Afrikaner Assimilation of South African blacks and Coloreds

Could the Afrikaners successfully Assimilate blacks and Coloreds

How much of the South African Population would identify as Afrikaners with either an aggressive or passive assimilation by the cape colony and later boer states

What would be the impact on South African politics
 
They did, look at the DNA of Afrikaners, they all have some percentage of Asian or Khoi or Bantu ancestry.

Also interestingly enough Afrikaners was a surname of Oorlams (Klaas Afrikaners was born in 1760 and I believe he inherited that name from other Oorlams) also the first written document of Afrikaans was the Koran in Arabic by the Cape Malay community.

The issue is in the Dutch and English government wanting to maintain a semblance of racial purity.

Most common and even more prominent people wouldn't care if there were few european women around. Just look at Krotoa.
 

trajen777

Banned
Just finished the book "Guns Germs and Steel" for the 2nd time. Read it the first time years ago. There was a section on how "how Africa became black" Chapter 19. I found this is a reference that sort of sums up the chapter :

"Before 1492, blacks lived most in sub-Saharan Africa. Whites, as Diamond defines them, encompass people from North Africa with lighter skin and straighter hair. Pygmies and Khoisan largely hail from the sub-Saharan region. Pygmies are physically characterized by their small size, dark skin, and large eyes and foreheads. Khoisan are physically characterized by yellowish skin and tightly coiled hair. Most of the Khoisan were wiped out by disease or colonialist massacres before the beginning of the 20th century." http://www.litcharts.com/lit/guns-germs-and-steel/chapter-19-how-Africa-became-black

Anyway form what i remember -- (like above) the Bantu tribal group had wet agriculture and livestock so they had advantages in food production vs the Khoisan people. Because the Bantu were herd breeders they had been exposed to disease for a long time. When in greater contact with the Khoisan people the germs devastated them (the Khoisan people were hunters and gatherers), as well as their displacement by the farmers & herders of the Bantu. IN effect it was like the Spanish arriving in the new world. Anyway the dutch arriving in south africa found Khoisan people who got a repeat of the Bantu migrations further north. The areas that between the Bantu conquests in the north and the new white settlers in the south was not supportive of the wet agriculture of the Bantu so they had not migrated there yet.

So anyway in a round about way the Afrikaners would have found basically open land for quite a while (with the germs killing many of the Kho. people). I think you could have seen a fusion of the Kho people and the Afrikaners. However if you believe Mitchners book "the convenient" it would point to a low possibility of this (of course this is a fiction book). However if you had a smaller migration of Bantu with a 50 / 50 population then i think a good integrated society could have come about
 
Well, first they would have to accept blacks who speak Dutch as equals to themselves.

Or at least treat a black who speaks Dutch the same as a white with the same amount of money.

Then things will be more modern, with people discriminating based on wealth (which is something one can try to change with effort and luck) instead of looks (which one can't really change)
 
Just finished the book "Guns Germs and Steel" for the 2nd time. Read it the first time years ago. There was a section on how "how Africa became black" Chapter 19. I found this is a reference that sort of sums up the chapter :

"Before 1492, blacks lived most in sub-Saharan Africa. Whites, as Diamond defines them, encompass people from North Africa with lighter skin and straighter hair. Pygmies and Khoisan largely hail from the sub-Saharan region. Pygmies are physically characterized by their small size, dark skin, and large eyes and foreheads. Khoisan are physically characterized by yellowish skin and tightly coiled hair. Most of the Khoisan were wiped out by disease or colonialist massacres before the beginning of the 20th century." http://www.litcharts.com/lit/guns-germs-and-steel/chapter-19-how-Africa-became-black

Anyway form what i remember -- (like above) the Bantu tribal group had wet agriculture and livestock so they had advantages in food production vs the Khoisan people. Because the Bantu were herd breeders they had been exposed to disease for a long time. When in greater contact with the Khoisan people the germs devastated them (the Khoisan people were hunters and gatherers), as well as their displacement by the farmers & herders of the Bantu. IN effect it was like the Spanish arriving in the new world. Anyway the dutch arriving in south africa found Khoisan people who got a repeat of the Bantu migrations further north. The areas that between the Bantu conquests in the north and the new white settlers in the south was not supportive of the wet agriculture of the Bantu so they had not migrated there yet.

