White Africans of European ancestry refers to citizens or residents in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
who can trace full or partial ancestry to
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
. In 1989, there were an estimated 4.6 million white people with European ancestry on the
African continent.
Most are of
Dutch,
Portuguese,
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
,
German and
French origin; to a lesser extent, there are also those who descended from
Belgians
Belgians ( ; ; ) are people identified with the Kingdom of Belgium, a federal state in Western Europe. As Belgium is a multinational state, this connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural rather than ethnic. The majority ...
,
Italians
Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...
,
Spaniards
Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern nation-state of Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern a ...
,
Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
, and
Scandinavians. The majority once lived along the
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
coast or in
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
.
The earliest permanent European communities in Africa during the
Age of Discovery
The Age of Discovery (), also known as the Age of Exploration, was part of the early modern period and overlapped with the Age of Sail. It was a period from approximately the 15th to the 17th century, during which Seamanship, seafarers fro ...
were formed at 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 ...
;
Luanda
Luanda ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Angola, largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Ang ...
, in
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
;
São Tomé Island
São Tomé Island, at , is the largest island of São Tomé and Príncipe and is home in May 2018 to about 193,380 or 96% of the nation's population. The island is divided into six districts of São Tomé and Príncipe, districts. It is located ...
; and
Santiago
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...
,
Cape Verde
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...
[Cybriwsky, Roman Adrian. ''Capital Cities around the World: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture''. ABC-CLIO, LLC 2013. p 54-275.] through the introduction of Portuguese and Dutch traders or military personnel. Other groups of white settlers arrived in newly established French, German, Belgian, and British settlements in Africa over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before regional
decolonisation
Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...
, whites of European ancestry may have numbered up to 6 million persons at their peak and were represented in every part of the continent.
[Volume V: Africa, Australia, and Southern Islands. ''Lands and Peoples: The World in Color''. The Grolier Society of Canada Ltd 1955. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 54-11291. p 19-109.]
An exodus of colonists accompanied independence in most African nations.
[Nakayama, Thomas & Halualani, Rona T (ch: Steyn, Melissa). ''The Handbook of Critical Intercultural Communication''. Blackwell Publishing 2010. . p 27.] Over half the
Portuguese Mozambican
Portuguese Mozambicans () are Mozambican-born descendants of Portuguese settlers.
History
Portuguese explorers turned to present-day Mozambique and two other PALOP nations (Angola and Guinea-Bissau) to bring black slaves to Portugal before br ...
population, which numbered about 200,000 in 1975,
[''Mozambique, the Troubled Transition: From Socialist Construction to Free Market Capitalism''. Zed Books Ltd 1995. . p 27.] departed en masse because of discriminatory economic policies directed against them. In Zimbabwe, recent white exodus was spurred by an aggressive
land reform programme introduced by late President
Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of th ...
in 2000 and the parallel collapse of that country's economy.
In
Burundi
Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...
, the local white population was blatantly expelled via a decree issued by the post-colonial government upon independence.
[Sentman, Edgar Everette (editor). ''World Topics Yearbook 1963''. Tangley Oaks Educational Center 1963. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 56-31513. p 33.]
The African country with the largest population of European descendants both numerically and proportionally is
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, where
white South Africans
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 Afr ...
number 4,504,252 people, making up 7.3% of South Africa's population, according to the
2022 South African census
The South African National Census of 2022 is the 4th comprehensive census performed by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). The census results were released on 10 October 2023 and recorded a total of 62 million people in the country.
Key findi ...
. Smaller European-descended populations exist in
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
,
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
,
Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
,
Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
,
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
,
Senegal
Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
,
Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
,
Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
,
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
and elsewhere. Although white minorities no longer hold exclusive political power, some continue to retain key positions in industry and commercial agriculture in a number of African states.
[Russell, Margo and Martin. ''Afrikaners of the Kalahari: White Minority in a Black State'' (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979). pp. 7–16.]
Overview

During the
Colonisation of Africa
External colonies were first founded in Africa Colonies in antiquity, during antiquity. Ancient Greece, Ancient Greeks and Ancient Rome, Romans established colonies on the African continent in North Africa, similar to how they established settl ...
, European settlement patterns generally favoured territories with a substantial amount of land at least above sea level, an annual rainfall of over but not exceeding , and relative freedom from the
Tsetse fly
Tsetse ( , or ) (sometimes spelled tzetze; also known as tik-tik flies) are large, biting flies that inhabit much of tropical Africa. Tsetse flies include all the species in the genus ''Glossina'', which are placed in their own family, Gloss ...
.
In contrast to
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
and
Central Africa
Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries accordin ...
, the milder, drier climates of
Northern,
Eastern, and
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
thus attracted substantial numbers of permanent European immigrants.
A modest annual rainfall of under 1020 mm was considered especially suitable for the temperate farming activities to which many were accustomed.
[ Therefore, the first parts of Africa to be populated by Europeans were located at the northern and southern extremities of the continent; between these two extremes, disease and the tropical climate precluded most permanent European settlement until the late nineteenth century.] The discovery of valuable resources in Africa's interior and the introduction of quinine
Quinine is a medication used to treat malaria and babesiosis. This includes the treatment of malaria due to ''Plasmodium falciparum'' that is resistant to chloroquine when artesunate is not available. While sometimes used for nocturnal leg ...
as a cure for malaria altered this longstanding trend, and a new wave of European colonists arrived on the continent between 1890 and 1918.[
Most European colonists granted land in African colonies cultivated ]cereal
A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize ( Corn). Edible grains from other plant families, ...
crops or raised cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are calle ...
, which were far more popular among the immigrants rather than managing the tropical plantation
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
s aimed at producing export-oriented crops such as rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds.
Types of polyisoprene ...
and palm oil
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from the mesocarp (reddish pulp) of the fruit of oil palms. The oil is used in food manufacturing, in beauty products, and as biofuel. Palm oil accounted for about 36% of global oils produced from o ...
.[ A direct consequence of this preference was that the territories with a rainfall exceeding 1020 mm developed strong plantation-based economies but produced almost no food beyond what was cultivated by small-scale indigenous producers; drier territories with large white farming communities became more self-sufficient in food production.][ The latter often resulted in sharp friction between European colonists and black African tribes as they competed for land. By 1960, at least seven ]British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
, French, and Belgian colonies—in addition to the Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
—had passed legislation reserving a fixed percentage of land for white ownership.[ This allowed colonists to legitimise their land seizures and began a process that had the ultimate consequence of commodifying land in colonial Africa.] Land distribution thus emerged as an extremely contentious issue in those territories with large numbers of permanent European colonists. During the 1950s, black Africans owned about 13.7% of the land in South Africa and a little under 33% of the land in Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...
.[ An inevitable trend of this factor, exacerbated by high rates of population growth, was that large numbers of black farmers as well as their livestock began to be concentrated in increasingly overcrowded areas.][
Before 1914, colonial governments encouraged European settlement on a grand scale, based on the assumption that this was a prerequisite to long-term development and economic growth.] The concept lost popularity when it became clear that multinational corporations financed by overseas capital, coupled with cheap African labour, were far more productive and efficient at building export-oriented economies for the benefit of the metropolitan powers.[ During the ]Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, locally owned, small-scale businesses managed by individual whites suffered immense losses attempting to compete with large commercial enterprises and the lower costs of black labour (South Africa being the sole exception to the rule, as its white businesses and labour were heavily subsidised by the state).[
Unlike other former colonies such as those in the ]Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...
and Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, Europeans and their descendants on the African continent never outnumbered the indigenous people; nevertheless, they found ways to consolidate power and exert a disproportionate influence on the administrative policies of their respective metropolitan countries.[ Some lost their sense of identification with Europe and created their own nationalist movements, namely in South Africa and ]Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
(now known as Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
).[ Permanent white residents were regarded as an increasing liability by colonial administrations as they sought to dominate their adopted African homelands.][ They were also likely to involve the government in conflict with Africans, which required expensive military campaigns and inextricably damaged relations between the latter and the metropolitan powers.][ This was a common trend throughout African colonies from the late eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. In the ]Dutch Cape Colony
The Cape of Good Hope () was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) supplystation in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original supply station and the successive states that the area was ...
for instance, governor Joachim van Plettenberg demarcated the territory's boundaries around 1778 with approval from the Xhosa chiefdoms; the following year Dutch colonists violated the border and attacked the Xhosa, sparking the bloody Xhosa Wars
The Xhosa Wars (also known as the Cape Frontier Wars or the Kaffir Wars) were a series of nine wars (from 1779 to 1879) between the Xhosa Kingdom and the British Empire as well as Trekboers from the Dutch colonial empire in what is now the ...
. Disputes between German colonists and the Matumbi and Ngoni peoples contributed significantly to the Maji Maji Rebellion
The Maji Maji Rebellion (, ) was an armed rebellion of Africans against German colonial rule in German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania). The war was triggered by German colonial policies designed to force the indigenous population to grow cott ...
of 1905–07. During the same period, Colonial Kenya's European residents were largely responsible for provoking a revolt
Rebellion is an uprising that resists and is organized against one's government. A rebel is a person who engages in a rebellion. A rebel group is a consciously coordinated group that seeks to gain political control over an entire state or a ...
by the Masai.[
]
White settlers wielded enormous influence over many colonial administrations; for example, they often occupied influential positions on elected legislatures and held most of the senior administrative posts in the civil service.[ Due to the relative poverty of most black Africans, whites of European ancestry also controlled the capital for development and dominated the import and export trade as well as commercial agriculture.][ They often represented a disproportionate percentage of the skilled workforce due to much higher educational attainment. This was heightened by the discriminatory practices of the colonial authorities, which devoted more public funding to their education and technical training.][ For example, in Tanganyika, the colonial authorities were estimated to have allocated up to twenty-six times more funding per year for white schools than black schools.][ In most of colonial Africa, local whites sought employment with foreign companies, often in technical or managerial positions, or with the public service.] The exception were those colonies with large white farming populations, such as Kenya and Southern Rhodesia.[ The white residents there were likelier to form their own business communities and invest heavily in the economies of their adopted homelands.][
The advent of global ]decolonisation
Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...
ushered in a radical change of perspectives towards European settlement in Africa. Metropolitan governments began to place more emphasis on their relations with the indigenous peoples rather than the progressively independent colonist populations.[ In direct opposition to the growing tide of African nationalism, whites of European descent in colonies such as ]Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
began to forge new nationalist identities of their own. Attitudes towards rapid decolonisation among individual white African communities were hardened by fears of irresponsible or incompetent postcolonial governments, coupled to a parallel decline in public infrastructure, service delivery, and consequently, their own standards of living.[
On some occasions the granting of independence to African states under majority rule was influenced by the desire to preempt unilateral declarations of independence or secession attempts by white nationalists.] Nevertheless, Rhodesia's white minority did succeed in issuing its own declaration of independence
A declaration of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another state or failed state, or are breaka ...
in 1965 and later retain power up until 1979. Less successful was an attempted by white Mozambicans in 1974, which was forcibly crushed by Portuguese troops. White rule in South Africa ended with the country's first non-racial elections in 1994.
