described these figures as "grossly inflated", and suggested that a more accurate estimate was that "only a tiny fraction of the white population – as little as 7,754 households – are affected".[7]

The new phenomenon of white poverty is often blamed on the government's affirmative action employment legislation, which reserves 80% of new jobs for black people[8] and favours companies owned by black people (see Black Economic Empowerment). In 2010, Reuters stated that 450,000 whites live below the poverty line according to Solidarity and civil organisations,[9] with some research saying that up to 150,000 are struggling for survival.[10] A 2006 report claimed that there was anecdotal evidence to suggest that Afrikaner women are increasingly resorting to prostitution, though there appears to be no formal substantiation of this.[11]

A further concern has been crime. Some white South Africans living in affluent white suburbs, such as Sandton, have been affected by the 2008 13.5% rise in house robberies and associated crime.[12] In a study, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), Dr. Johan Burger, said that criminals were specifically targeting wealthier suburbs. Burger revealed that several affluent suburbs are surrounded by poorer residential areas and that inhabitants in the latter often target inhabitants in the former. Burger also related to an entitlement complex that criminals have; "They feel they are entitled, for their own sakes, to take from those who have a lot". The report also found that residents in wealthy suburbs in Gauteng were not only at more risk of being targeted but also faced an inflated chance of being murdered during the robbery.[13]

The current global financial crisis has slowed down the high rates of white people emigrating overseas and has led to increasing numbers of white emigrants returning to live in South Africa. Charles Luyckx, CEO of Elliot International and a board member of the Professional Movers Association said that in the past six months leading to December (2008), emigration numbers had dropped by 10%. Meanwhile he revealed that "people imports" had increased by 50%.[14]

As of May 2014, Homecoming Revolution has estimated that around 340,000 white South Africans have returned in the last decade.[15]

Furthermore, immigration from Europe has also supplemented the white population. The 2011 census found that 63,479 white people living in South Africa were born in Europe; of these, 28,653 had moved to South Africa since 2001.[16]

The Statistics South Africa Census 2011 showed that there were about 4,586,838 white people in South Africa, amounting to 8.9% of the country's population.[17] This is a 6.8% increase since the 2001 census. According to the Census 2011, English is the first language of 36% of the white population group and Afrikaans is the first language of 61% of the white population group.[3] The majority of white South Africans identify themselves as primarily South African, regardless of their first language or ancestry.[18][19]

Approximately 87% of white South Africans are Christian, 9% have no religion, and 1% are Jewish. The largest Christian denomination is the Dutch Reformed Church, with 34% of the white population being members. Other significant denominations are the Methodist Church (8%), the Roman Catholic Church (7%), and the Anglican Church (6%).[20]

Many white people have migrated to South Africa from other parts of Africa following the independence of those African nations or when those nations became hostile to them. Many Portuguese from Mozambique and Angola and white Zimbabweans emigrated to South Africa when their respective countries became independent.

Meanwhile, many white South Africans also emigrated to Western countries over the past two decades, mainly to English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, and with others settling in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, France, Argentina, Mexico, Israel and Brazil. However, the financial crisis has slowed down the rate of emigration and as of May 2014, Homecoming Revolution has estimated that around 340,000 white South Africans have returned in the last decade.[15]

According to Statistics South Africa, white South Africans make up 8.9% (Census 2011) of the total population in South Africa. Their actual proportional share in municipalities is likely to be higher, given the undercount in the 2001 census.[21]

The following table shows the distribution of white people by province, according to the 2011 census:[22]

White South Africans continue to participate in politics, having a presence across the whole political spectrum from left to right.

South African President Jacob Zuma commented in 2009 on Afrikaners being "the only white tribe in a black continent or outside of Europe which is truly African." and said that "of all the white groups that are in South Africa, it is only the Afrikaners that are truly South Africans in the true sense of the word."[23] These remarks have led to the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) laying a complaint with the Human Rights Commission against Zuma.[24]

Former president Thabo Mbeki stated in one of his speeches to the nation that: "South Africa belongs to everyone who lives in it. Black and White."[25] The history of white people in South Africa dates back to the 17th century.

Prior to 1994, a white minority held complete political power under a system of racial segregation called apartheid. Many white people supported this policy, but some others opposed it. During apartheid, immigrants from Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan were considered honorary whites in the country, as the government had maintained diplomatic relations with these countries. These were granted the same privileges as white people, at least for purposes of residence.[26] Some African Americans such as Max Yergan were granted an 'honorary white' status as well.[27]

Today, the majority of white and Coloured people support the Democratic Alliance, a liberal party led by Helen Zille, the Premier of the Western Cape.[28] However a minority (especially among the Afrikaners) support the Freedom Front, a conservative party for minority interests. A minority of white South Africans also support the African National Congress, the ruling party of South Africa.

Statistics for the white population in South Africa vary greatly. Most sources show that the white population peaked in the period between 1989-1995 at around 5.2-5.6 million. Up to that point the white population largely increased due to high birth rates and immigration. Subsequently, between the mid 1990s and the mid-2000s the white population decreased overall. However, from 2006-2013 the population increased.

