Cape Coloureds - Definition and Overview

The Cape Coloureds are modern-day descendants of slaves imported into South Africa by Dutch settlers. They are largely found in the Western Cape Province. There are approximately 4 million of them. The majority language is Afrikaans. The slaves were brought from Indonesia, Madagascar, India and Mozambique.

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 Bushmen.

Technically, the term "Cape Coloured" referred to a subset of "Coloured" South Africans, with complex (and often arbitrary) criteria having been used by the Apartheid bureaucracy to determine whether a person was a "Cape Coloured", or belonged to one of a number of other related "Coloured" subgroups such as the "Cape Malays", or "Other Coloureds".