A ''white flight
The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...
'' phenomenon accompanied regional decolonisation and to a lesser extent, the termination of white minority rule in Rhodesia and South Africa. A considerable reverse exodus of former colonials returning to Western Europe occurred; because they had controlled key sectors of many African economies prior to independence, their abrupt departure often resulted in devastating economic repercussions for the emerging states. Consequently, some African governments have made a concerted attempt to retain sizable white communities in the interests of preserving their capital and much-needed technical skills.
A few colonies had no permanent white populations at all, and in such cases the European powers preferred to construct forts and trading posts rather than large settlements accordingly.[ Transient administrators and soldiers were posted there initially as deterrents to rival governments attempting to effectuate treaties concerning land and other resources with local African populations.][ Their numbers were sometimes bolstered by civilian expatriates employed as missionaries, public servants, or employees of large transnational companies with headquarters located aside the African continent.][ Few of these expatriates came to immigrate permanently, and typically worked in the colonies for a short period before returning to Europe.][ This made them less embedded in the economy and social structure, less interested in influencing local politics, and less likely to form cohesive communities than the colonist populations elsewhere.][
]
Demographics
Historical population
*European percentage peaks from total population during the colonial era:
**South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
: 21%[
**]French Algeria
French Algeria ( until 1839, then afterwards; unofficially ; ), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of History of Algeria, Algerian history when the country was a colony and later an integral part of France. French rule lasted until ...
: 16%[
** South-West Africa (current ]Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
): 14%[
**]Italian Libya
Libya (; ) was a colony of Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica, Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitan ...
: 13%[
** Tunisia Protectorate: 10%][
**]Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...
(current Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
): 8%[
** Spanish Morocco: 5–10%][
**]Portuguese Angola
In southwestern Africa, Portuguese Angola was a historical Evolution of the Portuguese Empire, colony of the Portuguese Empire (1575–1951), the overseas province Portuguese West Africa of Estado Novo (Portugal), Estado Novo Portugal (1951–1 ...
: 6.6%[
**]French Morocco
The French protectorate in Morocco, also known as French Morocco, was the period of French colonial rule in Morocco that lasted from 1912 to 1956. The protectorate was officially established 30 March 1912, when Sultan Abd al-Hafid signed the ...
: 1–5%[
** Swaziland Protectorate: 1–5%][
**]Spanish Sahara
Spanish Sahara (; ), officially the Spanish Possessions in the Sahara from 1884 to 1958, then Province of the Sahara between 1958 and 1976, was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was occupied and ruled by Spain bet ...
(current Western Sahara
Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...
): 1–5%[
**]Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in Southern Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by Amalgamation (politics), amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia and North ...
(current Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
): 2%[1964: President Kaunda takes power in Zambia](_blank)
BBC 'On This Day'.
**Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
: 1%
**Rest of Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
: <1%
In most of colonial Africa, Europeans accounted for under 1% of the population,[ except for the colonies in Northern and Southern Africa, which had the highest proportion of European colonists.][
]
Current population
It is impossible to verify the number of white Africans of European ancestry, as a number of African nations do not publish census data on race or ethnic origin. In 1989, the Encyclopædia Britannica
The is a general knowledge, general-knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It has been published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. since 1768, although the company has changed ownership seven times. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, ...
editorial team estimated the size of Africa's total white population of European descent at 4.6 million, with the vast majority residing in coastal regions of North Africa or in the Republic of South Africa.[
The white population of ]Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
was much higher in the 1960s and 1970s (when the country was known as Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
); about 296,000 in 1975. This peak of around 8% of the population in 1975 dropped to possibly 120,000 in 1999, and had fallen to under 50,000 people by 2002.[Quarterly Digest Of Statistics, Zimbabwe Printing and Stationery Office, 1999.]
Afrikaners
South Africa
In the late sixteenth century, the Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...
(known more formally as the ''Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie'', or VOC) began routinely searching for sites on the African continent where its trading fleets could obtain fresh water and other supplies while en route to the Orient. Dutch ships began calling at 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 ...
as early as 1595, since the shoreline was not treacherous and fresh water could be easily obtained by landing parties without venturing too far inland. In 1651, the company built a storage facility and watering station, which included a vegetable garden to resupply its passing ships, at the Cape. Under the direction of Jan van Riebeeck
Johan Anthoniszoon "Jan" van Riebeeck (21 April 1619 – 18 January 1677) was a Dutch navigator, ambassador and colonial administrator of the Dutch East India Company.
Life
Early life
Jan van Riebeeck was born in Culemborg on 21 April ...
, a small Dutch party also constructed a fort known as the Castle of Good Hope. Van Riebeeck obtained permission to bring Dutch immigrants to the Cape, and resettle former company employees there as farmers. The colonists were known as ''"vrijlieden"'', also denoted as (free citizens), to differentiate them from bonded VOC employees still serving on contracts. Since the primary purpose of the Cape colony at the time was to stock provisions for passing Dutch ships, the VOC offered grants of farmland to the on the condition they would cultivate crops for company warehouses. The were granted tax-exempt status for twelve years and loaned all the necessary seeds and farming implements they requested.
The VOC initially had strict requirements which the prospective had to fulfill: they were to be married Dutch citizens, of good character, and had to undertake to spend twenty years at the Cape.[ During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, however, many foreigners were amongst those who boarded ships in the Netherlands to settle in the Dutch sphere.] As a result, by 1691 a third of the vrijburger population of the fledgling colony was not ethnically Dutch. The heterogeneous European community included large numbers of German military recruits in the service of the VOC, as well as French Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
refugees driven into overseas exile by the Edict of Fontainebleau
The Edict of Fontainebleau (18 October 1685, published 22 October 1685) was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to prac ...
. As the size of the vrijburger population expanded, the colonists began expanding deeper into the interior of Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
; by 1800 the size of the fledgling Dutch Cape Colony
The Cape of Good Hope () was a Dutch United East India Company (VOC) supplystation in Southern Africa, centered on the Cape of Good Hope, from where it derived its name. The original supply station and the successive states that the area was ...
was about 170,000 square kilometers; about six times the area of the Netherlands.
The vast size of the colony made it almost impossible for the VOC to control the population, and the colonists became increasingly independent. Attempts by the company administration to reassert its authority and regulate the vrijburgers' activities was met with resistance. Successive generations of colonists born in the colony became localised in their loyalties and national identity and regarded the colonial government with a mixture of apathy and suspicion.[ In the early 1700s, this emerging class of people began identifying as '']Afrikaner
Afrikaners () are a Southern African ethnic group descended from predominantly Dutch settlers who first arrived at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652.Entry: Cape Colony. ''Encyclopædia Britannica Volume 4 Part 2: Brain to Casting''. Encyclopæd ...
s'', rather than Dutch subjects, after their adopted homeland. Afrikaners who settled directly on the colony's frontiers were also known collectively as ''Boer
Boers ( ; ; ) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch ...
s'', to describe their agricultural way of life.
In 1769, the northward migration of Boers was met by a southward migration of Xhosa, a Bantu people which laid claim to the Cape region north of the Great Fish River
The Great Fish River (called ''great'' to distinguish it from the Namibian Fish River) () is a river running through the South African province of the Eastern Cape. The coastal area between Port Elizabeth and the Fish River mouth is known as ...
. This triggered a series of bloody frontier conflicts which raged until 1879, known as the Xhosa Wars
The Xhosa Wars (also known as the Cape Frontier Wars or the Kaffir Wars) were a series of nine wars (from 1779 to 1879) between the Xhosa Kingdom and the British Empire as well as Trekboers from the Dutch colonial empire in what is now the ...
. Both the Boers and Xhosa organised raiding parties that frequently crossed the river and stole livestock from the other group. Meanwhile, the VOC had been forced to declare bankruptcy and the Dutch government assumed direct responsibility for the Cape in 1794. After Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
's occupation of the Netherlands during the Flanders Campaign, Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
captured the Cape Colony to prevent France from laying claim to its strategic harbour. Although the Dutch authorities were permitted to administer the Cape again for a brief interlude between 1803 and 1806, the British launched another invasion of the colony as a result of political developments in Europe and became permanent.[ Relations between the new colonial leadership and the Boers soon began to deteriorate when the British refused to subsidise the Cape Colony, insisting that it pay for itself by levying larger taxes on the white population.] In addition to raising taxes, the British administration abolished the burgher senate, the only Dutch-era form of government at the Cape. It also took measures to bring the Boer population under control by establishing new courts and judiciaries along the frontier.
Boer resentment of the British peaked in 1834, when the Slavery Abolition Act 1833
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ( 3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 73) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which abolished slavery in the British Empire by way of compensated emancipation. The act was legislated by Whig Prime Minister Charl ...
was passed, outlawing slavery throughout the British Empire. All 35,000 enslaved people registered with the Cape governor were to be freed and given rights on par with other citizens, although in most cases the slavers could retain them as paid apprentices until 1838. Many Boers, especially those involved in grain and wine production, had enslaved people at the time, and the number of people they had enslaved correlated greatly to their production output.[ The British government offered preexisting slavers compensation for the freeing of enslaved people, but payment had to be claimed in person in ]London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
, and few Boers possessed the funds to travel there. The abolition of slavery, along with Boer grievances over taxation and the perceived Anglicisation of the Cape judiciary, triggered the Great Trek
The Great Trek (, ) was a northward migration of Dutch-speaking settlers who travelled by wagon trains from the Cape Colony into the interior of modern South Africa from 1836 onwards, seeking to live beyond the Cape's British colonial adminis ...
: an eastward migration of 15,000 Boers determined to escape British rule by homesteading beyond the Cape Colony's frontiers. The Great Trek brought the migrating Boers, known as ''voortrekkers'', into direct conflict with the Zulu Empire, upon which they inflicted a decisive defeat at the Battle of Blood River
The Battle of Blood River or Voortrekker-Zulu War (16 December 1838) was fought on the bank of the Blood River, Ncome River, in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa between 464 Voortrekkers ("Pioneers"), led by Andries Pretorius, and an es ...
in February 1838. The voortrekkers eventually established several independent Boer republics deep in the southern African interior, the most prominent of which were the Natalia Republic
The Natalia Republic was a short-lived Boer republic founded in 1839 after a Voortrekker victory against the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. The area was previously named ''Natália'' by Portuguese sailors, due to its discovery on Christm ...