So anyway in a round about way the Afrikaners would have found basically open land for quite a while (with the germs killing many of the Kho. people). I think you could have seen a fusion of the Kho people and the Afrikaners. However if you believe Mitchners book "the convenient" it would point to a low possibility of this (of course this is a fiction book). However if you had a smaller migration of Bantu with a 50 / 50 population then i think a good integrated society could have come about

Guns germs and steel is not a good book and it's more complicated than that.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Just finished the book "Guns Germs and Steel" for the 2nd time. Read it the first time years ago. There was a section on how "how Africa became black" Chapter 19. I found this is a reference that sort of sums up the chapter :

"Before 1492, blacks lived most in sub-Saharan Africa. Whites, as Diamond defines them, encompass people from North Africa with lighter skin and straighter hair. Pygmies and Khoisan largely hail from the sub-Saharan region. Pygmies are physically characterized by their small size, dark skin, and large eyes and foreheads. Khoisan are physically characterized by yellowish skin and tightly coiled hair. Most of the Khoisan were wiped out by disease or colonialist massacres before the beginning of the 20th century." http://www.litcharts.com/lit/guns-germs-and-steel/chapter-19-how-Africa-became-black

Anyway form what i remember -- (like above) the Bantu tribal group had wet agriculture and livestock so they had advantages in food production vs the Khoisan people. Because the Bantu were herd breeders they had been exposed to disease for a long time. When in greater contact with the Khoisan people the germs devastated them (the Khoisan people were hunters and gatherers), as well as their displacement by the farmers & herders of the Bantu. IN effect it was like the Spanish arriving in the new world. Anyway the dutch arriving in south africa found Khoisan people who got a repeat of the Bantu migrations further north. The areas that between the Bantu conquests in the north and the new white settlers in the south was not supportive of the wet agriculture of the Bantu so they had not migrated there yet.

So anyway in a round about way the Afrikaners would have found basically open land for quite a while (with the germs killing many of the Kho. people). I think you could have seen a fusion of the Kho people and the Afrikaners. However if you believe Mitchners book "the convenient" it would point to a low possibility of this (of course this is a fiction book). However if you had a smaller migration of Bantu with a 50 / 50 population then i think a good integrated society could have come about
gun germ steel is garbage
 
They did, look at the DNA of Afrikaners, they all have some percentage of Asian or Khoi or Bantu ancestry.

Also interestingly enough Afrikaners was a surname of Oorlams (Klaas Afrikaners was born in 1760 and I believe he inherited that name from other Oorlams) also the first written document of Afrikaans was the Koran in Arabic by the Cape Malay community.

The issue is in the Dutch and English government wanting to maintain a semblance of racial purity.

Most common and even more prominent people wouldn't care if there were few european women around. Just look at Krotoa.

Indeed, the Coloured only gained the status of "people" during British rule, before that they're simply mixed race people from the Cape (s. Canadian Métis). It's possible that further mixing continue throughout the 19th century without British rule. The Afrikaners will probably move towards a gradual emancipation of slaves, smaller great trek, etc.
 
Could the Afrikaners successfully Assimilate blacks and Coloreds
Define assimilate? Are we talking about an America-type situation, where African Americans have lost ties to their ancestral cultures and so assimilated into English/American culture by default, even while maintaining a distinct racial/cultural identity?
 
