White South Africans are South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original colonists, known as Afrikaners, and the Anglophone descendants of predominantly British colonists of South Africa. White South Africans are by far the largest population of White Africans.
Density of the White South African population.
Origins and Early Settlement
The history of white settlement in South Africa started in 1652 with the settlement of the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) under Jan van Riebeeck. Despite the preponderance of officials and colonists from the Netherlands, there were also a number of French Huguenots fleeing religious persecution at home and German soldiers or sailors returning from service in Asia.
The earliest settlement of Dutch colonisers at the Cape in South Africa comprised not of statesmen arriving on the authority of their government, but of castaways from the Netherlands. This obscure fact is often overshadowed by the arrival of the man Afrikaners consider a founding father of their nation - Jan van Riebeeck.
The earliest ancestors of white Afrikaners were, amongst others, castaways and disgraced businessmen.
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The Cape Colony remained under Dutch rule for two more centuries, after which it was annexed by the United Kingdom around 1806. At that time, South Africa was home to about 26,000 people of European ancestry, a relative majority of whom were still of Dutch origin.
The Boers and the Great Trek
However, the Dutch settlers grew into conflict with the British government over the abolition of the Cape Colony slave trade and limits on colonial expansion into African lands. In order to prevent a frontier war, the British Parliament decided to send British settlers to start farms on the eastern frontier.
About a fifth of the Cape's original Dutch-speaking white population migrated eastwards during the Great Trek in the 1830s and established their own autonomous Boer republics further inland. Nevertheless, the population of white ancestry (mostly European origin) continued increasing in the Cape as a result of settlement, and by 1865 had reached 181,592 people.
Many of the Boers who participated in the Great Trek had varying motives. As important as the Trek was to the formation of Boer ethnic identity, so were the running conflicts with various indigenous groups along the way.
The Boers who entered Natal discovered that the land they wanted came under the authority of the Zulu King Dingane kaSenzangakhona, who ruled that part of what subsequently became KwaZulu-Natal.
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The discovery of goldfields awakened British interest in the Boer republics, and the two Boer Wars resulted: The First Boer War (1880-1881) and the Second Boer War (1899-1902). The Boers won the first war and retained their independence. The second ended with British victory and annexation of the Boer areas into the British colonies. The British employed scorched earth tactics and held many Boers in concentration camps as a means to separate commandos from their source of shelter, food and supply.
The Dutch-speaking peoples had seen themselves as pioneers, Calvinists who were taming a promised land provided to them by God. Their humiliating defeat became central to the Afrikaner identity as a persecuted group in the twentieth century.
Boer Family in a British concentration camp.
Widespread destruction of farms by the English during the war prompted many rural Boers to move to the cities, where they competed with immigrants and local people for work in the industrial sector. Others competed with Black South Africans for jobs in the mines.
Afrikaners were resentful after their defeat and many mine owners viewed them as a threat. The owners feared the Afrikaners and Black workers could join forces to demand better wages and working conditions.
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The English-speaking white South Africans established a racially based labor system in which management and skilled-labor positions were reserved for white individuals, while low-paying heavy labor jobs were held by Black workers. Over time, legislation limited the movements of Black South African workers and established areas in which they were permitted to live. These laws predated apartheid, but laid the ground for the system, which was established in 1948 and endured until 1994.
Apartheid and its Legacy
Since Vorster’s National Party gained power in the 1948 elections, it has been committed to the oppressive policy known as apartheid (separateness). In theory, apartheid means that South Africa’s 4.3 million whites, 18.6 million blacks, 2.5 million mixed-blood “coloreds” and 750,000 Asians will proceed along separate lines of development under the government’s benign guidance.
In practice, apartheid has meant the disfranchisement of a huge majority, which is subjected to one of the most repressive and discriminatory systems of racial laws in the world.
The purpose of apartheid is the preservation of the language, culture and political power of the Afrikaners—the unique white tribe on a continent of black tribes. Unlike the white settlers of Rhodesia or the French pieds-noirs of Algeria, the Afrikaners have no ties to a European motherland. After more than three centuries in South Africa, they have as much right to claim it as their true home as Canadians have to claim Ontario.
Since 1948 the Afrikaner government has pushed legislation through parliament classifying the population by race, banning marriage and I sex across the color line and imposing “pass” laws that rigidly control the movement of blacks. In all, some 300 pieces of separatist legislation form the edifice of apartheid today.
