Capoid race is a grouping formerly used for the Khoikhoi and San peoples in the context of a now-outdated model of dividing humanity into different races. The term was introduced by Carleton S. Coon in 1962 and named for the

Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...

.'' The Origin of Races'' (1962). Moore, Ruth ''Evolution'' (Life Nature Library) New York:1962 Time, Inc. Chapter 8: "The Emergence of Modern ''Homo sapiens''" Page 173--First page of picture section "Man and His Genes": The ''Capoid'' race is identified as one of the five major races of mankind, along with the ''

Mongoloid Mongoloid () is an obsolete racial grouping of various peoples indigenous to large parts of Asia, the Americas, and some regions in Europe and Oceania. The term is derived from a now-disproven theory of biological race. In the past, other terms ...

'', ''

Congoid Negroid (less commonly called Congoid) is an Historical race concepts, obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to Africa south of the area which stretched from the southern Sahara desert in the west to the African Great Lakes in the ...

'', ''

Caucasoid The Caucasian race (also Caucasoid, Europid, or Europoid) is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. The ''Caucasian race'' was historically regarded as a biological taxon which, dependin ...

'', and '' Australoid'' races (pictures of a person typical of each race are shown) Coon proposed that the term "

Negroid Negroid (less commonly called Congoid) is an obsolete racial grouping of various people indigenous to Africa south of the area which stretched from the southern Sahara desert in the west to the African Great Lakes in the southeast, but also to i ...

" should be abandoned, and the sub-Saharan African populations of West African stock (including the Bantu) should be termed "Congoid" instead. The observation of a significant difference between the Khoisan and the populations of West African stock was not original to Coon. It had been noted as early as 1684 by François Bernier, the early modern author who originally introduced the French word ''race'' to refer to the large divisions of mankind. Bernier, outside of five large divisions described in more detail, proposed the possible addition of more categories, primarily for "the Blacks of the Cape of Good Hope" (''les Noirs du Cap de bonne Esperance''), which seemed to him to be of significantly different build from most other populations below the Sahara.Anonymous . Bernierbr>"Nouvelle division de la terre par les différentes espèces ou races qui l'habitent"
''Journal des Sçavants'', 24 April 1684, p. 133–140. '' les Noirs du Cap de bonne Esperance semblent estre d'une autre espece que ceux du reste de l'Afrique. '' (p. 136). See also Charles Frankel, ''La science face au racisme'' (1986)
41f.
/ref>

References

{{Historical definitions of race Historical definitions of race Biological anthropology