White Africans of European ancestry
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 5,200,000 - 7,000,000 *Figure not include Europeans living in European provinces or dependencies (Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla, Réunion, Saint Helena) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 South Africa | 4,360,000 - 5,687,000 |
 Angola | 120,000 |
 Namibia | 115,000 - 230,000 |
 Morocco | 100,000 |
 Tunisia | 100,000 |
 Zimbabwe | 60,000 - 85,000 |
 Mozambique | 50,000 |
 Botswana | 50,000 |
 Senegal | 50,000 |
 Kenya | 30,000 |
| All other areas | 138,000 - 445,000 |
| Languages | |
| English, Afrikaans, Portuguese, French, Spanish, and others | |
| Religion | |
| Predominantly Christian; minorities practicing Judaism, Islam, or no religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Dutch, British, French, Portuguese, Italian¸ Spanish¸ German, White Americans, White Brazilians, White New Zealanders, White Latin Americans, Jews | |
European African people are descendants of Europeans who settled on the continent of Africa under colonial rule. (Known in Shona as the Mukiwa, in Nguni languages as abeLungu and Mzungu in Swahili) These individuals are mostly of Dutch, British, French, Portuguese, and to a lesser extent Italian, Greek, Belgian, Spanish, and German ancestry. Prior to the decolonisation movements of the post-WWII era, European Africans numbered at least 10 million persons and were represented in every part of Africa, however many left during and after black African independence movements. Nevertheless, European Africans remain as tenuous minorities in many majority black states. The African country with the largest European African population is South Africa, at approximately 4.4 million. Although European Africans no longer rule various African nations, many have remained as permanent residents and may hold a substantial ownership of the economy and land in specific regions or countries.
Dutch people in Africa
Dutch settlement, under the Dutch East India Company, began in the Cape of Good Hope (present-day Cape Town) in southern Africa in 1652, making it the oldest European culture in Sub-Saharan Africa. By the late nineteenth century, the descendants of the Dutch (known as Afrikaners) had crossed the Limpopo river into Mashonaland, now part of Zimbabwe. In the early 1900s following the Anglo-Boer War, large numbers of Afrikaners travelled north to British East Africa and settled in what is now Kenya and Tanzania, as well as in Angola. Following the Mau Mau insurgency and general collapse of colonial authorities in the decades after the Second World War, Afrikaner colonies outside South Africa and Namibia diminished in size and the majority of settlers and their descendants returned to South Africa.
British people in Africa
Template:White African residence map Although there were small British settlements along the West African coast from the 1700s onwards, mostly devoted to the commerce of the slave trade, British settlement in Africa began in earnest only at the end of the eighteenth century, in the Cape of Good Hope. It gained momentum following British annexation of the Cape from the Dutch East India Company, and the subsequent encouragement of settlers in the Eastern Cape in an effort to consolidate the colony's eastern border.
In the late nineteenth century the discovery of gold and diamonds further encouraged colonisation of South Africa by the British. The search for gold drove expansion north into the Rhodesias (now Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi). Simultaneously, British settlers began expansion into the fertile uplands (often called the "White Highlands") of British East Africa (now Kenya and Tanzania). Most of these settlements were not planned by the British government with many colonial officials concluding they upset the balance of power in the region and left overall imperial interests vulnerable. Cecil Rhodes utilized his wealth and connections towards organizing this ad hoc movement and settlement into a grand imperial policy. This policy had as it's general aim the securing of a Cairo to Cape Town railway system, and settling the upper highlands of East Africa and the whole of Southern Africa south of the Zambezi with British colonies in a manner akin to that of North America and Australasia.
