The term "Coloured" refers to members of multiracial ethnic communities in Southern Africa who may have indigenous ancestry from more than one of the various populations inhabiting the region, including African, European, and Asian. South Africa's Coloured people have some of the most diverse genetic backgrounds.
During the apartheid era in South Africa of the second half of the 20th century, the government used the term "Coloured" to describe one of the four main racial groups defined by law. This was an effort to impose white supremacy and maintain racial divisions. Individual classifications were White South Africans (formally classified as "European"), Black South Africans (officially classified as "Native," "Bantu," or simply "African" and comprising most of the population), Coloureds (mixed-race) and Indians (formally classified as "Asian"). They were referred to as Kleurlinge or Bruinmense, 'Brown people.'
Coloured, a person of mixed European (“white”) and African (“Black”) or Asian ancestry, as officially defined by the South African apartheid government from 1950 to 1991.
The apartheid-era Population Registration Act of 1950 and subsequent amendments codified the Coloured identity and defined its subgroups. Due to Apartheid policies and despite the abolition of the Population Registration Act in 1991, Coloureds are one of four race groups in South Africa. These groups (blacks, whites, Coloureds, and Indians) still tend to have strong racial identities and classify themselves and others as members of these race groups. The classification continues to persist in government policy, to an extent, due to attempts at redress such as Black Economic Empowerment and Employment Equity.
On the one side, I’m empathetic to that traumatizing history. Coloured South Africans have a rich history that shouldn’t be renamed merely because they are being discussed or engaged from beyond South African shores.
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Simply put, that isn’t fair. For the past week or so, South Africans have been adamantly arguing that Coloured people in South Africa should not have to change how they communicate themselves to the world merely because it could be misinterpreted by Western nations. At the end of the day, if anything is taken from this, let it be that Coloured South Africans will tell you who they are, it’s just your job to listen.
Individuals assigned to this classification originated primarily from 18th- and 19th-century unions between men of higher and women of lower social groups: for instance, between white men and enslaved women or between enslaved men and Khoekhoe or San women. The enslaved people were from Madagascar, the Malayan archipelago, Sri Lanka, and India.
In early 20th-century South Africa, the word “Coloured” was a social category rather than a legal designation and typically indicated a status intermediate between those who were identified as “white” and those who were identified as “Black.” The classification was largely arbitrary, based on family background and cultural practices as well as physical features. Most South Africans who identified themselves as Coloured spoke Afrikaans and English, were Christians, lived in a European manner, and affiliated with whites.
Many lived in Cape Town, its suburbs, and rural areas of Western Cape province. Significant numbers also lived in Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) and elsewhere in Eastern Cape province and in Northern Cape province. In Cape Town and Port Elizabeth, they represented the middle and working classes and were employed as teachers, clerks, shopkeepers, artisans, and other skilled workers. Those living outside the towns were mostly labourers on white-owned farms. A Muslim minority, the so-called Cape Malays, lived mostly in separate communities and married among themselves for religious reasons.
Until World War II (1939-45) there was considerable intermarriage between lighter-skinned Coloureds and whites, and many individuals were absorbed into the white community. Severe apartheid laws established in 1948, however, immediately subjected Coloured individuals to a rigid separation of occupational opportunities, the abolition of voting rights in Cape Province, and laws that prohibited (until 1985) intermarriage and sexual relations with other groups. In the 1950s a further series of laws disenfranchised many Coloured individuals, confiscated their land, and forced them to relocate to less desirable areas.
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The designation “Coloured” and all restrictions based upon it were abolished in the 1990s as the apartheid system was dismantled and the legal classification system was abandoned.
Coloured African people may have ethnic ancestry from Indonesia, mixed race, and Khoisan ancestry. The Apartheid government treated them as one people despite their differences.
Many Griqua self-identified as Coloureds during the apartheid era because of the benefits of such classification. For example, Coloureds did not have to carry an identity document to limit the movements of non-whites. In contrast, the Griqua, seen as an indigenous African group, did.
In the 21st century, the percentage of Coloureds in the provinces of the Western Cape is 48.8%, and in the Northern Cape, 40.3%-both areas of centuries of mixing among the populations. In the Eastern Cape, they make up 8.3% of the population.
About twenty percent of the Coloured speak English as their mother tongue, primarily those of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Virtually all Cape Town Coloured are bilingual. Coloureds mostly live in the western part of South Africa. In Cape Town, they form 45.4% of the total population, according to the South African National Census of 2011.
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Because of the vast combination of genetics, different families and individuals within a family may have various physical features.
The Cape Coloured community descended from several interracial sexual unions, primarily between Western European men and Khoisan or mixed-race women in the Cape Colony from the 17th century onwards.
In KwaZulu-Natal, the Coloured possess a diverse heritage, including British, Irish, German, Mauritian, Saint Helenian, Indian, Xhosa, and Zulu. Zimbabwean Coloureds descend from Shona or Ndebele, British and Afrikaner colonizers, and Arabs and Asians.
Griqua are also descendants of Khoisan women and Afrikaner Trekboers.
Despite these significant differences, as both groups have ancestry from more than one naturalized racial group, they are classified as coloured in the South African context. Such mixed-race people did not necessarily self-identify this way; some preferred to call themselves black, Khoisan, or South African.
The Griqua were subjected to the uncertainty of other Creole people within the Southern African social order. With territories beyond the Dutch East India Company's administration, Kok provided refuge to deserting soldiers, runaway slaves, and remaining members of various Khoikhoi tribes.
In South Africa and neighboring countries, the white minority governments historically segregated Africans from Europeans after the settlement had progressed.
Looking at American politics and social history, it’s understandable why the very term would come as a shock and register offense. In the United States, the word “colored” (sans the u) was used to describe African-Americans as a way to others and segregate them from humanity. As a Black woman, it isn’t my place to overly insert myself into the Coloured community’s affairs and how they communicate their identity. At the same time, watching Americans incorrectly and unfairly recategorize or re-identify South African Coloured people based on their understanding of the term has been difficult.
Western experiences can’t always be universalized. South Africans have been very clear that the composition of the Coloured community is so diverse and draws from Africa, Europe, and Asia. Quite literally, they are of mixed races, but their Coloured heritage should not be misappropriated or misnamed to comfort or quell American sentiments.
History of the Coloured people
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