Talk:Cape Coloureds/Archive 1

Archive 1

Category

I appreciate that this may be a politically sensitive subject, but the article _does_ need a category. Would there be any serious objection to Ethnic groups in South Africa as a starting point? 78.105.161.182 (talk) 19:36, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

COLOUREDS INCREASING AGAIN

With the end of Apartheid intermarriage between whites, coloureds and blacks in Western and Northern Cape means that on the midterm (as has happened in most of Latin America) the overwhelming majority of the population will be Coloured and Afrikaan speaking while the percentage of whites and blacks will decrease, and also the percentage of English and Xhosa speakers.

Western and Northern Cape will be defined in the future the same way as Quebec from a Nationalist Afrikaans point of view including the increasing majority of people with Afrikaans as mother tongue, also increasigly Coloured.

Why the quotation marks?

What is the reason for all the quotation marks all over the article? They seem to be implying that there is something not quite right about the terms "Cape Coloured" and "Coloured". That is a value judgement and as such fails the NPOV standard. Roger (talk) 12:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Because "Cape Coloured" is not a recognised demographic group in South Africa Coloured should not be in quotation marks because it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.211.94.154 (talk) 05:42, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Cape Coloureds mostly of South african descent

The cape coloureds are mostly of south african descent. Most all th cape coloured listed on this page have british surnames. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph1280 (talk • contribs) 10:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

OK so what is your point? Roger (talk) 12:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm not entirely happy about the text of the lead section, but deleting whole chunks of text is not the solution. I'm not going to start trying to change things until it's settled down, anyway. - htonl (talk) 15:39, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

This article implies that all cape coloureds are descendants of slaves which is not true. The website that is given uses books written by british people who have a pro-british agenda so the ultimate citiation ,which comes from the british written books, cannot be used since it is considered racist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.142.145 (talk) 16:55, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Half british/half black are not cape coloureds

Half british/half black are not cape coloureds and this article's "list of cape coloureds" is mostly half british/half black. Also the 4 million people who identify as cape coloured are actually half british/half black. Their is no way that a few black africans who may have been enslaved by some european ethnic group in cape colony could amount to 4 million people now. Most of the people who call themselves cape coloureds are more than likely descendants of black africans who have been free throughout their hisotry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.142.145 (talk) 16:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Please show exactly where any of the text you keep removing claims that CCs are "half british/half black". You are the only person that is making this absurd claim.

The material you keep removing actually explains in quite a bit of detail the origin of the CCs. They are descended from white colonists (yes some of them were British - but not all), indigenous Khoi and Nguni-speaking people, Slaves from a wide variety of places including west Africa, Madagascar, South Asia, and so on.

It is nowhere near as simplisic as you seem to be insisting. The sources that support the removed text are the result of highly respectected academic historical (and even genetic) research.

Evidence of the Asian component is still visible today in several features of their culture: Many are Muslims, their language ("Kaaps" or Cape Afrikaans) has a significant vocabulary from South Asian languages - much of this vocabulary was also absorbed into standard Afrikaans. Much of their cuisine has clear South Asian origins too. Even though South Asians are not genetically the largest component, their cultural legacy is dominant as many of the "malay" slaves were literate people who held artisan occupations inn the colony - thus they were the "educated elite" and natural leaders of the slave community. Their leadership continued after slavery was abolished and vestiges of it remain evident up to the present.

Until we resolve this matter please refrain from deleting properly sourced material from the article - leave it in so that others can see what the disagreement is about. Roger (talk) 17:07, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict - I agree with Roger's points.)

Your comments are a bit difficult to follow. First you say "Half british/half black are not cape coloureds", and then you say "the 4 million people who identify as cape coloured are actually half british/half black". Are you saying the the people who call themselves "Coloured" actually aren't? Because ethnicity is really about what people call themselves and what group they identify with. And the slaves that we're talking about were not enslaved black Africans; they were from the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), mostly, and it wasn't just "a few" of them.

I really don't understand your problem with SA History Online. You assume, with no evidence that I can see, that it uses "books written by british people" and then you also assume that all such books are racist. These are rather odd assumptions. SAHO describes itself as "a non-partisan people's history project" which "aim[s] to address the biased way in which the history and cultural heritage of South Africans was represented in our educational and cultural institutions." Quite the opposite of what you are alledging.

I agree that the lead section is problematic in that it implies that the predominant ancestry is from Indonesian slaves - something which is probably more true for so-called "Cape Malays" - and downplays the contributions of European, Xhosa and Khoisan ancestry - but trying to completely deny it is also silly. I would like to try to rewrite the lead, but it's rather difficult to do when it's continuously flip-flopping from one version to the other. - htonl (talk) 17:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

This article lists people who are actually half british half african, they have british surnames. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.142.145 (talk) 17:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes I am saying that the people who call themselves cape coloureds actually are not descendants of slaves but black africans who want the benefits of living next to or within some european formed colony. There are black african people who put bleach on their skin to lighten it because they think that if they are lighter skinned that they will gain access to european groups. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.142.145 (talk) 17:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

OK, well this is a bit ridiculous. The "people who call themselves cape coloureds" are descendants of, amongst others, the Khoisan, the Xhosa, white colonists (Dutch as well as British), and slaves from the East Indies. Whatever their ancestry, they have constituted a distinct ethnic group for many generations now, with a culture that is neither that of the "european groups" nor that of black Africans. The surnames tell us nothing; in many cases slaves who did not originally have surnames would have adopted the surnames of their owners, or used as surnames words from English or Dutch, the languages in use at the Cape. - htonl (talk) 17:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The disputed text