, the Orange Free State
The Orange Free State ( ; ) was an independent Boer-ruled sovereign republic under British suzerainty in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, which ceased to exist after it was defeated and surrendered to the British Em ...
, and the South African Republic
The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...
(also known simply as the ''Transvaal'').
British expansion of the Cape Colony into South Africa's interior followed the Boer migration within the subsequent decades; in 1843 Britain annexed the Natalia Republic
The Natalia Republic was a short-lived Boer republic founded in 1839 after a Voortrekker victory against the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. The area was previously named ''Natália'' by Portuguese sailors, due to its discovery on Christm ...
, and in 1877 it annexed the Transvaal.[ The Transvaal Boers subsequently went to war with the British in 1880, which became known as the ]First Boer War
The First Boer War (, ), was fought from 16 December 1880 until 23 March 1881 between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and Boers of the Transvaal (as the South African Republic was known while under British ad ...
.[ The war was resolved with the Pretoria Convention, by which Great Britain restored independence to the Transvaal and withdrew from the territory.][ However, relations between the Boer republics and the British administration at the Cape remained poor, with the latter concerned that Boer independence was a lingering threat to the Cape's strategic security.][ In 1899, the ]Second Boer War
The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...
broke out when the British rejected an ultimatum by the Transvaal to remove its military presence from the latter's borders. The first stages of the war consisted of several unsuccessful Boer sieges of British colonies, followed by a British push into the two Boer republics. The last stage of the war consisted of Boer guerrillas
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...
, termed "bitter-enders", who refused to lay down their arms and took several years to defeat. In early 1902, the Boers finally surrendered under the terms of the Treaty of Vereeniging
The Treaty of Vereeniging was a peace treaty, signed on 31 May 1902, that ended the Second Boer War between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State on the one side, and the United Kingdom on the other.
This settlement provided ...
, which annexed the Transvaal and Orange Free State into the Cape (forming the Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
) in exchange for allowing the former Boer republics some form of political autonomy and granting financial assistance to aid in postwar reconstruction.
The postwar years saw the dramatic rise of Afrikaner nationalism
Afrikaner nationalism () is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnic nationalistic political ideology created by Afrikaners residing in Southern Africa during the Victorian era. The ideology was developed in response to the significant events in Afrikaner ...
, as many of the former Boer military leaders turned to politics and came to dominate the legislatures of the Transvaal and Orange Free State. An Afrikaner party was also elected for the first time in the Cape Colony in 1908. Afrikaner politicians heavily promoted the use of Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, a language derived from the Middle Dutch dialect spoken by the colonial vrijburger population, as a fundamental part of Afrikaner identity and national consciousness. In 1908 and 1909, a constitutional convention was held for the establishment of a self-governing dominion
A dominion was any of several largely self-governance, self-governing countries of the British Empire, once known collectively as the ''British Commonwealth of Nations''. Progressing from colonies, their degrees of self-governing colony, colon ...
which incorporated the old Boer republics into a unitary state with the Cape Colony and the Natal. This emerged as the Union of South Africa
The Union of South Africa (; , ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day South Africa, Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the British Cape Colony, Cape, Colony of Natal, Natal, Tra ...
in 1910. Due to the fact that the electorate was limited predominantly to white South Africans, Afrikaners–which composed over half the white population at the time–quickly achieved political ascendancy. Afrikaners occupied the top political positions in South African government from 1910 until 1994, when the country held its first multiracial elections under a universal franchise. Prior to 1994, the Afrikaner ruling party with the longest tenure in South Africa was the National Party, which was noted for introducing a strict system of racial segregation known as apartheid
Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...
in 1948, and declaring the country a republic in 1961.
The size of the Afrikaner population in South Africa was estimated at 2.5 million people in 1985. According to the country's 2011 census, there were about 2.7 million white South Africans who spoke Afrikaans as a first language, or slightly over 5% of the total population.
Namibia
In the mid to late 19th century and beforehand, South African trekboers found their way into Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
(then South-West Africa) and established colonies. A significant number even penetrated as far north as Angola during the Dorsland Trek.
The South-West became a German colony during the late 19th century, and with the onset of the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
a number of local Boers volunteered to serve with the imperial authorities against invading Allied troops. After that conflict left the territory under South African occupation, thousands of fresh Afrikaner migrants poured into the region to occupy available plots of prime stock-farming land and exploit untapped resources. Their government further encouraged new colonists by offering easy loans, necessary infrastructure, and more expropriated land to white newcomers. This policy was generally considered a success, as South-West Africa's white population more than doubled between 1913 and 1936.
Current estimates for the Afrikaner population in Namibia range from 60,000 to 120,000; they continue to make up the majority of the country's white citizens. 45% of the best ranging and agricultural land is presently owned by Namibians of European background, mostly Afrikaner ranchers.
Botswana
As early as 1815, individual Afrikaners had begun to arrive in what is today modern Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
, mainly traders and ivory hunters from the Cape of Good Hope. By the mid nineteenth century, some of these itinerant Afrikaners had settled in Molepolole.[ In 1852, the Transvaal Boers organised a failed expedition against the Northern Tswana people which included several relatively large engagements such as the Battle of Dimawe.][ As a result of this raid, the Tswana launched a series of retaliatory raids into the northern Transvaal which forced the Boers to evacuate ]Swartruggens
Swartruggens is a small farming town in North West Province, South Africa that was established in 1875.
Location
The town is located by the Elands River, 69 km east of the town of Zeerust, 56 km west of the city of Rustenburg
Ru ...
.[ In 1853, Transvaal President ]Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (; 10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger, was a South African politician. He was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and State Preside ...
signed an armistice with Tswana chief Sechele I
Sechele I a Motswasele "Rra Mokonopi" (1812–1892), also known as Setshele, was the ruler of the Kwêna people of Botswana. He was converted to Christianity by David Livingstone and in his role as ruler served as a missionary among his own ...
, ending the state of war and checking further Boer expansion into Botswana for decades.[
]
A notable voortrekker community was established inadvertently near Ghanzi in 1877.[ Ghanzi was settled by migrating Boers from the Dorsland Trek who had lost their wagons and supplies in the central Kalahari, and were forced to seek sanctuary near the water source there.]
After the establishment of the Bechuanaland Protectorate
The Bechuanaland Protectorate () was a British protectorate, protectorate established on 31 March 1885 in Southern Africa by the United Kingdom. It became the Botswana, Republic of Botswana on 30 September 1966.
History
Scottish missionary ...
in the 1880s, the British colonial authorities and the British South Africa Company
The British South Africa Company (BSAC or BSACo) was chartered in 1889 following the amalgamation of Cecil Rhodes' Central Search Association and the London-based Exploring Company Ltd, which had originally competed to capitalize on the expecte ...
(BSAC) designated several parts of the region as freehold farming areas, open to white farmers of any nationality.[ This induced hundreds of Boer migrants to resettle there.][
In 1894 the BSAC made a concentrated attempt to recruit Boers from the Transvaal and Orange Free State to settle the area around Lake Ngami.] This was an attempt to control the large numbers of wandering trekboers
The Trekboers ( ) were nomadic pastoralists descended from mostly Dutch colonists on the frontiers of the Dutch Cape Colony in Southern Africa. The Trekboers began migrating into the interior from the areas surrounding what is now Cape Town, ...
in both regions by diverting them into territory already under British control rather than risk them establishing new Boer republics further abroad. The British also hoped that a large Boer population along the frontiers of Bechuaneland would serve as a potential buffer to German colonial expansionism from the west. From 1898 until the early 1900s, a small but steady stream of Boers began trekking towards Lake Ngami from South Africa, with the vast majority concentrating around the previously established Afrikaans-speaking community at Ghanzi. In 1928, the size of Ghanzi's population was bolstered by the arrival of a number of Boer exiles from Angola, who had departed that territory due to disputes with the Portuguese colonial government there. Most of the Boers were engaged in cattle ranching, using the vast, unpopulated lands around Ghanzi as a massive range to drive their herds. For a number of years, one of Botswana's most prominent white politicians was Christian de Graaff, who represented Ghanzi's southern district in the National Assembly
In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...
.[
Aside from those engaged in ranching and farming, a small number of recent Afrikaner migrants have moved to Botswana in the postcolonial era to manage small businesses.][
As a group, Afrikaners formed 1.2% of Botswana's total population in 2009.]
Zimbabwe
While Afrikaners were always a small minority in Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
's population, some did arrive with the early pioneer columns and permanently settled, especially in the Enkeldoorn farming areas. After 1907, an increasing number of dispossessed Boers arrived in what was then the British territory of Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...
, seeking better economic opportunities. They soon found themselves discriminated against by the other Europeans, who expressed alarm at an "invasion" of "poor Dutch" and what they described as the "human wreckage of the Union". This aversion was condemned by elements in the South African press, which charged that "the settlement of Afrikaners in Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
is being emphatically worked against".
During World War I, the Maritz Rebellion in South Africa caused consternation among Rhodesian authorities, prompting them to conclude that their colony's Afrikaner inhabitants could not be relied upon against the German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
. In the following decades a sharp cleavage continued to divide Afrikaners from their English-speaking countrymen, reflecting entrenched divisions in class and culture. The former generally earned lower incomes, and never advanced far in capital, education, and influence. They were also considered to be Rhodesia's single most conservative white community, almost unanimously opposing a multiracial school system and any concessions to black Africans regarding land apportionment.
With the ensuing Rhodesian Bush War
The Rhodesian Bush War, also known as the Rhodesian Civil War, Second as well as the Zimbabwe War of Independence, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the List of states with limited recognition, unrecognised country U.D.I. ...
and Zimbabwean independence under Prime Minister Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (; ; 21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987 and then as President from 1987 to 2017. He served as Leader of th ...
by 1980, over one-fifth of white Rhodesians, including most resident Afrikaners, emigrated from the country.
Kenya
During and following the Boer Wars some Afrikaners chose to leave South Africa. The first 700 Afrikaner colonists that migrated to British East Africa
East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes, occupying roughly the same area as present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Cont ...
were supporters of the British during the various conflicts. This first wave settled in the fertile Rift Valley
A rift valley is a linear shaped lowland between several highlands or mountain ranges produced by the action of a geologic rift. Rifts are formed as a result of the pulling apart of the lithosphere due to extensional tectonics. The linear ...
