I can only say thank you, even though it doesn’t seem enough.

There Boers have very few actual Dutch roots because [ as the intrepid Dutch born South African journalist Adriana Stuijt discovered [2] during her research into the topic in northern Europe ] the Dutch designation was arbitrarily applied by historians to the folks the VOC pulled out of northern Europe because they were in fact mostly of Frisian origin as the Dutch were in fact the OPPRESSORS of the Boer people & even of their ancestors as well. Furthermore the Canadian professor Wallace Mills notes [3] that the VOC often took folks of German ethnic origin out of Europe & dumped them at the Cape. The French Huguenots who were sent out about 35 years later [ the first French Huguenot Francois Villion ( now spelled Viljoen ) came out in 1671 ] who were soon absorbed into the various White Afrikaans [ the language ( die taal ) developed early on but was not formally called Afrikaans until the late 19th cent first by the Cape Dutch at a time when the Boers still referred to it as die taal or Boeretaal ] speaking population & account for close to 25 % of the ethnic roots of the macro White Afrikaans population. [4] Furthermore: there is strong evidence which suggests that the Boers could be mostly of German origin as most of the Germans who arrived during the 1700s settled STRAIGHT into the north eastern Cape frontier: the region where the Boer people developed. Therefore the Cape Dutch of the southern / western Cape would likely have a larger segment of the Dutch roots. Now some ignorant Westerners like to claim that they are of Dutch origin because the names are “all Dutch” BUT what they overlook is that due to the fact that the Cape was run by the Dutch administered VOC: that their names were simply spelled after a Dutch spelling thereby often obscuring the true ethnic origin of the names. Even numerous French names were also respelled to a Dutch spelling: like Villion to Viljoen as I pointed out as well as Gauch to Gouws / Le Long to De Lange / Cronier to Cronjé / Jourdan to Jordaan / Pinard to Pienaar etc. Though numerous other French names retained their original spelling like Joubert / Malan / Vivier / Du Plessis / Du Toit / Nel / Naudé / Malherbe / Roux etc. A number of arrivals did not even have proper surnames & were then given surnames by the VOC after the towns the VOC took them from ie: van Rensburg / van Tonder.

There are numerous individuals with French names in this article: Piet Retief [ from: Retif ] / Sarel Cilliers [ from: Celliers ] Hans De Lange [ from: Le Long ] & Phillip Fourie [ retained original French spelling. ] I point this out to further demonstrate the non-Dutch origins of the Boer people because few Westerners will ever look beyond the superficial spelling of names & form an erroneous presumption based on such incomplete data.

This event entered into the Boer psyche & was commemorated with a national holiday in the Transvaal Republic (ZAR) but was not part of Afrikaner consciousness until AFTER the Afrikaner appropriation of Boer history during the decades following the aftermath of the Anglo-Boer War when they inherited the macro State of South Africa due to their larger numbers over the Boer population.

The language spoken in Southern Africa was not Dutch & never was as it was derived from a High Dutch / Low German dialect called Frankonish [5] which was incredibly influenced by Malay as well as significantly influenced by French / Portuguese / Khoi & other influences.

The Boer people are not Europeans & have never regarded themselves as such [6] as they are & have always been an African people. Claiming that the indigenous Boers are part of European civilization was one dimensional un-insightful limited perspective Afrikaner Nationalist propaganda which was aimed at getting the Boers to FORGET about their distinct African identity & to co-opt them under the more European influenced Cape Dutch descended Afrikaners because the Boers were shaped by & on Africa developing their OWN customs: some of which were of European origin BUT also adopting African customs [ ie: such as food & water storage / housing / clothing during their formative years when they were nomadic pastoralists trekking inland ] as well or even developing new customs on African soil.

The Battle of Blood River was commemorated as a national holiday stating in 1865 in the old ZAR / Transvaal Republic LONG before the South African government of the Afrikaners USURPED & appropriated the date as part of their efforts at subjugating the actual Boer Nation.

Professor Wallace Mills as well as the Encyclopaedia Britannica both note that most of the frontier Boers did not own slaves. [7] The only reason Piet Retief made this grievance part of his famous Manifesto was because he was trying to get the support of the Cape Dutch: many of whom were slave owners but as history has shown: he did not get their support & many were unsupportive of the Boers desire to trek north.