Perhaps the most degrading aspect of the system is the web of social segregation laws and customs known as petty apartheid. Petty apartheid includes everything from segregated buses to beaches and lunch counters.
The centerpiece of the apartheid system is the elaborate plan to establish nine “independent” black homelands within South Africa. Eventually, all South African blacks will be given citizenship in one of these homelands, even though about half of the black population live permanently in “white” South Africa.
Culture and Identity
Afrikaner culture is based in Dutch identity, and in particular, the Boer culture-pioneers who carved out a community in the South African interior. The education system includes historic figures from the era. Athleticism is celebrated, with many rugby and soccer stars emerging as idols. Afrikaners predominate among rural white people. They commonly are employed in industry.
An inconvenient truth that has always stalked Afrikaners throughout their history, is the obvious but denied entanglements with Indigenous and enslaved people. As their white ethno-nationalist project expanded into apartheid, their purported supremacy relied more heavily on a contradictory distancing from both Europe as a motherland, and Africa as a culture.
Afrikaners observe standard Christian holidays including Easter and Christmas. Sunday School for children is essential to many families. Many Dutch Reformed Churches hold a midnight service on December 31 to recall those lost in the year and welcome the new year.
Because the South African climate is warm year-round, outdoor activities are common. Rugby, soccer, and field hockey are popular in winter. Cricket is most common in summer. Other favorite activities include cycling, golf, swimming, and tennis. Water sports include surfing and yachting. Some Afrikaners continue to participate in a competition that originated during the pioneer era, jukskei, which resembles the game of horseshoes.
English-speaking white South Africans live throughout the country, but the largest population centers are urban areas including Cape Town, Durban, East London, and Port Elizabeth along the coast, and inland cities and towns Bloemfontein, Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Kimberley, and Pretoria. Primarily of English heritage, they continue to observe anniversaries and events of their ancestral homelands. For example, the Christmas holiday involves family gatherings, special dinners, and gift giving. Guy Fawkes Day, which remembers a failed effort to blow up the Houses of Parliament in England, is observed November 5 with bonfires and fireworks. In modern times such observances are less common because fireworks are largely banned to prevent fire.
Demographics and Current Status
The South African National Census of 2011 counted 2,710,461 white South Africans who speak Afrikaans as a first language, or approximately 5.23% of the total South African population.
The South African government’s migration data indicated white South Africans were leaving the country in increasing numbers. From 1985 to 2021, an estimated 611,500 white South Africans emigrated. Among the most common destinations were England, Australia, and New Zealand.
As of the 2022 census, white South Africans make up 7.3% of the population, predominantly speak Afrikaans (61%) or English (36%), mostly identify as Christian (87%), and are unevenly distributed with the highest concentrations in Western Cape and Gauteng provinces.
The Statistics South Africa Census 2011 showed that there were about 4,586,838 white people in South Africa, amounting to 8.9% of the country's population. This was a 6.8% increase since the 2001 census.
According to Statistics South Africa, white South Africans comprised 7.7% of the total population of South Africa in 2022.
Population Statistics
Here's a table summarizing the historical population data of Afrikaners:
| Year | Population | Annual Growth Rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1657 | 137 | - |
| 1754 | 6,000 | +3.97% |
| 1806 | 26,720 | +2.91% |
| 1936 | 1,120,770 | +2.92% |
| 1960 | 1,600,000 | +1.49% |
| 1985 | 2,581,080 | +1.93% |
| 1996 | 2,558,956 | −0.08% |
| 2001 | 2,576,184 | +0.13% |
| 2011 | 2,710,461 | +0.51% |
| 2022 | 2,512,096 | −0.69% |
Note: For the years 1985-2022, the census statistics show the number of Afrikaans-speaking whites.
Recently the mythology of Afrikanerdom in South Africa has re-entered the global stage, following Donald Trump’s misinformed decision to grant Afrikaners asylum in the US.
The call Trump has responded to is based on continued claims from white Afrikaner interest groups that opportunistic crimes in rural farming communities are targeted at white farmers because they are white. This narrative has also expanded into claims that land expropriation policies, which seek to redress land theft under colonialism and apartheid is a race based initiative that targets white farmers.
Afrikaners have been refugees throughout their history; fleeing from their own shame located in a longstanding geo-political mother wound.
Notable White South Africans
- Field Marshal Jan Smuts, soldier, politician and former Prime Minister of South Africa during both World Wars.
- Ernie Els, professional golfer, former World No.