Nations and regions outside of Europe with significant populations of European ancestry[66]

• Africa (see Whites in Africa)
  • South Africa (White South African): 9.6% of the population[67]
  • Namibia (White Namibians): 6% of the population, of which most are Afrikaans-speaking, in addition to a German-speaking minority.[68]

• • Réunion estimated to be approx. 25% of the population[69]
  • Zimbabwe (Whites in Zimbabwe)
  • Algeria (Pied-noir)[70]
  • Botswana[71]
  • Kenya (Whites in Kenya)
  • Mauritius (Franco-Mauritian)
  • Côte d'Ivoire (French people)[72]
  • Senegal[73]
  • Canary Islands (Spaniards), known as Canarians.
  • Seychelles (Franco-Seychellois)
  • Somalia (Italian Somalis)
  • Saint Helena (UK) including Tristan da Cunha (UK): predominantly European.
  • Swaziland: 3% of the population[74]

• Asia
  • Siberia (Russians, Germans and Ukrainians)[75][76]
  • Kazakhstan (Russians in Kazakhstan, Germans of Kazakhstan): 30% of the population[77][78]
  • Uzbekistan (Russians and other Slavs): 5.5% of the population[78]
  • Kyrgyzstan (Russians and other Slavs): 13.5% of the population[78][79][80]
  • Turkmenistan (Russians and other Slavs): 4% of the population[78][81]
  • Tajikistan (Russians and other Slavs)[78][82]
  • Hong Kong[83]
  • People's Republic of China (Russians in China)
  • Indian subcontinent (Anglo-Indians)

• Latin America (see White Latin American)

• Argentina (European Immigration to Argentina): 97% of the population[84]
• Bolivia: 15% of the population[85]
• Brazil (White Brazilian): 47.3% of the population[86]
• Chile (White Chilean): 60%-70% of the population.[87][88][89]
• Colombia (White Colombian): 20% of the population[90]
• Costa Rica[91]
• Cuba (White Cuban): 65% of the population[92]
• Dominican Republic: 16% of the population[93]
• Ecuador: 7% of the population[94]
• El Salvador: 12% of the population[95]
• Mexico (White Mexican): 9% or ~17% of the population.[96][97] and 70-80% more as Mestizos.[98][99]
• Nicaragua: 17% of the population[100]
• Panama 10% of the population[101]
• Puerto Rico approx. 80% of the population[102]
• Peru (European Peruvian): 15% of the population[103]
• Paraguay approx. 20% of the population[104]
• Venezuela (White Venezuelan): 42.2% of the population[105]
• Uruguay: 88% of the population[106]

• • Mennonites of German descent in Belize.

• Rest of the Americas
  • Bahamas: 12% of the population[107]
  • Barbados (White Barbadian): 4% of the population[108]
  • Bermuda: 34.1% of the population[109]
  • Canada: 80% of the population[110]
  • Falkland Islands, mostly of British descent.
  • French Guiana: 12% of the population[111]
  • Greenland: 12% of the population[112]
  • Martinique: 5% of the population[113]
  • Saint Barthélemy[114]
  • Trinidad and Tobago:[115]0.6% of the population

• • Portuguese immigrant family in Hawaii during the 19th century.
  • United States of America (European American): 72.4% of the population, including Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Whites.

• Oceania (see Europeans in Oceania)
  • Australia: 89.3% of the population
  • New Zealand (New Zealand European): 78% of the population
  • New Caledonia (Caldoche): 34.5% of the population
  • French Polynesia: 10% of the population[116]
  • Hawaii: 24.7% of the population[117]
  • Christmas Island: approx. 20% of the population.
  • Guam: 6.9% of the population[118]
  • Norfolk Island: 50% of the population

Please note this whole section stand  UNDER CORRECTION and will change as most of the information is incorrect regarding the Khoikhoi.

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The Khoikhoi (/ˈkɔɪˌkɔɪ/; "people people" or "real people") or Khoi, spelled Khoekhoe in standardised Khoekhoe/Nama orthography, are the native pastoralist people of southwestern Africa. They had lived in southern Africa since the 5th century AD.[1] When European immigrants colonised the area after 1652, the Khoikhoi were practising extensive pastoral agriculture in the Cape region, with large herds of Nguni cattle. The Dutch settlers labelled them Hottentots (/ˈhɒtənˌtɒts/), in imitation of the sound of the Khoekhoe language,[2] but this term is today considered derogatory.[3]

Archaeological evidence shows that the Khoikhoi entered South Africa from Botswana through two distinct routes—travelling west, skirting the Kalahari to the west coast, then down to the Cape, and travelling south-east out into the Highveld and then southwards to the south coast.[4] Chiefly, the largest group of the Khoikhoi to remain as a group are the Namas.

