Their ancestry comes from the interracial mixing between the White, the indigenous Khoi and San, the Xhosa plus other Bantu people, labourers from South Asia, slaves imported from the Dutch East Indies, immigrants from the Levant or Yemen (or a combination of all).[3].

Recent studies of Cape Coloureds using genetic testing have found ancestry to vary by region.

[citation needed] Success in the spread of Catholicism among Afrikaans speakers, including Coloured communities, remained minimal until the death throes of Apartheid during the mid to late 1980s.

As Catholic texts began to be translated into Afrikaans, sympathetic Dutch Reformed pastors, who were defying the traditional anti-Catholicism of their Church, assisted in correcting linguistic errors.

By 1996, the majority of Afrikaans-speaking Catholics came from the Coloured community, with a smaller number of Afrikaner converts, most of whom were from professional backgrounds.

[19] Sunni Islam remains in practice among Cape Malays, who were generally regarded as a separate ethnoreligious group under apartheid.

[23] To a smaller extent, slaves were also imported from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Madagascar, Mauritius and elsewhere in Africa.

[31] Having conceived 3 mixed-race children, Krotoa was known as the mother that gave birth to the Coloured community in South Africa.

[38] These French refugees pioneered the vineyards of the Cape Winelands, turning it into one of the biggest wine producers in the world.

[39][40] Due to integration with the Dutch and other ethnic groups in the Cape, there are many Afrikaans surnames of French origin e.g.

[46][47] Due to integration with the Dutch and other ethnic groups in the Cape, there are many Afrikaans surnames of German origin e.g. Coetzee (from 'Kotze'), Pretorius, Booysen, Steenkamp, Kruger (from 'Krüger'), Botha, Venter, Cloete, Schoeman, Mulder, Kriel, Breytenbach, Engelbrecht, Potgieter, Maritz, Liebenberg, Fleischman, Weimers, and Schuster.

[56] However, from the 18th century until the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the territory of the Cape expanded gradually to the north and east.

[57] The expansion of the Dutch Cape Colony was mainly caused by the dry and infertile nature of its immediate interior, therefore farmers needed fertile land because farms could only be settled where there were springs to provide permanent water.

[61] The Wild Coast Region of the Eastern Cape (which stretches from the provincial border with Natal to East London and Port Alfred) is named after its wilderness and the stormy seas that caused thousands of shipwrecks.

Having no means to return home, most survivors remained permanently in the Eastern Cape and mixed with the Xhosa.

[72] In the early 1800s, the Griqua people left the Dutch Cape Colony and migrated to the North of the Karoo where they established Griqualand West.

[83] In 1888, Oromo slave children from Ethiopia (who were headed for Arabia) were rescued and freed by British troops.

[85] The late Dr Neville Alexander's grandmother, Bisho Jarsa, was a freed Oromo slave from Ethiopia.

[29][89][90][91] As a result, the Cape Coloureds ended up having the most diverse ancestry in the world with a blend of so many different cultures mixed together.

Patric Tariq Mellet, heritage activist and author of 'The Camissa Embrace' and co-creator of The Camissa Museum, has composed a vast online blog archive ('Camissa People') of heritage information concerning Coloured ancestry tracing to the Indigenous San and Khoe and Malagasy, East African, Indonesian, Indian, Bengal and Sri Lankan slaves.

[citation needed] The term "coloureds" is currently treated as a neutral description in Southern Africa, classifying people of mixed race ancestry.

The term is often used to demean and dehumanize Khoisan and coloured people, perpetuating harmful stereotypes and discrimination against them.

Later, it was used by European-descended South Africans to refer to black and coloured people during the apartheid era, and the term became associated with racism and oppression.