This a copy of the disputed section as it was before the edit war began. Please do not modify it in any way. It is here only so that we can refer to it (in whole or in part) as we discuss the issue. Roger (talk) 18:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The term Cape Coloureds refers to the modern-day descendants of slave labourers imported into South Africa by Dutch settlers as well as to other groups of mixed ancestry originating in the present-day Western Cape.. They are the predominant population group found in the Western Cape Province. Their population size is roughly 4 million. Most Cape Coloureds are mother tongue Afrikaans speakers, as a result of their cultural development in the Dutch and Afrikaans-speaking areas of South Africa; but a minority are English speaking. Slaves of Malay ancestry were brought from Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, and Mozambique; and from these diverse origins they gradually developed into a grouping; along with coloured people (African and European origin); that was subsequently classified as a single major ethnical grouping under the Apartheid regime. People from India and the islands within the Indian Ocean region were also taken to the Cape and sold into slavery by the Dutch settlers. The Indian slaves were almost invariably given Christian names but their places of origin were indicated in the records of sales and other documents so that it is possible to get an idea of the ratio of slaves from different regions. These slaves were, however, dispersed and lost their cultural Indian identity in the course of time, hence being labelled Cape Coloureds. Much racial mixture has thus occurred over the generations, between the Europeans, Indians, Malays, various Bantu tribes, along with indigenous Khoi and San.

I don't see any "British" names in this text - in fact there are no names at all! Neither is there any mention of half British/half Black people. Your arguments are completely irrelevant to this deleted text dispute.

That some CCs have names of British origin is not in dispute at all. That the Cape Colony was British ruled for over a century is indisputable thus stands to reason that some slaves would have adopted British names. The same thing happened in the case of African Americans.

Looking at the notable CCs that are listed elsewhere in the article (not the disputed section) I notice a wide variety of name origins. Even a casual look reveals Dutch, French, Arabic, English, Khoisan, Nguni, South Asian, Scandinavian and Scottish names. Roger (talk) 18:46, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

References

Reference material

I'm starting a list of reference material here that can later be used to improve this article --NJR_ZA (talk) 13:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

• The Bantu, past and present an ethnographical & historical study of the native races of South Africa by S.M. Molema 1920

“ A mass meeting of the Cape coloured people (Eur-Africans) was held in the City Hall of Cape Town ”

• Letters from the Cape, Duff Gordon, Lucie, Lady, 1821-1869

“ We stopped at a nice cottage on the hillside belonging to a ci-devant slave, one Christian Rietz, a WHITE man, with brown woolly hair, sharp features, grey eyes, and NOT woolly moustaches. He said he was a 'Scotch bastaard', and 'le bon sang parlait--tres-haut meme', for a more thriving, shrewd, sensible fellow I never saw. His FATHER and master had had to let him go when all slaves were emancipated, and he had come to Gnadenthal. He keeps a little inn in the village, and a shop and a fine garden. The cottage we lodged in was on the mountain side, and had been built for his son, who was dead; and his adopted daughter, a pretty coloured girl, exactly like a southern Frenchwoman, waited on us, assisted by about six or seven other women, who came chiefly to stare. Vrouw Rietz was as black as a coal, but SO pretty!--a dear, soft, sleek, old lady, with beautiful eyes, and the kind pleasant ways which belong to nice blacks; and, though old and fat, still graceful and lovely in face, hands, and arms. ”

• The Colour Problem, Richmond,Anthony H.

“ The existence of the large Cape Coloured population of mixed Negro and European descent is evidence that no such innate aversion exists. ”

• Botha Smuts And South Africa, Basil Williams

“ 500,000 Cape coloured (made up of Bushmen, Hottentots, Malays) ”

• Native Life in South Africa, Plaatje, Sol (Solomon Tshekisho), 1876-1932

“ The language of the Cape coloured or mixed people is the same as that of the Boers, viz., the Cape Dutch. ”

• South African journal of science (1909)

“ The Cape Coloured population in 13 years (Census figures) apparently increased in the same area at the rate of 30,640 per annum : the increase for the last 3 years is apparently nearly 350,000, or almost as much as for the previous 13 5ears, but the explanation of this apparent discrepancy is the annexation of territories containing a very large native population. For the purpose of comparison, it is obvious that the same area only can be considered, continuing the previous 13 years rate of increase of 30.640 per annum the population in 1907 would be 1,640.480 leaving about 257.000 as increase by annexation. That is. provided the Census figures are correct, but in my paper of iqo6 T quoted with great misgivings the figures for the years 1900, 1901 and 1902 from the Cape Statistical Register, showing an average excess of births over deaths (i.e.. an increase of population) among the Coloured population of only 2,250 per annum, and yet the Census figures referred to give 30,640 per annum. The difference is ridiculous, and I may at once state that I am now convinced that the Census of 1891 was hopelessly out in its count of the non-white races, probably by no less than quarter of a million. Equally inaccurate must have been the record of births and deaths for 1900, 1901 and 1902 as the excess is apparently only about 25% of the real figures. In 1907 the Coloured births were 41,110 and the deaths 29,219, the increase being 11,891, which I believe to be the correct figure, more especially as it coincides with the figures for the 34 principal towns in 1904 which I quoted in my i^revious ])aper, viz. : an increase of about ()'8 per thousand. ”

• Republic of South Africa Constituion Act 110 of 1983

“ (ii) "Coloured person" means a person classified as a member of the Cape Coloured, Malay or Griqua group or the group Other Coloureds in terms of the Population Registration Act, 1950; (x) ”

Split the "body text" into logical sections.

The "body text" - everything from the start up to the "Famous Cape Coloureds" - needs to be split up into logical sections such as "History", "Politics", "Demographics", etc. Once that is done it would be much easier to systematically expand this article. I am unfortunately too busy to give it the time it needs right now so I'm apealing for someone to take up this task. Roger (talk) 14:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)