However, prioritization of British power around the globe in the years before the First World War, initially reduced the resources appropriated toward settlement. The First World War and subsequent Great Depression and the general decline of British and European birthrates further hobbled the expected settler numbers. Nonetheless, thousands of colonists arrived each year during the decades preceeding WWII. Despite a general change in British policy against supporting the establishment of European settlements in Africa, and a slow abandonment in the overall British ruling and common classes for a separate and exclusivist European identity, large colonial appendages of European separatist supporters of the British Empire 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 and the abandonment of colonial positions in the face of American and Soviet pressure, the vestigial remnants of Cecil Rhodes' vision was abruptly ended, leaving British settlers 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 and Commonwealth. The result was a series of wars which eventually led to the utter destruction of the British settlements. Several thousand were murdered, tens of thousands driven off their lands and property, with the majority of those remaining quickly being intimidated and threatened in a low grade genocidal campaign which extinguished most of the remaining settlements. In all, over 2,000,000 European Africans of mostly British descent were killed, pushed out, deported or went into exile from the original British colonies. Nonetheless, in all of these areas, a number of well connected extremely wealthy settlers remained to live following independence and the introduction of black rule in the second half of the twentieth century.
British Africans also live in Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia, and Uganda.
French people in Africa
- See also French rule in Algeria and Pieds noirs
Large numbers of French people settled in French North Africa from the 1840s onwards. By the end of French rule in 1960 there were over one million French Algerians of European origin (known as pieds noirs, or "black feet") living in Algeria [1]. No other region of the French African colonial empire attracted similar settlement, although there is still a comparatively large European population living in the former West African colony of Senegal, which has largest French African population in sub-Saharan Africa. There is also an important white minority in Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, and Togo.
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 banned and the Huguenot settlers were entirely absorbed into Afrikaans culture. However, this early contact can be seen clearly in the names of historic towns, such as Franschoek in the Western Cape (meaning "French Corner") and in the surnames of many Afrikaners, such as Theron, Du Plessis etc.
Portuguese people in Africa
The first Portuguese settlements in Africa were built in the sixteenth century. In the late seventeenth century much of Mozambique was divided into prazos, or agricultural estates, which were settled by Portuguese families. In the early twentieth century the Portuguese government encouraged European emigration to Angola and Mozambique, and by the 1960s there were around 500,000 Portuguese settlers living in their overseas African provinces, and a substantial Portuguese population living in other African countries. Many Portuguese settlers returned to Portugal (the term History_of_Portugal#Retornadosretornados) as the country's African possessions gained independence in the 1970s, while others moved south to South Africa, which now has the largest Portuguese-African population. The new Portuguese settlers, who will increase Portuguese-language fluency in Angola and especially Mozambique and their other former African provinces, may increase the original population there if making those countries their permanent home, and may also improve the economy of those countries, especially Mozambican metical has a large value converted from Euro.
Other European African Groups
Smaller European African groups also settled parts of Africa. These include Spanish in Equatorial Guinea, Western Sahara, Morocco, Ceuta, and Melilla; Italians in Libya, Eritrea, eastern Somalia, and South Africa; Germans in Namibia and South Africa; and Belgians in Democratic Republic of Congo, and Lithuanians in South Africa; and Lebanese Maronite Christians in South Africa.
Armenians and Greeks 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.
Current Populations (2005 est. From CIA)
European Population by Country
- South Africa: 4,465,300 (as of July 2006)
- Namibia: 120,000
- Zambia: 120,000
- Côte D'Ivoire: 20,000
- Angola: 120,000
- Zimbabwe: 56,743 (The 2002 census)
- Mozambique: 50,000
- Senegal: 50,000
- Botswana: 40,000
- Equatorial Guinea: 25,000
- Kenya: 20,000
- Gabon: 20,000
- Tanzania: 5,000
- Other African nations: 30,000
Total: Approximately 5,950,000
Note on South Africa: Many European African people live in tight private, gated neighborhoods, or farms, and did not receive or return a census form. So the white South African population may be undercounted. At this same time a force of 100,000 temporary employees tracked down nearly every legal black resident, although it is believed 3 to 5 million illegal or unregistered black people are also in the country. A more accurate estimate may be that 12% of South Africa's population is white. In addition, it is estimated that between 1 and 2 million white South Africans live abroad and so the total number could be closer to 6 million, if one were to count the global and home White South African community.
The European African population of Zimbabwe was much higher in the 1960s (when the country was known as Rhodesia), when it was 270 000 at its highest. After the introduction of majority rule in 1980 many white people left the country.
Languages
European Africans generally speak European languages as their first languages (English, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish, and Afrikaans, derived from Dutch); some also speak major native African languages.