History

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Early history

The Khoikhoi, originally part of a pastoral culture and language group to be found across Southern Africa, originated in the northern area of modern Botswana. Southward migration of the ethnic group was steady, eventually reaching the Cape approximately 2,000 years ago. Khoikhoi subgroups include the Namaqua to the west, the Korana of mid-South Africa, and the Khoikhoi in the south. Husbandry of sheep, goats and cattle grazed in fertile valleys across the region, provided a stable, balanced diet, and allowed the Khoikhoi to live in larger groups in a region previous occupied by the subsistence hunter-gatherers, the San. Advancing Bantu in the 3rd century AD encroached the Khoikhoi territory forcing movement into more arid areas. There was some intermarriage between Migratory Khoi bands living around what is today Cape Town and the San. However the two groups remained culturally distinct as the Khoikhoi continued to graze livestock and the San to subsist on hunting-gathering.

Arrival of Europeans

The Khoi initially came into contact with European explorers and merchants in approximately AD 1500. The ongoing encounters were often violent. Local population dropped when the Khoi were exposed to smallpox by Europeans. Active warfare between the groups flared when the Dutch East India Company enclosed traditional grazing land for farms. Over the following century the Khoi were steadily driven off their land, which effectively ended traditional Khoikhoi life.

Khoikhoi social organisation was profoundly damaged and, in the end, destroyed by colonial expansion and land seizure from the late 17th century onwards. As social structures broke down, some Khoikhoi people settled on farms and became bondsmen (bondservants) or farm workers; others were incorporated into existing clan and family groups of the Xhosa people. The first mission station in southern Africa,[5] Genadendal, was started in 1738 among the Khoi people in Baviaanskloof in the Riviersonderend Mountains by Georg Schmidt a Moravian Brother from Herrnhut, Saxony, now Germany.

The Griqua

Early European settlers sometimes intermarried with the indigenous Khoikhoi, producing a sizeable mixed population known at the time as "Basters" and in some instances still so called, e. g., the Bosluis Basters of the Richtersveld and the Baster community of Rehoboth, Namibia.

Like many Khoikhoi and mixed-race people, the Griqua left the Cape Colony and migrated into the interior. Responding to the influence of missionaries, they formed the states of Griqualand West and Griqualand East which were later absorbed into the Cape Colony of the British Empire.

The Kat River settlement (1829–1856) and the Khoi in the Cape Colony

By the early 1800s, the remaining Khoi of the Cape Colony were suffering from restricted civil rights and discriminatory laws on land ownership. With this in mind, the powerful Commissioner General of the Eastern Districts, Andries Stockenstrom, facilitated the creation of the "Kat River" Khoi settlement near the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony. The more cynical motives were probably to create a buffer-zone on the Cape's frontier, but the extensive and fertile lands in the region did allow the Khoi to own their land and build their communities in peace. The settlements thrived and expanded, and Kat River quickly became a large and successful region of the Cape that subsisted more or less autonomously. The people were predominantly Afrikaans-speaking Gonaqua Khoi, but the settlement also began to attract numbers from other Khoi, Xhosa and mixed-race groups of the Cape.

The Khoi were known at the time for being remarkably good marksmen, and were frequent and invaluable allies of the Cape Colony in its frontier wars with the neighbouring Xhosa. In the Seventh Frontier War (1846–1847) against the Gcaleka Xhosa, the Khoi gunmen from Kat River distinguished themselves under their leader Andries Botha in the assault on the "Amatola fastnesses". (The young John Molteno, later Prime Minister, led a mixed Commando in the assault, and later praised the Khoi as having more bravery and initiative than most of his white soldiers.)[6]

Harsh laws were still implemented in the Eastern Cape however, to encourage the Khoi to leave their lands in the Kat River region and to work as labourers on white farms. The growing resentment exploded in 1850. When the Xhosa rose against the Cape Government, large numbers of the Khoi, for the first time, joined the Xhosa rebels.

After the war and the defeat of the rebellion, the new Cape Government endeavoured to grant the Khoi meaningful political rights to avert any future racial discontent. William Porter, the Attorney General, was famously quoted as saying that he "...would rather meet the Hottentot at the hustings, voting for his representative, than meet him in the wilds with his gun upon his shoulder",[7] and so the beginnings of the multi-racial Cape franchise was born in 1853. This law decreed that all citizens, regardless of colour, had the right to vote and to seek election in Parliament. This non-racial principle of franchise was later eroded in the late 1880s, and then finally abolished by the Apartheid Government.[8]

Massacres in German South West Africa

From 1904 to 1907, the Germans took up arms against the Khoikhoi group living in what was then German South West Africa, along with the Herero. Over 10,000 Nama, more than half of the total Nama population, perished. This was the single greatest massacre ever witnessed by the Khoikhoi people.

Culture

The religious mythology of the Khoikhoi gives special significance to the Moon, which may have been viewed as the physical manifestation of a supreme being associated with heaven. Tsui'goab is also believed to be the creator and the guardian of health, while Gunab is primarily an evil being, who causes sickness or death.[9]

World Heritage

UNESCO has recognised Khoikhoi culture through its inscription of the Richtersveld as a World Heritage Site. This important area is the only place where transhumance practices associated with the culture continue to any great extent.

See also

• Herero and Namaqua genocide
• Nama people
• Khoikhoi mythology
• Griqua people
• History of South Africa
• Hottentot Venus

• List of empires