In time, groups of settlers moved away from the Cape settlement into the hinterland to develop farms there. The indigenous people of the Cape at that time were the Khoikhoi people, many of whom worked as laborers on the farms of the Dutch-speaking settlers. The Dutch government forbade enslaving indigenous people of southern Africa. They did allow the importation of slaves or indentured servants from the Malay peoples of Indonesia and Malaysia. The first Malay slaves arrived in 1657. Others slaves were imported from West Africa.

The isolation of the Cape from the Netherlands in Europe, meant that the form of Dutch spoken in the Cape gradually changed significantly from that spoken in Holland. The Cape dialect of Dutch came to be called Afrikaans (“the African language”). In the church, the law courts, educational institutions and official government circles, the official language was Dutch. But the common language of the people was increasingly Afrikaans.

Out of the interaction between the Dutch settlers and their slaves developed another South African people. The first and largest base of this people was Malay Cape Coloured, or the brown Afrikaners. The settlers also had mixed offspring with the Khoikhoi, the San and the Xhosa. The term Coloured came to be applied to all mixed people. The Coloureds share the same language and religion as the “white” Afrikaners, although separated from them by strong social and class distinctions.
One group of Coloureds escaped to the bush and lived as an African tribe, but became fearsome warriors on horses. These were the Griqua, who are still an Afrikaans-speaking tribe today. Today, there are about 7 million Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa, over half of whom are “Coloured” people.

The Dutch settlers resented the British takeover, and some moved further inland. Two measures led to a permanent enmity. The government made English the official language in place of Dutch. In 1824, Britain freed all slaves in all British territories. The Great Trek resulted, so that by 1835, a steady visible steam of Boers (Dutch for “farmer”) was migrating north and east, establishing independent Afrikaner states, including Natal.

The final insult was the annexation of the independent northern Boer republics. The Transvaal, annexed in 1877, tried to negotiate independence and finally defeated British forces in the first Anglo-Boer War (1880-1881), winning autonomy but not total independence. Further British incursions into the Transvaal led to the second Anglo-Boer War, 1899-1902. The British defeated the Afrikaners and finally incorporated their republics into the Union of South Africa in 1910.

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A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

Earlier at the conference, Professor Trefor Jenkins, formerly the head of the department of human genetics in the school of pathology at Wits University, spoke of how he, as one of the few geneticists in South Africa during that time, was approached to identify the race of babies so that they could be adopted.

Jenkins explained that the genetic tests that were available at the time were very basic. He said that it was difficult to genetically determine the race of South Africans, as they are so mixed. Previous research, done in the 1970s, showed that the genetic makeup of white South Africans contained 7% “black inheritance”.

Erasmus’s talk, based on interviews with people involved in racial classification and on the facts of court cases, highlighted how ambiguous a concept race truly is. Her research looked at the role of science and society in the way race was classified.

The legal definition of race, as contained in the Population Registration Act of 1950, used three criteria to classify race: descent, appearance and social acceptance. As the process of implementing the Act gained momentum, and more cases emerged where classification was neither obvious nor easy, acceptance by society played an increasingly important role.

Appearance was considered Odeceptive, and descent was difficult to apply in cases of mixed parentage. This difficulty is illustrated by one of the cases Erasmus described, in which a baby was returned by its adoptive parents after they saw that it didn’t fit into the race they were classified as belonging to.

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>> Lynne Smit <<

A documentary by Tana Baru Productions, and Directed by Rhomeez Petersen

8 DAUGHTERS OF A GENETIC EVE

Dr. Douglas C. Wallace and his colleagues at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta constructed a world female genetic tree based on mitochondrial DNA. Dr. Wallace found that almost all American Indians have mtNDA that belong to lineages he named A, B, C and D. Europeans belong to lineages H through K and T through X. The split between the two main branches in the European tree suggests that modern humans reached Europe 39,000 to 51,000 years ago, Dr. Wallace calculates, a time that corresponds with the archaeological date of at least 35,000 years ago.

In Asia the ancestral lineage is known as M, with descendant branches E, F and G. In the Americas are lineages A through D. In Africa there is a single main lineage, known as L, which is divided into three branches. L3, the youngest branch, is common in East Africa and is believed to be the source of both the Asian and European lineages. Dr. Wallace’s mitochondrial DNA lineages are “haplogroups” but known as “daughters of Eve,” because all of the lineages are branches of the trunk that stems from the mitochondrial Eve.

Dr. Wallace is now exploring the root of the mitochondrial tree. In the March 2000 American Journal of Human Genetics, he and colleagues identify the Vasikela Kung of the northwestern Kalahari desert in southern Africa as the population that lies nearest to the root of the human mtDNA tree. Another population that seems almost equally old is that of the Biaka pygmies of Central Africa.