The first Boer Republic was not the Natalia Republic. The Natalia Republic was the FOURTH Boer Republic. The First Boer Republic was set up at Graaff-Reinet back in 1795 when some of the frontier Boers rebelled against Dutch rule. The town of Swellendam was the second Boer Republic when it was proclaimed a republic about half a year later in 1795. The third Boer Republic was the republic Hendrik Potgieter set up at Winburg in 1837. This area would later be joined with Potchefstroom as the Winburg-Potcefstroom Republic until Potchefstroom became part of the fledgling Transvaal Republic / South African Republic & when Winburg became the northern part of the Orange Free State Republic.

Notes.

1. Afrikaans as a lingua franca in South Africa.

Quote: [ Afrikaans has been a lingua franca throughout its existence. ]

2. Adriana Stuijt from post at Stop Boer Genocide.

Quote: [ The first settlers from Europe at the Cape of Good Hope were not "Hollanders" as you describe them today - on the contrary, most of these workers indeed even spoke with completely different accents than their elitist masters who came from the trading city of Culemborg, Antwerp and Amsterdam.

The Dutch VOC company settlement was not a government enterprise, it was never a formal "Dutch government settlement", instead it was a private commercial enterprise which was owned by elitist Dutch and Flemish investors: in fact it was the first such private shareholder-company in the world and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange grew from this first capitalist venture.

However the crew the VOC brought along to work in the gardens were, for the most part, except for their famous botanist Wageningen, indentured farm boys from the entire trading region of northern Europe: people who spoke an earlier version of what is called Fresian today and who lived all along the Northern-European coastline, skilled farmers who spread their wings even into the baltic regions. These hardly were what was later described in the formal version of the Afrikaner Broederbond's history as "volunteers-workers who keenly signed on for this new adventure".

These workers instead were what the Marxists today would have termed "unpaid peasants" -- and they came from Denmark, North Germany, even as far afield as the Germanic-speaking regions of the Baltic, whereever the VOC traded. ]

3. Wallace Mills. Peoples of South Africa.

Quote: [ VOC servants (they signed on for long terms, often 20 years) were recruited from various parts of Europe, especially Germany; they were very rough. ]

4. The Contribution of the French Huguenots in South Africa.

Quote: [ The legacy of the Huguenots was however far reaching. Today thousands of their proud descendants carry with dignity surnames of which the spelling is unchanged from the original, such as De Villiers, Malan, Du Toit, Du Plessis, Du Preez and Malherbe; the spelling of others were localised, such as Viljoen, Cronjé, Pienaar, Retief and Senekal. Certain first names which the Huguenots brought with them are poplular amongst their descendants, especially male christian names such as Francois, Pierre, Etienne, Jacques and Louis. Research has shown that the contribution of the Huguenot genes to the Afrikaner people amounts to some 24%. Their descendants are proud of ancestors who sacrificed a great deal - even their country of birth - and were willing to suffer personally for their religious convictions. ]

5. A M De Lange.

Quote: [ The first colonizers at the Cape in South Africa from the Netherlands in the 1650's consisted of HOIK company officials who were well versed in High Dutch and settlers of whom the majority spoke, SUPPOSEDLY only Frankonish with its many dialects. ]

6. The Concentration Camps.

Quote: [ No Boer ever regarded himself as a "European". ] From: Hennie Barnard.

——

Quote: [ Is George W Bush of Irish descent(?) not an American in the same vein as Chief Sitting Bull in Arizona? Why then are Whites in South Africa not referred to as Africans!!! The Whites, and then the Afrikaans-speaking Whites are nothing other than a people (= Volk) similar to the Venda, Xhosa and Griqua peoples. The difference being language and ethnicity. ] From: C J Kruger.

7. The Great Trek. Wallace Mills.

Quote: [ - Retief’s so-called manifesto has too often been accepted uncritically and without analysis of context. Not all the assertions can be accepted at face value. It must be analysed carefully and critically.

- for example, the complaint about the abolition of slavery and the process of compensation for a long time went unexamined and was repeated innumerable times as a factor in the trek (by both friends and critics).

-however, investigation revealed that slavery was not common in the eastern frontier areas from which almost all the Voortrekkers came. ]

This is a long post but I hope it clarifies things.

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