Cape Dutch
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Languages | |
| Afrikaans, South African English | |
| Religion | |
| Protestant (Afrikaner Calvinism, Reformed churches) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
|
Boer Cape Coloured Baster Griqua |
Cape Dutch, also commonly known as Cape Afrikaners, were a class of Afrikaners who lived in the Western Cape during the eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The terms have been evoked to describe the more affluent, apolitical section of the Cape Colony's Afrikaner population which did not participate in the Great Trek or the subsequent founding of the Boer republics.
Following the establishment of the Dutch East India Company's initial settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, it became home to a large population of "vrijlieden", also known as "vrijburgers" (free citizens). The earliest vrijburgers were Company employees who applied for grants of land and permission to retire in South Africa as independent farmers. Most were married Dutch citizens who committed to spend at least twenty years on the African continent. In exchange they received plots of thirteen and a half morgen apiece, a twelve year exemption from property taxes, and loans of seeds and agricultural implements. Reflecting the multi-national character of the Company's workforce and overseas settlements, smaller numbers of German and French Huguenot immigrants were also allowed to settle in South Africa, and by 1691 over a quarter of the Cape's European population was not ethnically Dutch.
Meanwhile, their pastoral trekking kinsmen, the Trekboers, were migrating away from the Western Cape to carve out a distinct culture and dialect with a strong desire for independence. The term Cape Dutch is believed to have been coined by Trekboers to show that the Cape Dutch did not share the Trekboers' culture and interests or desire for independence. The Cape Dutch tended to have not much affinity for their rustic Trekboer kinsmen, whose language, culture, and frontier lifestyle they sometimes deemed inferior.
The Voortrekkers (mainly descendants of Trekboers) embarked on a series of mass migrations caused by the invading British, later known as the Great Trek.
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Wikipedia