From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ethnic European minority group in Africa
Ethnic group
German South Africans
refers to South Africans who have full or partial
German
heritage.
A significant number of South Africans are descended from Germans. Most of these originally settled in the Cape Colony, but were absorbed into the
Afrikaner
and Afrikaans population, because they had religious and ethnic similarities to the Dutch and French. Later German migrants, especially during the
Witwatersrand Gold Rush
and the Natal German settlers of the 19th century, were integrated into English-speaking communities of
Gauteng
and
Kwa-Zulu Natal
.
History
[
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]
Hundreds of Germans emigrated to the
Cape Colony
during the Dutch rule between (1652?1806) and in the succeeding centuries. In 1652 the
Dutch East India Company's
established a supplies station at the
Cape of Good Hope
under the command of
Jan van Riebeeck
. The party was made up of 90 settlers, most of them were Dutch & a number of people were from Germany.
[1]
In the 1680s, more German farmers and women arrived at
Cape Colony
. In 1691, the population was 1000
Europeans
especially
Dutch
(85%), German (5%) &
Huguenots
(10%) and 400 slaves. From this point onwards the white population increased to about 1300 by the year 1700. About 4000 Germans immigrated to the Cape during the Dutch period, almost all of them males. They came from all German-speaking areas of Europe. The Germans who arrived at the Cape in the seventeenth century were not emigrants but worked for the Dutch East India Company, perhaps initially in Holland, and then were sent to the Cape. Similarly in 19th century a lot of Germans came to the region on missionary purposes and settled in the region, followed by British assisted emigration of Germans to the Eastern cape region further boosted their population.
Natal German settlers: 1848
[
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]
A group of German settlers came to Natal in March 1848 on the ship Beta, under a private scheme arranged by a German Jewish businessman Jonas Bergtheil.
[2]
[3]
He arrived in Natal in 1843 and established the Natal Cotton Company three years later.
[4]
Bergtheil saw the potential of European settlement along the coast and approached the British colonial office for immigrants. When first the British and then the Bavarian governments rejected his plans, he turned to the Kingdom of Hanover for support. Thirty-five peasant families (about 188 people) from the Osnabruck-Bremen district accepted his offer and arrived in Natal on 23 March 1848. They were settled near Port Natal and called their new home Neu-Deutschland (
New Germany
).
Bergtheil's cotton scheme failed after the first two crops were ravaged by bollworm. Furthermore, the ginning machinery he had ordered from England never arrived. The settlers soon abandoned cotton in favour of market gardening, and when their five-year contracts with Bergtheil ended many did not renew them. The initial years were a struggle for the settlers but gradually, with hard work, conditions improved. After about 10 years most had prospered and had been able to take ownership of their lands.
Germans in South Africa
[
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]
- Rudi Ball
(1911?1975), German-South African Hall of Fame ice hockey player
- Helen Zille
(1951?present), Politician
- Harry Schwarz
(1924?2010), Activist
- Debbie Schafer
(1966?present), Politician
- James Barry Munnik Hertzog
(1866?1942), Politician
- Karl Wilhelm Posselt
(1815?1885), German missionary
- Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Pappe
(1803?1862), Physician and botanist
- Karl Ludwig Philipp Zeyher
(1799?1858), botanist and insect collector
- Johann Franz Drege
(1794?1881), botanist
- Baron von Ludwig
(1784?1847), pharmacist and businessman
- Christian Ferdinand Friedrich Krauss
(1812?1890), scientist and traveler
- Olaf Kolzig
(1970-Present), NHL Goaltender for the
Washington Capitals
and
Tampa Bay Lightning
from 1989-2009.
See also
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References
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Africa
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Historical
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Diaspora
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Northern Europe
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Western Europe
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Multinational dimension
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Americas
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Africa
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Oceania
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