Define assimilate? Are we talking about an America-type situation, where African Americans have lost ties to their ancestral cultures and so assimilated into English/American culture by default, even while maintaining a distinct racial/cultural identity?
lost ties but not consider as a distinct cultural identity, There just considered as black Afrikaners equal to whites
 
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I think the main problem with such assimilation was the British takeover. When the British needed to find something which United the Afrikaans and the British settlers, race was pretty much the only option. If not for the English speaking settlers, we would likely have seen Afrikaans develop into a multiracial identity of people who spoke Dutch/Afrikaans as first language, yes the paler ones would still be at the top, but no one see a Brown or Black Brazilian as less Brazilian than White Brazilian even through they later dominates. Even in OTL some Black Dutch speakers called themselves Boers. So either find a way to avoid a British takeover or find a way to limit the English speaking population, maybe the British makes a deal with the Cape Dutch that English settlement are limited to Natal, while Dutch stay sole official language of the Cape.
 
The British did kind of keep moving in and annexing everyone, no matter the color or culture. Look at the Griqua, who felt pushed from the Cape like the Trek oars and left to establish Griqualand West. The West part comes because the Cape Colony wanted land so they had to move to Griqualand East, which was also swallowed up, with the group labeled as Coloureds. I would say that, perhaps without the British constantly pushing, the linguistically and culturally Afrikaans inspired group would have gotten around a bit better with the Trekboees. Let us say there are a could Trekboee states around, plus some Griqua and similar states. Have them unify against British, Bechua, Swazi, or Zulu incursions. Let them be seen as hard workers who will not be slaves (just mentioning that in case someone brought it up) and a sharp Calvinist bent can be brought into all of this.
 
The British did kind of keep moving in and annexing everyone, no matter the color or culture. Look at the Griqua, who felt pushed from the Cape like the Trek oars and left to establish Griqualand West.

This isn't the point actually. It was the British who drew a line between races, pretty much creating ethnic groups. Before British rule Griquas and Coloureds were simply Dutch mixed-race people living in South Africa, remember that even if the Dutch didn't appreciate miscigenation, there wasn't the one-drop rule. It was only during the 19th century that they developped a more crystalized identity. Similarly, look to what happened with the Canadian Métis (heck, Métis literally means mixed-race in French).

Roughly speaking, like Jurgen explained, mixed-race people were at the fringes of White/Western society, but still a part of it (see Latin America), it was mostly the British who "downgraded" mixed-race people to the status of "Natives" to better rule - divide and conquer, as is commonly said. Thus, without British rule we'll probably have further miscegenation and the rate between Coloured and White Afrikaners will depend on the influx of new European settlers and the integration of the rest of Native South Africans.
 
I would argue that the Coloureds, speakers of Afrikaans, were assimilated into Afrikaansophone society. For a variety of reasons, they were rejected.
 
I would argue that the Coloureds, speakers of Afrikaans, were assimilated into Afrikaansophone society. For a variety of reasons, they were rejected.

Just as rejected as any other mixed-race everywhere else in the western world.

Or is it a plainly coincidence that miscigenation stopped when British rule started in South Africa? And also a coincidence that the very same thing happened in British Canada roughly during the same period?
 
They did, look at the DNA of Afrikaners, they all have some percentage of Asian or Khoi or Bantu ancestry.
.

I can believe that some of them have small amounts of non-European ancestry but I am skeptical that most do. It seems to be a popular myth for those with long roots in a settler society (whether it's the USA, Canada, Australia etc.) to claim that they have some "native blood" but DNA studies actually usually disprove this. Those of actual mixed ancestry frequently formed parallel societies, like the Métis or Coloureds.
 
I can believe that some of them have small amounts of non-European ancestry but I am skeptical that most do. It seems to be a popular myth for those with long roots in a settler society (whether it's the USA, Canada, Australia etc.) to claim that they have some "native blood" but DNA studies actually usually disprove this. Those of actual mixed ancestry frequently formed parallel societies, like the Métis or Coloureds.

There has been no study of Afrikaners DNA unless its new to me, however Apricity (international white nationalism website) has last I checked about 100 DNA profiles and all of them have non-european ancestry.

If I remember correctly since it has been a couple years the owner of the website has Angolan and Malaysian ancestry which changed his tune towards mixed race people.

But basically yes 23andme has shown this common thread.
 
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