Afrikaner

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Afrikaners are South Africans of predominantly Dutch Calvinist, French Huguenot, German Protestant, Frisian, Flemish, and Walloon descent who speak the Afrikaans language. Afrikaners are also sometimes referred to as Boers (Afrikaans for farmer), but some Afrikaners now view this as a derogatory term.

1 History
2 Today
3 Afrikaner versus Boer
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

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History

Afrikaners are mainly descended from northwestern European settlers and religious refugees who lived in the Cape of Good Hope during the period of administration (1652-1795) by the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) and the subsequent period of British rule. The original colony at the Cape, which was started as a refreshment station for the VOC, was first settled by the Dutch in 1652. The arrival in 1688 of a small group of French Huguenots who were fleeing religious persecution in France infused new blood and swelled the settlers' numbers. Some settlers from other parts of Europe (e.g. Scandinavia and the British Isles) also joined the ranks of the Afrikaners. Non-Europeans (including Malay, Malagasy, South Indian, Khoi and Bantu) makeup around 5-7% of Afrikaner origins.

The Afrikaans language changed over time from the Dutch spoken by the first white settlers at the Cape. From the late 17th century, the form of Dutch spoken at the Cape developed differences in pronunciation and accent and, to a lesser extent, in syntax and vocabulary, from that of the Netherlands, although the languages are still similar enough to be mutually intelligible (with some effort). Settlers who arrived speaking German and French soon shifted to using Dutch and later Afrikaans. The process of language change was influenced by the languages spoken by slaves, Khoikhoi and people of mixed descent, as well as by Cape Malay and Portuguese. While the Dutch of the Netherlands remained the official language, the new dialect, often known as Cape Dutch, African Dutch or "Kitchen Dutch," developed into a separate language by the 19th century. In 1925 this new language replaced standard Dutch as one of the two official languages of the Union of South Africa.

The term Afrikaner encompasses disparate communities of white Afrikaans speakers. Originally it distinguished those Dutch speakers who saw themselves as local, i.e. "African", from those who still primarily identified with Europe; it was later used to distinguish between Afrikaans speakers and English speakers among the white population. Its earliest use dates from 1707 but was not widely used until after the Second Anglo-Boer War of the early 20th century. Prior to then, the various white Afrikaans speaking communities were known under different names. A significant number were known as Boers (farmers). The semi-nomadic/migrating pastoralists of the eastern frontier were known as Trekboers. Those who settled the eastern districts of the Cape became known as Grensboere (Border Farmers) where they established themselves as farmers and artisans. Those who lived in the western Cape and did not trek eastward were known as the Cape Dutch. The isolated pioneers from the eastern Cape frontier who trekked (migrated into the interior) en masse in a series of migrations later known as the Great Trek (Groote Trek) were known as Voortrekkers (which may be translated as 'forerunners'). A small number of Voortrekkers came from the western Cape as well.

In the 1830s and 1840s an estimated 12,000 Voortrekkers penetrated the future Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal provinces putting themselves beyond the reach of British authority in order to escape relentless border wars, British colonialism including its Anglicization policies, as well as to ease pressure on an overcrowding frontier where land was becoming scarce. While some historians claim that these series of mass migrations, later known as the Great Trek, were caused because the Boers did not agree with the British restrictions on slavery, the fact of the matter is most Trekboers did not own slaves, unlike the Cape Dutch, their more affluent cousins in the western Cape who did not trek eastward and migrate or participate in the Great Trek. The vast majority of Voortrekkers were Trekboers from the eastern Cape who engaged in pastoralism. Nevertheless, the British promulgation of Ordinance 50 in 1828, which guaranteed equal rights before the law to all "free persons of colour", was indeed a factor in Boer discontent, as is well documented by numerous contemporary sources; the various republics founded by the Voortrekkers while prohibiting slavery itself would all enshrine inequality by race into their constitutions.

The Great Trek was mainly the result of the "bursting of the dam" of pent up population migration and population pressures, as Trekboer migrations eastward had come to a virtual stop for at least three decades (though some Trekboers did migrate beyond the Orange River prior to the Great Trek). During the Great Trek they fought against the Zulus after Voortrekker leaders Piet Retief and Gerhard Maritz, along with almost half of their followers, were lured under the pretence of a land treaty and massacred by King Dingane and his warriors, who occupied the best land in some of the areas the Boers were attempting to trek into. Although in revenge the forces of Andries Pretorius killed about 3000 Zulus after the Boers initially came under attack in the Battle of Blood River in a classic mismatch between guns and spears. Retief and the local Voortrekkers had performed several deeds for Dingane and came to finalise the treaty in which the Voortrekkers were granted lands in Dingan's kingdom before Dingane changed his mind killing Retief, his delegation, and half of the Natal contingent of Voortrekkers. The Zulu resistance changed the direction of the Trek. The emphasis moved from occupying lands which the Zulu held sway over east of the Drakensberg mountains to the west of them and onto the high veld of the Transvaal and Transorangia which was lightly occupied due to the devastation of the Mfecane. Some were known to have ventured far beyond the presnt day borders of South Africa up as far as present day Zambia and Angola.

