03/05/2026
The real Afrikaners were never white.
The real Afrikaners were a clan of the Oorlam people consisting of mixed-race descendants of indigenous Khoikhoi, Europeans and slaves from Mozambique, Madagascar, India and Indonesia. They were known for horsemanship, rifled weaponry, and semi-nomadic herding.
It was only much later in the second half of the 19th century when the European Cape Dutch stole this identity and language to try and give themselves some kind of legitimate claim to African land. THEY ARE NOT THE REAL AFRIKANERS. In fact, early Boers often resisted being associated with this term.
The picture attached is of Jan Jonker Afrikaner (born in 1820). His father was Jonker Afrikaner. His father was Jager Afrikaner. His father was Klaas Afrikaner. His father was Oude Ram Afrikaner (born early 1700s).
Oude Ram and his clan were the first to use the continental description, Afrikaner. This is how Oude Ram and his descendants got the surname Afrikaner, and their language Afrikaans.
In the face of gradual Boer expansion, Jonker Afrikaner (born 1785) brought his people into Namaqualand. His group's access to guns via Cape ivory and ostrich feather trade enabled dominance over less-armed locals.
By the early 1800s, Orlam influx had introduced European-influenced tactics and technologies, altering regional power dynamics and facilitating further pe*******on into the interior.
By the mid-19th century, they had become a formidable force for Oorlam domination over the Nama and against the Bantu-speaking Hereros for a period.
A phase of unification culminated around 1830 in a balance of power with Nama chiefs, where Jonker integrated Orlam and Nama elements under his command, creating a de facto sovereign entity in central and southern Namibia through shared access to resources and mutual defense against Herero incursions.
By the early 1840s, these efforts had solidified Jonker's rule, with the clan numbering core Orlam members augmented by subject Herero and Damara populations, laying the groundwork for further territorial control.
The 1900s saw the Boers stealing this Afrikaner identity as their own. Following defeat by the British in 1902, they saw a need for a unified political identity to regain power and independence. So, throughout the early 20th century, and especially with the rise of the National Party, the "Boer" identity was assimilated into a broader "Afrikaner" national identity.
This was a conscious effort to establish a local connection to the African continent. The adoption of Afrikaans (rather than High Dutch) as the official language in 1925, and the growth of cultural institutions (like The Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations (FAK)) helped consolidate this new, broader stolen identity.
SOURCES: J. D. Omer-Cooper, History of Southern Africa (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1987), 263; Nigel Penn, "Drosters of the Bokkeveld and the Roggeveld, 1770–1800," in Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labor on the Dutch Frontier, ed. Elizabeth A. Eldredge and Fred Morton (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 42; Martin Legassick, "The Northern Frontier to ca. 1840: The rise and decline of the Griqua people," in The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1840, ed. Richard Elphick & Hermann Giliomee (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan U. Press, 1988), 373–74.