. The community founded the colony of Eldoret
Eldoret is a city in the Rift Valley region of Kenya. It serves as the capital of Uasin Gishu County. Located in western Kenya and lying south of the Cherangani Hills, the local elevation varies from about at the Eldoret International Air ...
in 1903 and played an important part in establishing agriculture in the region. An additional 100 Afrikaners arrived in 1911. At the height of British rule in the colony, the population composed of several thousand Afrikaners farming around Eldoret. The Mau Mau Rebellion sparked great panic among the white community in the country and much of the Afrikaner community left the country and mostly returned to South Africa. However some continued to farm in the region long after independence, and were very successful in doing so.
Angola
There were originally around 2,000 Afrikaners in Angola, descendants of those who had survived Namibia's unforgiving Dorsland Trek. For fifty years they formed a distinct enclave in the underdeveloped Portuguese territory, joined by new Afrikaner migrants in 1893 and 1905. By 1928, however, the South African authorities arranged to have 300 such households repatriated to Outjo, where they settled comfortably into farming. The few Afrikaners who remained fled their homes during Angola's subsequent colonial and civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
s.
Tanzania and elsewhere
In the early 20th century a number of Afrikaners trekked into German Tanganyika, where they were parceled land by colonial authorities then attempting to boost agricultural production. After Tanganyika became a British trust territory on Germany's defeat during World War I, London reaffirmed such grants as they existed. Few Afrikaners stayed beyond the eve of Tanzania
Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
n independence in 1961.
With the retreat of European colonialism, Afrikaner communities outside South Africa and its immediate neighbours generally diminished in size and a significant number of colonists returned to their countries of origin during the decades which followed the Second World War.
British diaspora in Africa
South Africa and the Cape Colony
Although there were small British colonies along the West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
n coast from the 18th century onwards, mostly consisting of trading posts and castles, British colonisation of Africa began in earnest only at the end of the 18th century, in 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 ...
. It gained momentum following British annexation of the Cape from the Dutch East India Company, and the subsequent encouragement of migrating colonists in the Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape ( ; ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also kno ...
in an effort to consolidate the colony's eastern border.
In the late 19th century, the discovery of gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
and diamond
Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...
s further encouraged colonisation of South Africa by the British. The search for gold drove expansion north into the Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
s (now Zimbabwe, Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
, and Malawi
Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...
). Simultaneously, British colonists began expansion into the fertile uplands (often called the "White Highlands
The White Highlands is an area in the central uplands of Kenya. It was traditionally the homeland of indigenous Central Kenyan communities up to the colonial period, when it became the centre of European settlement in colonial Kenya, and between ...
") of British East Africa
East Africa Protectorate (also known as British East Africa) was a British protectorate in the African Great Lakes, occupying roughly the same area as present-day Kenya, from the Indian Ocean inland to the border with Uganda in the west. Cont ...
(in Kenya). Most of these colonies were not planned by the British government, with many colonial officials concluding they upset the balance of power in the region and left the long-established British interests vulnerable.
Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...
utilized his wealth and connections towards organizing this ad hoc movement and colonisation into a unified British policy. This policy had as its general aim the securing of a Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
to Cape Town railway system, and colonising the upper highlands of East Africa
East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...
and the whole of Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
south of the Zambezi with British colonies in a manner akin to that of North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
and Australasia
Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...
.
However, prioritization of British power around the globe in the years before World War I, initially reduced the resources appropriated toward colonisation. World War I and the Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
and the general decline of British and European birthrates further hobbled the expected colonist numbers. Nonetheless, thousands of colonists arrived each year during the decades preceding World War II, mostly in South Africa, where the birthrates of British Africans increased suddenly. Despite a general change in British policy against supporting the establishment of European colonies in Africa, and a slow abandonment in the overall British ruling and common classes for a separate European identity, large colonial appendages of European separatist
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seekin ...
supporters of continued colonial rule were well entrenched in South Africa, Rhodesia, and Kenya.
In keeping with the general trend toward non-European rule evident throughout most of the globe during the Cold War
The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
and the abandonment of colonial possessions in the face of American and Soviet pressure, the vestigial remnants of Cecil Rhodes
Cecil John Rhodes ( ; 5 July 185326 March 1902) was an English-South African mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. He and his British South Africa Company founded th ...
' vision was abruptly ended, leaving British colonists in an exposed, isolated, and weak position. Black Nationalist guerrilla forces aided by Soviet expertise and weapons soon drove the colonists into a fortress mentality which led to the break-off of ties with perceived collaborationist governments in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...
.
The result was a series of conflicts which eventually led to a reduced presence of White Africans due to emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...
and natural death.
Since 1994
Hundreds of thousands of British-South Africans left the nation to start new lives abroad, settling in the United Kingdom, Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, New Zealand
New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
, United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, and the Netherlands. In spite of the high emigration rates, a large number of white foreign immigrants from countries such as United Kingdom and Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
have settled in the country. For example, by 2005, an estimated 212,000 British citizens were residing in South Africa. By 2011, this number may have grown to 500,000. Since 2003, the numbers of British immigrants coming to South Africa has risen by 50%. An estimated 20,000 British immigrants moved to South Africa in 2007. South Africa is ranked as the top destination of British retirees and pensioners in Africa.
There was also a significant number of arrivals of white Zimbabweans
White Zimbabweans (formerly White Rhodesians) are a Southern African people of Europeans, European descent. In Natural language, linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, these people of European ethnic groups, European ethnic origin are mos ...
of British ancestry, fleeing their home country in light of the economic, political problems which faced the country and persecution at the hands of the ZANU government. As well as recent arrivals, a significant number of white Zimbabweans of British descent emigrated to South Africa after the independence of Zimbabwe in 1980. The greatest white British populations in South Africa are in the KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...
province and in cities such as Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
and Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
.
By province
Zambia
At the brink of the country's independence in 1964, there were roughly 70,000 Europeans (mostly British) in Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
(Northern Rhodesia
Northern Rhodesia was a British protectorate in Southern Africa, now the independent country of Zambia. It was formed in 1911 by Amalgamation (politics), amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia and North ...
before independence), making up roughly 2.3% of the 3 million inhabitants at the time. Zambia had a different situation compared to other African countries. It included segregation, similar to South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
(Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
) and South-West Africa (Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
); but as the Europeans constituted a smaller fraction of the population they did not dominate politics. There were a few cities in Northern Rhodesia that had British place names, but all except one ( Livingstone) were changed when the country became independent or soon after. These included:
*Abercorn → Mbala (1964)
*Bancroft → Chililabombwe
*Broken Hill → Kabwe
Kabwe is the capital of the Zambian Central Province and the Kabwe District, with a population estimated at 288,598 at the 2022 census. Named Broken Hill until 1966, it was founded when lead and zinc deposits were discovered in 1902. Kabwe also ...
(1966)
*Feira → Luangwa (1964)
*Fort Jameson → Chipata
*Fort Rosebery → Mansa
Vice President Guy Scott served as acting president of Zambia after the death of Michael Sata
Michael Charles Chilufya Sata (6 July 1937 – 28 October 2014) was a Zambian politician who served as the fifth president of Zambia from 2011 until Death and state funeral of Michael Sata, his death in 2014. A social democrat, he led the Patrio ...
, the first (and so far only) white head of state of an African country since FW de Klerk in 1994, and the first outside South Africa since Henry Everard in 1979.[Guy Scott's rise to Zambia's presidency](_blank)
''BBC News Africa'', 29 October 2014.
Livingstone
A good example of segregation in Zambia before independence was in the city of Livingstone, on the border with Zimbabwe. This featured a white town, with black townships, which were also found in South Africa and Namibia. In Zambia, however, Livingstone was one of the few places in the country that used this system and was close to the Rhodesian border. British influence was reflected in town and city names. Livingstone (which is currently the only town left with a British name) was nearly changed to ''Maramba'', but the decision was later dismissed. When Zambia became independent in 1964, the majority of white colonists left for Rhodesia, just by crossing the border. An almost identical town of Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls (Lozi language, Lozi: ''Mosi-oa-Tunya'', "Thundering Smoke/Smoke that Rises"; Tonga language (Zambia and Zimbabwe), Tonga: ''Shungu Namutitima'', "Boiling Water") is a waterfall on the Zambezi River, located on the border betwe ...
lies on the other side.
Kenya
There were 60,000 mostly Anglophone white people
White is a Race (human categorization), racial classification of people generally used for those of predominantly Ethnic groups in Europe, European ancestry. It is also a Human skin color, skin color specifier, although the definition can var ...
living in Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
in 1965. However, encouraged by the fear brought by the Mau Mau Uprising
The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the ...
, nearly half of Kenya's European population emigrated out of the country after Kenya's independence from colonial rule. Today, they are estimated to be around 30,000. Well known white people born in Kenya include road racing cyclist Chris Froome, biologist Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...
, singer Roger Whittaker
Roger Henry Brough Whittaker (22 March 1936 – 13 September 2023) was a Kenyan-born British singer-songwriter and musician. His music is an eclectic mixture of folk music and popular songs, the latter variously in a crooning or in a schlager ...
, and evolution
Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...
ary scientist Richard Leakey
Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (19 December 1944 – 2 January 2022) was a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician. Leakey held a number of official positions in Kenya, mostly in institutions of archaeology and wildlife cons ...
.
Zimbabwe
In contrast to the rest of Central Africa, Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
(formerly Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
) was once intended to become a "white man's country" – to be settled and ruled by European colonists who would remain there permanently. Until Zimbabwean independence in 1980, White Rhodesians prevailed over the nation politically, socially, and economically. They numbered some 240,000 by late-1979. Most were fairly recent immigrants, particularly blue collar workers attracted by the promise Rhodesia's economic opportunities offered. Throughout the 1960s they were joined by White South Africans and white colonists fleeing independent colonies elsewhere.
The white population in Zimbabwe dropped from a peak of around 300,000 in 1975 to 170,000 in 1982 and was estimated at no more than 50,000 in 2002, possibly much lower.
Angola
When Angola won independence from Portugal in 1975, most British people in Angola resettled in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Namibia (South-West Africa), Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Portugal or Brazil. Meanwhile, most from Mozambique left for either Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), South Africa or the UK. However, even before 1975, the number of British people in Angola and Mozambique was small, especially compared to the inhabiting Portuguese population.