THE 7 EUROPEAN DAUGHTERS OF EVE

Prof. Sykes and Oxford University researchers in England have identified seven ancestral matriarchal groups from which all Europeans appear to be descended. Every European can trace his or her evolutionary history back to the seven ancestral mother groups, also referred to as the Seven European Daughters of Eve. Sykes et al. obtained buccal cells from 6,000 individuals and analyzed the samples using the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis. It is known that mtDNA mutates at a very slow rate, such as 1 mutation in every 10,000 years. So they figured that the women would have lived between 8,000 and 45,000 years ago. What is amazing is that all seven of the genetic groups appear to be descended from the Lara clan, one of three clans that still exist today in Africa. This is called the African Eve theory. It was proposed in the late 1980′s by Allan Wilson, Mark Stoneking and others. The African Eve theory states that all humans share a common African ancestor.

The Seven European Daughters of Eve matriarchal groups correspond to Dr. Wallace’s lineages above, and were given names by Prof. Sykes:

Helena: This clan lived in the ice-capped Pyrenees. As the climate warmed, Helena’s descendants trekked northward to what is now England, some 12,000 years ago. Members of this group are now present in all European countries.

Jasmine: Her people had a relatively happy life in Syria, where they farmed wheat and raised domestic animals. Jasmine’s descendants traveled throughout Europe, spreading their agricultural innovations with them.

Katrine: Members of this group lived in Venice 10,000 years ago. Today most of Katrine’s clan lives in the Alps.

Tara: Sykes’ maternal ancestry goes back to this group, which settled in Tuscany 17,000 years ago. Descendants ventured across northern Europe and eventually crossed the English Channel.

Ursula: Users of stone tools, Ursula’s clan members drifted across all of Europe.

Valda: Originally from Spain, Valda and her immediate descendants lived 17,000 years ago. Later relatives moved into northern Finland and Norway.

Xenia: Her people lived in the Caucasus Mountains 25,000 years ago. Just before the Ice Age, this clan spread across Europe, and even reached the Americas. [As Dr. Wallace discovered, the X pattern is a rare European lineage and is also among the northern Native Americans such as the Ojibwa and Sioux.]

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I kindly invite you to write for this website as our goal is to de-construct and redefine who we are, where we are going and how we can make our world a better place. This can only be done with your help, your thoughts and a unified vision. A singular vision where we are more than equal, where we are just people.

Our time has come to lead our people, in the cradle of political and constitutional liberty, against the tyranny of victim mentality, entitlement and the shackles of mental slavery that still persist and cripple our beloved country. I am speaking about a revolution and this revolution is about ensuring mental freedom for all. This can only be achieved if we transcend the intellectual aberration and notion of superiority. Become the freedom you seek. Free yourself, free your mind.

The freedom I seek lies in educating myself, our people, our children in the art, the science, the beauty of mental freedom. A freedom that is free from dogma and determinism yet contained and infected by love and light.

Who am I? I think therefor I am!

>> Ross Rayners <<

The conference, organized by the Africa Genome Education Institute, has been called to consider the genetics and social-ethical aspects of human variation in colour and disease. This includes the biology of pigmentation, along with other related topics. Shriver explained in his address that skin-colour varies across as well as within continents. There was an enormous amount of variation especially within Africa, he said. He compared the light skin-colour of the Khoisan, for instance, with the dark colour of the Senegalese. There are also dark-skinned people in India who have evolved dark skins independently from people with dark skins in Africa, he said. Likewise, north Europeans and east Asians are both light-skinned, for different evolutionary reasons.

The variation was a clear indication of how complex skin colour could be. “There are dark-skinned populations in most parts of the world and extensive variation in pigmentation in most regions”.  However, by measuring skin-colour and looking at how it is affected by ultraviolet light, scientists have made some fascinating conclusions about how human beings have evolved, according to Shriver. “Skin colour and ultraviolent light intensity are correlated and this, with other features, makes us think that it has evolved as part of the process of natural selection”.

A high pigment content protects people from sunburn, some types of cancer, prevents the suppression of the immune system and protects folic acid from photolysis. A low pigment content allows for enhanced Vitamin D synthesis, the beneficial suppression of the immune system (necessary to prevent ailments such as multiple sclerosis and diabetes) and protection from cold damage. “Pigmentation is quite fascinating and a beautiful aspect of human biodiversity,” said Shriver. But much was imagined and it would be hard to “take the human out of the equation”. Skin-colour and appearance were politically-charged and were likely to remain so.

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>> Lynne Smit <<