Up [ Africaneers ] amaZulu Antonadroy Bara Mbundu ... Mahafale Africaneers People Profile The Afrikaners Religion: Christianity, Secularism Population: 3,155,000 (1996 estimate) Status: 100% Evangelized, 99% Cultural Christians, 50% Evangelical Location: Afrikaners live in the Republic of South Africa. A few are found in farming enterprises in other southern Africa countries. During the colonial period, several hundred farmed in Kenya. Since the end of apartheid and the move to majority rule, South Africans have been active in business or import-export contacts in many African countries. History: In 1652 a small company of employees of the Dutch East India Company were settled on the southern tip of Africa in order to establish a refreshment station for the Company's ships en route to the Far East. From this group of Dutchmen the Afrikaners were to develop. From 1688 to 1700, they were joined by about 200 French Huguenots, Protestant refugees from Catholic France. Despite language and cultural differences, a shared commitment to the Reformed faith enabled these two groups to merge into one, and to this day many Afrikaans-speaking people in South Africa have surnames which can be traced back to the Huguenots. German refugees further swelled their numbers. For more than a hundred years after the first settlement, the Dutch Reformed Church was the only legally permitted and established church on South African soil. 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. | |
|