Mozambique
When Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975, most British people left for either Rhodesia or South Africa, while others resettled in Portugal and Brazil. However, just like Angola, the British population in Mozambique is/was tiny compared to both their share of the nation's population and in comparison to the Portuguese.
Elsewhere
Sizable numbers of people of British descent are also nationals of Ghana, Namibia, Tanzania, Swaziland (3% of the population), Nigeria, and Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
. In addition, nearly 10,000 white Ugandans of British extraction were living under the regime of Idi Amin as recorded by ''Time'' Magazine in 1972. Due to the subsequent deterioration of conditions under Amin (Including the constant threat of forced expulsion), most of the local British diaspora emigrated to the United Kingdom and South Africa. In 2006, approximately 2,500 Britons lived in Uganda.
Scots in Africa
Nyasaland (Malawi)
The Scots people, Scots played an enormous part in British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies.
* British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...
overseas colonisation, alongside the English people, English and Welsh people, Welsh. Scotland supplied colonial troops, Administrator of the Government, administrators, governors, prospecting, prospectors, architects, and engineers to help construct the colonies all over the world.
From the 1870s, Scottish churches began missionary work in Nyasaland/Malawi
Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...
, in the wake of their illustrious predecessor, David Livingstone. Their pressure on the British Government resulted in Nyasaland being declared a British protectorate, British Protectorate. A small Scottish community was established here, and other Scots immigration occurred in Southern Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, Northern Rhodesia/Zambia, and South Africa. The table below represents how small their numbers were compared to other sections of the future Central African Federation.
The largest city and commercial capital of the country, Blantyre, Malawi, Blantyre, is named after Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, a town in Scotland and birthplace of David Livingstone. The reason for the small number of Europeans was mainly the lack of mineral resources (Northern Rhodesia had copper and Southern Rhodesia has gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
).
After Nyasaland became independent (and upon adopting a new name, Malawi), many Scots returned to Scotland or moved to South Africa or Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
(formerly Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was a self-governing British Crown colony in Southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company (BSAC) territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as South ...
and later known as Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
). Despite this, Scots had an enormous South African community (compared to that of Nyasaland).
To this day most Scots in Africa reside in South Africa and until the 21st century, also in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia). Most Scottish colonists from Rhodesia left for South Africa after Rhodesia's independence and after economic and political problems in 2001. Evidence of the continued Scottish influence is seen in the continuing traditions of Highland games and pipe bands, especially in Natal Province, Natal. Ties between Scotland and Malawi also remain strong.
French in Africa
North Africa
Large numbers of French people settled in French North Africa from the 1840s onward. By the end of French rule in the early 1960s there were over one million European Algerians, mostly of French origin and Catholic (known as ''pieds noirs'', or "black feet"), living in Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
, consisting about 16% of the population in 1962.
There were 255,000 Europeans in Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
in 1956, while Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
was home to half a million Europeans.
French law made it easy for thousands of ''colons'', ethnic or national French from former colonies of Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
, French India and French Indochina, to live in mainland France. After Algeria became independent in 1962, about 800,000 ''Pieds-Noirs'' of French nationality were evacuated to mainland France while about 200,000 chose to remain in Algeria. Of the latter, there were still about 100,000 in 1965 and about 50,000 by the end of the 1960s.["Pieds-noirs": ceux qui ont choisi de rester](_blank)
La Dépêche du Midi, March 2012. 1.6 million European ''colons'' migrated from Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
, Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
, and Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
.
As of December 31, 2011, there were 94,382 French citizens in all three countries, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia. 2,5 million people in Algeria have at least one European ancestor, 1 million people in Tunisia have at least one European ancestor according to DNA studies. Both countries were part of the Roman Empire and the French colonial empire.
Francophone West Africa
Unlike Algeria, permanent European colonisation in most of France's tropical African colonies was not especially successful; during World War II the entire white population of French West Africa numbered only about 22,000. Immigration to French West Africa spiked after the war due to an influx of French people seeking to escape depressed economic opportunities at home.[ In June 1951, there were 49,904 whites of French origin in French West Africa, as well as an undetermined number of Europeans of other nationalities.][ The total number of white residents in these colonies never exceeded 0.3% of the population, and was predominantly urban: two-thirds of them lived in one of French West Africa's nine administrative capitals.][ Their most popular destination was ]Senegal
Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
, where over half the French-speaking whites resided.[ Nevertheless, French West Africa's white population remained subject to a high turnover rate; in 1951 78% of this group had been born in France, and the number of European families which had lived in Dakar for more than a generation was described as "negligible".][ The postwar influx also introduced the phenomenon of unemployed whites in French West Africa, who were mostly unskilled workers that secured only temporary jobs or were not engaged in any specific profession, and found themselves having to compete with a growing skilled black workforce.][ It also contributed to a rise in housing segregation as exclusively white neighbourhoods became more common.][
Following the dissolution of French ]West Africa
West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
and the independence of its constituent states, sizable white minorities survived in Gabon and the Ivory Coast. 2,500 French people reside in Chad. 4,500 French soldiers reside in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. 3,000 French reside in Mali and 1,000 French soldiers reside in Niger.
Djibouti
In 1917, Djibouti (then French Somaliland) had a European population of 294, of which 107 were French. In 1974, 10,255 Europeans lived in the colony, which gained independence just 3 years later.
Madagascar
A sizeable number of French people reside in Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
, many of whom trace their ties to Madagascar back to the French Madagascar, colonial period. An estimated 20,000 French citizens lived and worked in Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
in 2011. The numbers make Madagascar the home of the largest ethnic French population in terms of absolute numbers in Sub-Saharan Africa, other than the French ''département'' Réunion.
Mauritius
Franco-Mauritians account for approximately 2% of the population of Mauritius.
Mayotte
Réunion
In Réunion, a French island in the Indian Ocean, white islanders, mostly of ethnic French origin, are estimated to make up approximately 30% of the population. 260,000 white people live in Réunion.
South Africa
Huguenots
A large number of French Huguenots settled in the Cape Colony, following their expulsion from France in the 17th century. However, the use of the French language was discouraged and many of their descendants intermarried with the Dutch. This early contact is visible in the Francophone names of a few historic towns in Western Cape such as Courtrai, Western Cape, Courtrai and in the surnames of some Afrikaners and Cape Coloureds, such as Marais, Joubert, de Lille, and du Plessis. The Huguenot-descended South African community is the largest in France's African diaspora.
Franschhoek (meaning ''French Corner'' in Dutch language, Dutch) is a large town in the Western Cape, so named for the French Huguenots, who traveled and settled there. There is a striking French influence in the town, which can be found firstly in street names which include La Rochelle Street, Bordeaux Street, Huguenot Street, Roux Malherbe Street, and Cabriere Street.
Nearby farms, hamlets, and villages often hold French names such as ''La Roux''; a township north of Franschhoek, ''Chamonix Estate'', and so forth. Many Huguenot-dedicated buildings have been erected in Franschhoek, the major one being the Huguenot Monument.
In 1979, there were 49 Huguenot congregations in South Africa.
Franco Mauritians
Between 1945 and 1969, many Franco-Mauritians emigrated to South Africa.
In 1981, their population in the KwaZulu Natal province was estimated at more than 12,000.
Portuguese in Africa
The first Portugal, Portuguese Portuguese Empire, colonies in Africa History of Portugal (1415–1542), were built in the 15th century. The descendants of the soldiers who accompanied Christopher da Gama expedition to support the Ethiopian throne in the 16th century continued to exert a significant influence in that country's history over the next two centuries; for example, the Empress Mentewab was extremely proud of her Portuguese ancestry. In the late 17th century, much of Portuguese East Africa, Portuguese Mozambique was divided into ''prazos'', or agricultural estates, which were settled by Portuguese families. In Portuguese West Africa, Portuguese Angola, namely in the areas of Luanda
Luanda ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Angola, largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Ang ...
and Benguela, there was a significant Portuguese people, Portuguese population. 20,000 people from the former Portuguese colony of Brazil currently live in Angola. In the islands of Cape Verde
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...
and São Tomé and Príncipe, besides Portuguese colonists, most of the population was of mixed Portuguese and African origin. The descendants of the Portuguese colonists who were born and raised locally since Portuguese colonial time were called ''crioulos.'' As of 2022, 421,136 or 71% of people living in Cape Verde
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...
has European ancestry, mostly Portuguese.
In the early 20th century, the Portuguese government encouraged white migration to the Portuguese territories of Angola (Portugal), Angola and Mozambique (Portugal), Mozambique, and by the 1960s, at the beginning of the Portuguese Colonial War, there were around 650,000 Portuguese colonists living in Portuguese Empire, their overseas African provinces, and a substantial Portuguese population living in other African countries. In 1974, there were up to 1,000,000 Portuguese colonists living in their overseas African provinces.[Portugal – Emigration](_blank)
Eric Solsten, ed. Portugal: A Country Study. Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, 1993. In 1975, Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...
had a community of approximately 400,000 Portuguese, while Mozambique had approximately more than 350,000 colonists from Portugal.[Flight from Angola](_blank)
''The Economist '', August 16, 1975.
Most Portuguese colonists were forced to return to Portugal (the ) as the country's African possessions gained independence in the mid-1970s, while others moved south to South Africa, which now has the largest Portuguese-African population (who between 50 and 80% came from Madeira), and to Brazil. When Mozambican Civil War (1977–1992) began suddenly, large numbers of both Portuguese-born colonists and Mozambican-born colonists of Portuguese blood went out again.
However, after the war in Mozambique, more Portuguese colonists returned and the newer ones settled Mozambique while White Brazilians, especially those of Portuguese Brazilian, Portuguese descent, moved to Mozambique to work as aid workers and investors and have adopted Mozambique as their home. It is estimated the population of Portuguese people in Mozambique has increased to over 20,000 since the peace settlement of Mozambique in 1992. Notable demographics of Portuguese Mozambicans could be found in cities like Maputo, Beira, Mozambique, Beira, and Nampula with Maputo accumulating the highest percentage. 82,593 Portuguese Mozambicans live in Mozambique as of 2012.
In recent years, some Portuguese have migrated to Angola for economic reasons, mainly the country's Economy of Angola, recent economic boom.
Radio Televisão Portuguesa
', September 13, 2008. In 2008, Angola was the preferred destination for Portuguese migrants in Africa. 300,000 white people with Portuguese heritage currently live in Angola. 500,000 are mixed race, half white and half black. The majority of Angolan whites live in Luanda
Luanda ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Angola, largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Ang ...
, the capital of Angola. They represent 260,000 from the 2.5 million inhabitants or over 10% of Luanda.
