Cape Coloureds

The Cape Coloureds are modern-day descendants of slaves imported into South Africa by Dutch settlers. They are largely confined to Western Cape Province. There are approximately 4 million of them. The majority language is Afrikaans. The slaves were sourced from Indonesia, Madagascar, India and Mozambique. They are related to the population of Suriname in South America.

In many cases the slaves were imported to be concubines and wives to single male Dutch settlers. Some mixture with the Dutch settlers has thus occurred, as well as with the indigenous Khoi and San.