The Boers created independent states in what is now South Africa: the Natalia Republic, the Transvaal Republic (the South African Republic) and the Orange Free State. The British wish to appropriate the gold and diamonds mines in the Boer areas led to the two Boer Wars: The First Boer War (1880-1881) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902), which ended with the inclusion of the Boer areas in the British colonies. The Boers won the first war, but lost the second after being one of the first people in modern times to employ guerilla tactics. Canada participated in this war being requested by its motherland. One of the first concentration camps in the modern era were built for women, the elderly, and children of the Boers and their black allies. An estimated twenty seven thousand Boer civilians (mainly children under sixteen) died in the concentration camps marking a death of about 15 percent of the local Boer population. About 15,000 black allies died in other concentration camps as well. A large number of the prisoners died under the British administration of the camps. Following the British annexation of the Boer republics, the creation of the Union of South Africa (1910) went some way towards blurring the division between British settler and Afrikaner. The black majority, however, was excluded from equal participation in the affairs of the State and country, except for the states which were self governed (Qwaqwa, Zululand, Ciskei, Transkei, Venda, Bophuthatswana) until 1994, owing first to the British colonial policies and then later to an Afrikaner-led political party's policy of apartheid, (the Afrikaans word for "aparthood" or "separation"), particularly under the National Party from 1948.

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Today

In recent years there has been a movement by some Afrikaners to support the mixed race ("coloured") population of South Africa, most of whom speak Afrikaans as their first language, to consider themselves Afrikaners. The Afrikaans-speaking people who aren't Caucasian or who are Coloured people of South Africa, Nambia, and other Afrikaans-speaking locations, go by many names. These names include, "kleurlinge", "basters", "griqua", "namaqua", or "khoikhoi". They are sometimes called "bruin afrikaners" (meaning brown Afrikaners), or "bruinmense" (meaning brown people). This has seen some success despite the history of exclusion during the colonial and apartheid eras. However, many Afrikaans-speaking coloureds feel they have developed a separate identity from white Afrikaans speakers due to the strict racial segregation policies of the apartheid years.

Recently, some liberal Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and Namibians have started rejecting the label 'Afrikaner', because of its negative connotations of racism, conservatism and religious intolerance. Some use the racially neutral term "Afrikaanses" to refer to themselves as persons whose mother tongue is Afrikaans, disregarding racial identity or apartheid-era categorisation.

A group of Afrikaners has settled in the town of Orania, with the goal of ultimately gaining a Volkstaat for Afrikaners as a result of Afrikaner demographic consolidation.

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Afrikaner versus Boer

Currently, a number of white Afrikaans-speaking people, mainly with "conservative" political views, prefer to be called "Boers", rather than "Afrikaners". They feel that there were many people of Voortrekker descent who were not co-opted or assimilated into what they see as the Cape-based Afrikaner identity which began emerging after the Second Anglo-Boer War and the subsequent establishment of the Union of South Africa.

They contend that the Boers of the South African (ZAR) and Orange Free State republics were recognized as a separate people or cultural group under international law by the Sand River Convention (which created the South African Republic in 1852), the Bloemfontein Convention (which created the Orange Free State Republic in 1854), the Pretoria Convention (which re-established the independence of the South African Republic 1881), the London Convention (which granted the full independence to the South African Republic in 1884) and the Vereeniging Peace Treaty, which formally ended the Second Anglo-Boer War on 31 May 1902. Others contend, however, that these treaties dealt only with agreements between governmental entities and do not imply the recognition of a Boer cultural identity per se.

The supporters of these views feel that the Afrikaner designation (or label) was used from the 1930s onwards as a means of unifying (politically at least) the white Afrikaans speakers of the Western Cape with those of Trekboer and Voortrekker descent (whose ancestors began migrating eastward during the 1690s and throughout the 1700s and later northward during the Great Trek of the 1830s) in the north of South Africa, where the Boer Republics were established.

The supporters of the "Boer" designation view the Afrikaner designation as an artificial political label which usurped their history and culture turning "Boer" achievements into "Afrikaner" achievements. They feel that the Western-Cape based Afrikaners — whose ancestors did not trek eastwards or northwards — took advantage of the republican Boers' destitution following the Anglo-Boer War and later attempted to assimilate the Boers into a new politically-based cultural label as "Afrikaners".

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