Portuguese South Africans
South Africa largely featured two Portuguese waves of immigration, one was a constant but small flow of Portuguese from Madeira and Portugal itself, while the second was ethnic Portuguese fleeing from Angola and Mozambique after their respective independences. The reason behind the immigration of Madeirans to South Africa was both a political and economic one. After 1950, prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd encouraged immigration from Protestant northern Europeans, such as his own ethnic group the Dutch, to bolster the white population. He later began to approve immigration policies also favouring Southern Europeans, including Madeirans, who were facing high unemployment rates. Many Madeirans and other Portuguese who immigrated were at first isolated from other white populations due to their differences, such as the fact that few could speak English or Afrikaans and were Roman Catholic. Eventually they ended up setting up businesses in Johannesburg or coastal fisheries, and a substantial number intermarried with other white South African groups.
One known Portuguese South African creation was the restaurant chain Nando's, created in 1987, which incorporated influences from former Portuguese colonists from Mozambique, many of whom had settled on the south-eastern side of Johannesburg, after Mozambique's independence in 1975. There is currently a 300,000-strong Portuguese community in South Africa.
Italians in Africa
Libya
Libya had some 150,000 Italian settlers in Libya, Italian colonists until World War II, constituting about 18% of the total population in Italian Libya
Libya (; ) was a colony of Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica, Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitan ...
. The Italians in Libya resided (and many still do) in most major cities like Tripoli, Libya, Tripoli (37% of the city was Italian), Benghazi (31%), and Hun, Libya, Hun (3%). Their numbers decreased after World War II. Most of Libya's Italians were expelled from the North African country in 1970, a year after Muammar Gaddafi seized power (a "day of vengeance" on 7 October 1970), but a few hundred Italians returned to Libya in the 2000s.
Somalia
Somalia had over 50,000 Italian Somalis, Italian Somali colonists during World War II, constituting more than 5% of the total population in Italian Somaliland. The Italians resided in most major cities in the central and southern parts of the territory, with around 22,000 living in the capital Mogadishu. Other major areas of colonisation included Jowhar, which was founded by the Italian prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi. Italian language, Italian used to be a major language, but its influence significantly diminished following independence. It is now most frequently heard among older generations and the educated.[Helena Dubnov, ''A grammatical sketch of Somali'', (Kِppe: 2003), pp. 70–71.] 1,000 Italian Somalis currently live in Somalia.
South African Italians
Although Italians
Italians (, ) are a European peoples, European ethnic group native to the Italian geographical region. Italians share a common Italian culture, culture, History of Italy, history, Cultural heritage, ancestry and Italian language, language. ...
did not immigrate to South Africa in large numbers, those who have arrived have nevertheless made an impact on the host country.
Before World War II, relatively few Italian immigrants arrived, though there were some prominent exceptions, such as the Cape Colony, Cape's first Prime Minister John Molteno, who was of Anglo-Italian descent. South African Italians made big headlines during World War II, when Italians captured in Italian East Africa needed to be sent to a safe stronghold to be kept as prisoners of war (POWs). South Africa was the perfect destination, and the first POWs arrived in Durban, in 1941.
Despite being POWs, the Italians were treated well, with a good food Diet (nutrition), diet and friendly hospitality. These factors, along with the peaceful, cheap, and sunny landscape, made it very attractive for Italians to settle down, and therefore, the Italian South African community was born. Although over 100,000 Italian POW were sent to South Africa, only a handful decided to stay. During their capture, they were given the opportunity to build chapels, churches, dams, and many more structures. Most Italian influence and architecture can be seen in the Natal Province, Natal and Transvaal Province, Transvaal area. Esselenpark (Railway College) is particularly notable.
Today there are roughly 77,400 South Africans of Italian descent.
Ethiopia
During the Italian Ethiopia, Italian occupation of Ethiopia, roughly 300,000 Italians settled in Italian East Africa (1936-1947). Over 49,000 lived in Asmara (now located in and the capital of Eritrea) in 1939 (around 10% of the city's population), and over 38,000 resided in Addis Ababa. After independence, many Italians remained for decades after receiving full pardon by Emperor Selassie, as he saw the opportunity to continue the modernization efforts of the country. However, due to the Ethiopian Civil War in 1974, nearly 22,000 Italo-Ethiopians left the country. 80 original Italian colonists remained alive in 2007, and nearly 2000 mixed descendants of Italians and Ethiopians. In the 2000s, some Italian companies returned to operate in Ethiopia, and a large number of Italian technicians and managers arrived with their families, residing mainly in the metropolitan area of the capital. 3,400 Italians still live in Ethiopia. and 1,300 British people live in Ethiopia.
Elsewhere in Africa
The Italians had a significantly large, but very quickly diminished population in Africa. In 1926, there were 90,000 Italian Tunisians, Italians in Tunisia, compared to 70,000 Frenchmen (unusual since Tunisia was a French protectorate). Former Italian communities also once thrived in the Horn of Africa, with about 50,000 Italian colonists living in Italian Eritrea in 1935, with 49,000 of them lived in Asmara, like mentioned above. The Italian Eritreans, Italian Eritrean population grew from 4,000 during World War I to nearly 100,000 at the beginning of World War II. Of all the former Italian territories, Eritrea is the only one where the educated population can speak Italian, as there is 1 Italian-language school in Asmara, the Scuola Italiana di Asmara, and the Italian language is still spoken in Eritrean commerce. The size of the Italian Egyptian community had also reached around 55,000 just before World War II, forming the second-largest expatriate community in Egypt. 100,000 people in Italian Eritreans living in Eritrea have at least one Italian ancestor, accounting for 2.2% of its total population.
A few Italian colonists stayed in Portuguese colonies in Africa after World War II. As the Portuguese government had sought to enlarge the small Portuguese population through emigration from Europe, the Italian migrants gradually assimilated into the Angolan Portuguese community.
The first Italian presence in Morocco dates back to the times of the Italian maritime republics, when many merchants of the Republic of Venice and of the Republic of Genoa settled on the Maghreb coast. This presence lasted until the 19th century. The Italian community had a notable development in French Morocco
The French protectorate in Morocco, also known as French Morocco, was the period of French colonial rule in Morocco that lasted from 1912 to 1956. The protectorate was officially established 30 March 1912, when Sultan Abd al-Hafid signed the ...
; already in the 1913 census about 3,500 Italians were registered, almost all concentrated in Casablanca, and mostly employed as excavators and construction workers. The Italians were mainly dedicated to the trade and the Moroccan construction industry. The Italian presence in the Rif, included in Spanish Morocco, was minimal, except in Tangier, an international city, where there was an important community, as evidenced by the presence of the Italian School. A further increase of Italian immigrants in Morocco was recorded after World War I, reaching 12,000 people, who were employed among the workers and as farmers, unskilled workers, bricklayers and operators. In the 1930s, Italian-Moroccans, almost all of Sicilian origin, numbered over 15,600 and lived mainly in the Maarif district of Casablanca. With decolonization, most Italian Moroccans left Morocco for France and Spain.
Greeks in Africa
Egypt
Greeks have been living in Egypt since and even before Alexander the Great conquered Egypt at an early stage of his journey of conquests. Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the 5th century BC, wrote that the Greeks were the first foreigners that ever lived in Egypt. Diodorus Siculus attested that Rhodes, Rhodian Actis (mythology), Actis, one of the Heliadae, built the city of Heliopolis (ancient Egypt), Heliopolis before the Deluge myth, cataclysm; likewise the Athenians built Sais. While all Greek cities were destroyed during the cataclysm, the Egyptian cities including Heliopolis and Sais survived.
In modern times the official 1907 census showed 62,973 Greeks living in Egypt. The Greek genocide, expulsion of 2.5 million Greeks from Turkey saw a large number of those Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
move to Egypt and by 1940 Greeks were numbered at around 500,000. Today the Greek community numbers officially about 3,000 people although the real number is much higher since many Greeks have changed their nationality to Egyptian. In Alexandria, apart from the patriarchate, there is a patriarchal theology school that opened recently after being closed for 480 years. Saint Nicolas church and several other buildings in Alexandria have been recently renovated by the Politics of Greece, Greek Government and the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation.
During the last decade, there has been a new interest from the Egyptian government for a diplomatic rapprochement with Greece and this has positively affected the Greek diaspora. The diaspora has received official visits of many Greek politicians. Economic relationships have been blossoming between Greece and Egypt. Egypt has been recently the centre of major Greek investments in industries such as banking, tourism, paper, and oil. In 2009, a five years cooperation memorandum was signed among the National Centre of Scientific Research "DEMOKRITOS", NCSR Demokritos Institute in Agia Paraskevi, Athens and the University of Alexandreia, regarding Archeometry research and contextual sectors.
South Africa
The Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
have had a presence in South Africa since the late 19th century. After the flight of the Greeks from Egypt in reaction to Nasser's nationalization policy the Greek population of South Africa dramatically increased to around 250,000. Today the number of Greeks
Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...
in South Africa is estimated between 60,000 – 120,000.
Zimbabwe
The Greek community in Zimbabwe numbered between 13,000 and 15,000 people in 1972 and once comprised Rhodesia
Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...
's second largest white community after individuals of British origin.[ Today the Greeks, Greek community in ]Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
numbers under 3,000.[Hellenic Republic: Ministry of Foreign Affairs]
Zimbabwe: The Greek Community
Zimbabwe currently hosts eleven Greek Orthodox churches and fifteen Greek associations and humanitarian organizations.
Holy Archbishopric of Zimbabwe
Elsewhere
The Greeks have a presence in a number of African countries such as Cameroon (1,200 people),
(they are quoting the statistics of the General Secretariat for Greeks Abroad as o
October 12, 2004
Zambia (800 people), Ethiopia (500 people), Uganda (450 people), Democratic Republic of Congo (300 people), Kenya (100 families), Nigeria (300 people), Tanzania (300 people), Sudan (200 people), Botswana (200–300 people), Malawi (200 people), and Morocco (150 people).
Germans in Africa
Namibia
Germans, Germany was late to colonize Africa (or to have an empire), mainly due to it not being a unified country until the late 19th century. However, many Germans settled in South West Africa (modern day Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...
) as well as South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
. Those Germans who migrated to South West Africa retained culture of Germany, German culture, Religion in Germany, religion, and even German language, language, while those in South Africa often had to learn English or Afrikaans as a first language and adopt another culture.
