Cape Coloureds
The
Cape Coloureds are modern-day descendants of
slaves imported into
South Africa by Dutch settlers. They are largely confined to
Western Cape Province. There are approximately 4 million of them. The majority language is
Afrikaans. The slaves were sourced from
Indonesia,
Madagascar,
India and
Mozambique. They are related to the population of
Suriname in
South America.
In many cases the slaves were imported to be concubines and wives to single male Dutch settlers. Some mixture with the Dutch settlers has thus occurred, as well as with the indigenous Khoi and San.