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

.History of Slavery in South Africa Documentary

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 <<

.History of Slavery in South Africa Documentary

]]> http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2010/01/roots-of-the-cape/feed/ 0 http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2010/01/we-are-because-of-them/ http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/2010/01/we-are-because-of-them/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:00:29 +0000 Internet Source http://www.beyondidentity.co.za/?p=708

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

This is the longest myth ever in existence, which is pedaled as true scholarship and truth. Yet it is an outright myth, deliberately created from 1830 onwards, to explain away Egyptian civilization. During the 1800’s there was all kinds of pseudo-sciences floating around about the genetical and inherent inferiority of peoples of African descent, and also a belief blacks are to be colonized because they are uncivilized and savage by nature. This was created to justify colonialism and also denying blacks equal rights in America. In order to moralize their mistreatment of blacks, scientific racism was created. And a part of this was in denying blacks had ever had a civilization. Since Egypt was a very impressive and marvelous civilization, and much of the heritage of the western world (such as writing and the calendar) came from ancient Egypt, it became necessary to whiten Egypt.

But the truth is, the ancient Egyptians were not white. Neither were they pure black. The ancient Egyptians were a mixed-race people, especially in Upper Egypt, where Egyptian civilization began. While the earliest inhabitants, the Tasians, are believed to have been of Cro-Magnoid stock, the predynastic Badarian period which starts at 5500 B.C. in Upper Egypt, was quite Negroid. Carleton S. Coon calls the predynastic Egyptian population of Upper Egypt during the Badarian period “Mediterrenean” and denies any black admixture, on account of their thick and wavy hair. But thin and wavy hair is Caucasion hair. Wavy hair that is thick in texture is typical of peoples with African ancestry. The hair-type Coon described can be found amongst many modern-day Nubians, as well as some Northern Ethiopians, and a number of persons of mixed ancestry in Latin America, the Caribbean, and even in the United States. And besides, he described the crania of the Badarian skulls he studied as being dolichocephalic, with short faces, blurred margin (broad noses), and prognathisms. These are distinctly Negroid traits, and are undeniable evidence of black admixture. As for the hair of predynastic Upper Egyptian of the Badarian period, recent studies of their hair, show them to be semi-frizzy, like Mulattoes and many Northeast Africans. [Keita, S.O.Y. Studies and "Comments on Ancient Egyptian Biological Relationships," History of Africa 20, p.140] Of the Badarian predynastic Egyptian population, other scholars do not hesitate to call the characteristics of the crania as Negroid and as being due to African ancestry. Dr. Childe V. Gordon, a British anthropologist, spoke of the Negroid traits in Badarian crania. Other Egyptologists and anthropologists have noted the same. Dr. Emile Massourlard, a French Egyptologist, published a work in 1949 called[ “Prehistoire et Protohistoire d’Egypt”[ in which he cites various studies on predynastic and dynastic Egyptian culture. On the Badarians, he quotes a study by Miss Stoessiger.

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