Unlike other Europeans in Africa, when many African states gained independence, the Germans (along with the English and Dutch/Afrikaners) stayed in Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...
because they retained political dominance (now being a League of Nations mandate, mandate under South African control). The country was administered as a province of South Africa during the apartheid era (though South African rule was not widely recognized internationally.) German influence in Namibia is very strong and noticeable. Because Namibia has not changed any town names since independence, many of the List of cities and towns in Namibia, largest cities in the country retain their German names. These include Lüderitz, Grünau, Namibia, Grünau, Maltahöhe, Wasser, Namibia, Wasser, Luhonono, Schuckmannsburg, and even the capital city has a German name (Windhoek, Windhuk). In the southern Regions of Karas Region, Namibia, Karas and especially Hardap Region, Hardap, the vast majority of town names are German, or a mixture of German, Afrikaans and English. In the Hardap region, some 80% of colonies have a name of German origin.
Namibia is also the only nation outside Europe to have a Lutheran majority. This is due to many German missionaries during the 19th century who converted the Ovambo people, Ovambo and Damara people to Christianity. Until 1990, German was an official language of Namibia, and is now a recognized regional language (the only one of its kind for the German language outside of Europe).
Tanzania
When Tanganyika (territory), mainland Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi
Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...
were under German control they were named German East Africa and received some migration from German communities.
A number of locations in Tanzania formerly bore German names. The city of Tabora was formerly named ''Weidmannsheil'' and Kasanga was known as ''Bismarckburg''. Mount Kilimanjaro was known as Kilimandscharo, a German way of spelling it. Despite virtually all German names being reverted since World War I, some places still hold German names. These include the majority of Glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro, such as Rebmann Glacier and Furtwängler Glacier.
Some German colonial empire, colonial German-style buildings still exist in some of Tanzania's List of cities in Tanzania, largest cities and former German strongholds, but they are in bad condition and need extensive renovation.
Togo
Togoland was a German colony from 1884 to 1914.
Cameroon
Kamerun was a German colony in present-day Cameroon between 1884 and 1916. During German control, few German families migrated in comparison with Germany's other colonies, but plantations, trading posts, and infrastructure projects were built to aid the growing German Empire
The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...
with goods, such as bananas and important minerals. These trading posts were most abundant around the former capital city, and largest city in Cameroon: Douala.
Douala itself was known as ''Kamerunstadt'' (German for 'Cameroon City') between 1884 and 1907. Most trading took place with Hamburg and Bremen, and was later made easier by the construction of an extensive mail, postal and telegraph system. Like all German colonies (except South West Africa), after World War I, many Germans left for Europe, Americas, America, or South Africa.
After World War I, the colony of Kamerun was split between British Cameroon, British and French Cameroon, French administrations. Once Germany was admitted to the League of Nations, the new colonial administrations were forced to allow German colonists and missionaries to return and repossess their land beginning in 1925. The German-run factories and plantations in Southern Cameroon employed over 25,000 Cameroonians at this time. Sentiment among native Cameroonians at the time remained overwhelmingly pro-German, which was made most evident when only 3,500 Cameroonians enlisted to fight for the British at the outbreak of World War II. By the 1930s, Germans accounted for more than 60% of the white population in British Cameroon and owned more than 300,000 acres of cocoa plantations in both the French and British Cameroons.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 163-051, Kamerun, Weihnachten am Mungo.jpg, German Settlers enjoying Christmas in Kamerun.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 137-034473, Kamerun, bei Tiko, Bananen-Verladung.jpg, Bananas heading for Germany in 1912.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 137-003056, Kamerun, Deutscher Landvermesser.jpg, German surveyor in Kamerun, 1884.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 163-161, Kamerun, Duala, Polizeitruppe.jpg, A Police force on the Kaiser's birthday, 1901.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 163-219, Kamerun, Duala, Männerrunde.jpg, German men in Douala, Kamerun.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 163-240, Kamerun, Duala, Werkstatt.jpg, A German built workshop in Kamerun.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 163-291, Kamerun, Duala, Ölbohrung.jpg, Oil in Kamerun, one of the many resources that the German Empire needed.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 163-053, Kamerun, Weiße Siedler im Regenwald.jpg, German settlers in the rainforest.
File:E M Heims - Gouvernementshaus in Buea (Kamerun).jpg, Governor's home in Buea, with Mount Cameroon in the background.
File:Bundesarchiv Bild 163-036, Kamerun, Grab von Theodor Christaller.jpg, A German cemetery in Kamerun.
File:Schloss von Puttkamer.jpg, The schloss (palace) of Jesko von Puttkamer, governor of German Kamerun.
File:Flag of Deutsch-Kamerun.svg, The proposed flag for German Kamerun
Former Portuguese colonies
A number of German colonists stayed in Portuguese African colonies as World War II refugees when the Portuguese government tried to request Europeans of other nationalities to increase the very tiny Portuguese population and during the war, although that plan of the Portuguese government was unsuccessful. Prior to the Angolan Civil War, the German population in Benguela and Moçâmedes was very active and had a German-language school in Benguela. The German families remaining in Angola today live mainly in Luanda
Luanda ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Angola, largest city of Angola. It is Angola's primary port, and its major industrial, cultural and urban centre. Located on Angola's northern Atlantic coast, Luanda is Ang ...
and Calulo.
South Africa
There is a German community within South Africa, many of whom have been absorbed into the Afrikaner community, but some still maintain a German identity. Migration to South Africa from Germany has existed since the establishment of the first refreshment station in 1652. German missionaries were present throughout the region. Under British rule, there was increased immigration from Germany with significant numbers settling in the Kwa-Zulu Natal, Natal and in the Eastern Cape. Under apartheid, much of the land given to German colonists was confiscated so many dispersed throughout the country.
Ghana
There are some Germans remaining in Ghana. Most of them have ancestors from Brandenburg and Prussia.
Spanish in Africa
The Spain, Spanish have resided in many African countries (mostly former colonies), including Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara
Western Sahara is a territorial dispute, disputed territory in Maghreb, North-western Africa. It has a surface area of . Approximately 30% of the territory () is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR); the remaining 70% is ...
, South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, and Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
. 94,000 Spaniards
Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern nation-state of Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern a ...
chose to go to Algeria
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
in the last years of the 19th century; 250,000 Spaniards lived in Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
at the beginning of the 20th century. Most Spaniards left Morocco after its independence in 1956 and their numbers were reduced to 13,000.
In 1950, Catholics in Spanish protectorate in Morocco and Tangier constitute 14.5% of the population, and the Spanish Morocco was home to 113,000 Catholic settlers. Catholics in Spanish protectorate in Morocco and Tangier were mostly of Spanish descent, and to a lesser extent of Portuguese, French and Italian ancestry.
Prior to Spain's History of Western Sahara, abandoning the Western Sahara in 1975, there were over 20,000 Spanish Catholics, who formed roughly 32% of the total population before the Moroccan occupation.
Equatorial Guinea
The Spanish have resided in Equatorial Guinea (when under Spanish rule known as Spanish Guinea) for many years and first started as temporary plantation
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
owners originally from Valencia, Spain, Valencia, before returning to Spain. Few Spaniards remained in Spanish Guinea permanently and left only after a few years. At independence in 1968 Spanish Guinea had one of the highest per capita incomes in Africa (US$332).
España – Guinea, 1969: la estrategia de la tensión
', Xavier Lacosta, Historia 16, January 2001. The Spanish also helped Equatorial Guinea achieve one of the continent's highest literacy rates and developed a good network of health care facilities.
Many left Spanish Guinea when the colony gained African independence movements, independence in 1968. After independence, many Spanish-named cities and places in Equatorial Guinea Geographical renaming, were changed to more African nationalism, African names, the most obvious one being the capital city, Malabo (formerly ), and the island it is located on, Bioko (formerly ).
Despite a large loss of Spanish residents during the rule of Masie Nguema Biyogo, their numbers have somewhat increased after he was overthrown. They almost exclusively speak Spanish language, Spanish as their first language; French language, French or Portuguese language, Portuguese, which are official languages, are often spoken as second languages, sometimes alongside the indigenous Bantu languages. Their religion is almost entirely Roman Catholic, Catholic, and this can be reflected by the population, which also remains Catholic. Since the discovery of oil, and an economic 'boom', a large number of Europeans of other ancestries have also migrated the country for business and in Malabo, they are located in the western half of the city and in new housing estates.
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands are part of the Macaronesia, Atlantic islands detached from the African mainland.
The Canary Islanders are a mixture of the indigenous North African proto-Berber Guanches, Spanish and Portuguese people and other Europeans, mainly from Germany, Italy and the UK, and the descendants of African slaves.
Spain holds the ("strongholds of sovereignty") on Northern African coast. They are small islands garrisoned by the Spanish Army and two autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous cities: Ceuta and Melilla.
About 60% of the population of Ceuta is "Christian", meaning the descendants of the Portuguese and Spanish ancestral people and recent immigrants mostly linked to the Spanish state. A similar proportion of "Christians" is present in Melilla.
Moriscos
The Moriscos (Christianized descendants of Iberian Muslims of mixed Hispano-Roman, Visigothic, Berber and Arab ancestry) were expulsion of the Moriscos, expelled from Spain between 1609 and 1614.
Thousands of them settled in Muslim North Africa.
Some number their descendants as high as 5 million people.
Belgians in Africa
Belgian colonials and their descendants have been especially represented in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although post-colonial instability in these states has led to exodus.
Belgian Congo
In the Belgian Congo, Belgium's largest overseas possession, European missionaries, corporations, and officials had entrenched a comprehensive political, social, economic, and cultural hegemony. This was disrupted as 1955 drew to a close, however, as mild proposals for a form of Congolese self-government provoked furious protests across the Belgian Congo. A Belgian-appointed study commission subsequently recommended a complicated formula which would lead to gradual self-government for the Congo by 1985, although this was opposed by the most militant nationalists, who demanded immediate and full independence.
On 5 July 1960, five days after the new Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville), Republic of the Congo gained independence from Belgium, members of the ''Force Publique'' (Dutch Language, Dutch: ''Openbare Weermacht'') garrison near Léopoldville/Leopoldstad mutinied. African soldiers, resentful over the fact that independence had brought little change to their status, ousted 1,000 of their Belgian officers from the command structure. The new government was slow to react, allowing a state of panic to develop among the 120,000 colonists still resident in the territory as roving bands of mutineers attacked numerous European targets, assaulting and killing with impunity. Belgium's attempt to defend her nationals with military force only aggravated the situation; within ten days of independence white civil servants were emigrating en masse. As Congo Crisis, Congo's infamous crisis developed further, the predominantly white magistrate corps also fled the growing chaos, dealing a severe blow to their nation's basic judicial apparatus – considered by several prominent observers to be "the worst catastrophe in this series of disasters".
In 1965, there remained a mere 60,000 Belgians spread throughout the Congo.
As of 2011, roughly 9,500 European-descended people live in the Congo, many of whom are of Belgian ancestry. As of 2024, 2,746 people in the Congo are Belgian citizens.
Flemings in Rwanda, South Africa, and the DRC
Many Flemish people, Flemish colonists in Rwanda were targeted for extermination as part of the Rwandan genocide. This seemed to be largely because Belgian people, Belgian colonists had offered better education and employment opportunities to Tutsi tribesmen under colonial rule than the Hutus, who controlled the government during the genocide. Many of those remaining today are of Flemish descent, and part of the large "reverse diaspora" currently occurring in Rwanda.
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, Radio messages broadcast by Hutu extremists advocated the killing of white Rwandans should they be of Belgian ancestry, despite the fact that Belgium itself attempted to remain neutral during the 1994 conflict. Furthermore, one of the main radio propagandists was a white Belgian man who moved to Rwanda, Georges Ruggiu.
3,000 Belgians are living in Burundi, and 14,000 Belgians are living in Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda together.
Norwegians in Africa
Southern Africa
Although Norwegians in Africa are one of the smallest immigrant communities, they are not unheard of. Emigration to South Africa from Norway in 1876–85 was dominated by emigrants from the districts of Romsdal and Sunnmøre.
One notable incident was the , when a dozen families left Bergen in 1879 to establish a Norwegian colony on the Indian Ocean atoll of Aldabra (now part of Seychelles). The mission was aborted because of a lack of fresh water on the atoll, and they instead settled in Durban, with a few opting to settle in Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...
.
The town of Marburg, KwaZulu-Natal, Marburg in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...
was founded by Norwegians in 1882. Marburg's founders were mostly from Ålesund in Sunnmøre. It was the only successful Scandinavian colony in southern Africa. Many of the original founders later left the colony, a number of them joining the other Norwegian community already in Durban and a smaller number moving on to Australia.
A number of Norwegian colonists stayed in Portuguese African colonies when the Portuguese government tried to request Europeans of other nationalities to increase the very tiny Portuguese population, although the plan was unsuccessful. They were already acculturation, acculturated to the Portuguese population.
Serbs in Africa
Southern Africa
Serbs and people of Serbian descent constitute a fairly large population in South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
, accounting for 25–30,000 people, mostly residing in Gauteng. Over 22 Serbian folklore groups are active in South Africa, and participate in church-based activities. There are a number of diaspora clubs and associations, as well as several Serbian Orthodox churches in the country. The Serbian community in South Africa has existed since the 19th century, and during World War II the government of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia sent agents to recruit Serbian immigrants, then mostly concentrated in Cape Town
Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...
. In 1952, the Serbian community that left Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia after World War II founded a local Saint Sava church and school municipality in Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...
. In 1978, a local Serbian Orthodox Church dedicated to Thomas the Apostle was built. Today, a local school teaches students Serbian language with support under the program defined by the Minister of Education (Serbia), Ministry of Education of Serbia.
Additionally, there are Serbian communities in Zambia
Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...
numbering nearly 3,000 which has existed in Zambia for over six decades and Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
. In 2009 the Rector of St. Thomas the Apostle Serbian Orthodox Church in Johannesburg visited the Serbian community of Zambia, who attend the local Greek church.
Hungarians in Africa
Other European diaspora in Africa
Virtually all European ethnic groups can be found in South Africa. Several Sub-Saharan African countries have more than one million inhabitants with at least one Eurasian ancestor, like Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mauritius, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Africa and Sudan, according to DNA studies.
Armenians once numbered thousands in Ethiopia and Sudan, before civil wars, revolutions, and nationalization drove most of them out. They still have community centers and churches in these countries. Before 1952 there were around 75,000 Armenians in Egypt. Today, they number around 6,000 and live primarily in Cairo. The Armenian Apostolic Church and Coptic Orthodox Church are in communion as Oriental Orthodox churches.
There are an estimated 100,000 European Tunisian, Europeans living in Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
, most are French with some Italian Tunisians, Italians. Morocco
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...
has about 100,000 Europeans, most of them French with some Spanish. In Cape Verde
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...
, around 50% of the population has at least one European ancestor, resulting in many people having blond hair or blue eyes. Some 15,000 French people lived in the Ivory Coast in 2004.
Liberia was founded and settled mostly by liberated African Americans, African-Americans as well as West Indians, most of whom had varying degrees of European ancestry. Americo-Liberian people, Americo-Liberians comprise 2.5% of Liberia’s population, numbering about 150,000 people.
In Egypt, there is an Albanians in Egypt, Albanian community.
Languages
White Africans speak Indo-European languages as their first languages (Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
, English language, English, Portuguese language, Portuguese, French language, French, German language, German, Spanish language, Spanish and Italian language, Italian).
Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language spoken in South Africa, Namibia and to a lesser extent Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and also Argentina where there is a group in Sarmiento, Chubut, Sarmiento that speaks the Pat ...
is the most common language spoken at home by white South Africans. It is spoken by roughly 60% of South Africa's, 60% of Namibia's, and about 5% of Zimbabwe's white population. In South Africa they make up a major white speaking group in provinces of South Africa, all provinces except KwaZulu-Natal
KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN) is a Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the government merged the Zulu people, Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu language, Zulu) and ...
, where Afrikaans speakers make up 1.5% of the population. In Rhodesia (and later Zimbabwe), Afrikaans was not as common and the country was dominated by English throughout its history. There were however a few Afrikaans inhabitants, mostly from South Africa. Afrikaans was also very limited culturally in Rhodesia and so only a few Afrikaans place names existed, most notably Enkeldoorn (renamed Chivhu in 1982). Most Afrikaners in Zimbabwe have now immigrated to South Africa or European countries.
English
English is the second most spoken language among white Africans, spoken by 39% of South Africa's, 7% of Namibia's, and 90% of Zimbabwe's white population. In South Africa they remain the dominant white ethnic group in KwaZulu-Natal, while in Gauteng and the Western Cape they also contribute to a large percentage of the English-speaking population.
English is a second language of many non-British white Africans with higher education in almost all non-English-speaking African nations. Outside of South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, British White Africans make up a large minority in Zambia, Kenya, Botswana, and Swaziland, therefore growing the presence of English in these countries.
German
German is spoken by 32% of Namibia's white population (making up 2% of the Namibian population). There is also a now nearly extinct language, extinct German dialect in Namibia known as Namibian Black German (or in German as ''Küchendeutsch'' or ''Kitchen German''), and used to be spoken by black domestic servants to German colonists. However, the government has tried to lower the use of German and Afrikaans due to its colonial roots, and instead try and enforce English, the sole official language, and Bantu languages. There is also known to be a German dialect, spoken in the south-east of South Africa, known as (German from Natal Province, Natal).
Other languages
Most whites in Angola and Mozambique use Portuguese as their first language. The other 1% of whites in South Africa, who do not speak Afrikaans or English, mostly speak Portuguese (from immigrant communities who come from Angola and Mozambique), or German, and Dutch (from European immigration). Equally, in Namibia, the remaining 1% of the white population speaks mostly Portuguese because of the immigration from Angola following independence of all Portuguese colonies in 1975.
Only a small white population in Libya, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia has the fluency of Italian, because it is no longer the official language there. Spanish is also spoken in some areas of Morocco, Western Sahara, Equatorial Guinea, as well as in those territories that form part of Spain such as the Canary Islands and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. Very few White Africans speak Bantu languages at home, but still a small percentage of white Africans speak Bantu languages as second languages.
The Greek language has long existed on the continent since antiquity. In South Africa the population estimates vary with the Greek government reporting that roughly 50,000 Greeks lived in the country in 2012. The South African constitution and Pan South African Language Board seeks to promote and respect the language. Zimbabwe also once held a large Greek-speaking community and there is still a Greek school. This is also the case in South Africa. The language was also commonly spoken among Greeks in Egypt in both the ancient era and more recent times. There is a continued presence of the Greek language because of the small Greek community in the country as well as interest among cultural institutions.
Sport
The Namibia National Rugby team is largely white.
Many European sports have become popular in Africa after the arrival of Europeans on the continent. Association football, Football was first introduced in the 19th century by British colonists in South Africa in 1862. The sport was quickly spread throughout the continent by missionaries, explorers, and other Europeans on the continent. French colonists in Algeria were the first to introduce formalized clubs on the continent beginning with in 1897. The sport continues to be popular amongst Portuguese South Africans who founded the Vasco da Gama (South Africa), Vasco de Gama Football Club.
Cricket was introduced by British serviceman shortly after the takeover of the Cape Colony from the Dutch. The first known match in South Africa took place in 1808. The sport continues to be popular amongst White Africans of British descent. Since the end of apartheid the sport has seen increased popularity with Afrikaners. Cricket was also played by Europeans in other countries on that are members of the commonwealth. The first recorded match of cricket in Zimbabwe took place in 1890. Following from this point the sport continued to grow with the arrival of more European colonists. The sport continued to be dominated by Europeans throughout much of the 20th century, and in 1983 they successfully defeated Australia in a stunning victory.
Field hockey is also popular amongst White Africans. In South Africa the majority of players at the Olympic level are of European descent. Similarly the Zimbabwean field hockey team famous for its Zimbabwe women's national field hockey team at the 1980 Summer Olympics, 1980 gold medal match was historically dominated by white Africans. The sport has a long history on the continent, and its modern iteration was first introduced by European colonists.
Similarly to cricket, football, and field hockey; Rugby football, rugby was first introduced to the continent by the British. The sport was initially played in 1861 at Diocesan College but it quickly spread to the local population. The sport became popular among White Afrikaners after the first club outside of Cape Town had been created being in Stellenbosch. The expansion of European colonisation on the Cape towards the interior continued to increase the sports popularity.
Competitive swimming is also popular amongst white Africans. Such swimmers include Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, and Jason Dunford of Kenya.
See also
*Afro-European
*Asian Africans
*List of White Africans
*Muzungu
*White Aethiopians
*Languages of Africa
*White demographic decline
;Diaspora
*White people in Zambia
*White Namibians
*White Congolese
*White Ethiopians
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:White Africans Of European Origin
Ethnic groups in Africa
African people of European descent,
European colonisation of Africa
European diaspora in Africa,