Between 19601994, according to statistics from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Inkatha Freedom Party was responsible for 4,500 deaths, South African Police 2,700, and the ANC about 1,300. George McCall Theal, "Discovery of diamonds and its consequences", in. Discover the meaning of the South African name on Ancestry. African Last Names Ba Bah Ballo Cisse Contee Conteh Diallo Fall Kone Mensah Ndiaye Nwosu Okafor Okeke Okoro Osei Owusu Sall Sane Sarr Sesay Sow Sy Toure Traore Turay Yeboah There are 54 countries, between 900 and 1,500 languages, and several thousand ethnic groups in Africa, according to Britannica. The Ibibio name Akpan means firstborn son. Like a window into their day-to-day life, South African census records can tell you where and how your ancestors worked, their level of education, veteran status, and more. While some maintained separateness, others were grouped into a category known as Coloureds, a multiracial ethnic group which includes people with shared ancestry from two or more of these groups: Khoisan, Bantu, English, Afrikaners, Austronesians, East Asians and South Asians. During the administration of President Jacob Zuma corruption in South Africa had also become a growing problem. In March 1858, after land disputes, cattle rustling and a series of raids and counter-raids, the Orange Free State declared war on the Basotho kingdom, which it failed to defeat. Leaders of the Communist Party of South Africa were mostly white. [36] This had the effect of forcing more of the Dutch colonists to move (or trek) away from British administrative reach. In 1854, it was granted its first locally elected legislature, the Cape Parliament. Search US census records for South African, View all South African immigration records, Do not sell or share my personal information. It has, however, been verified that 17,182 black people died mainly of diseases in the Cape concentration camps alone, but this figure is not accepted historically as a true reflection of the overall numbers. . Akpan. Abara - Origin: West African (Igbo). It means "leaves" (verb) in Swahili. [187][188] The Angolan army, in resisting what it perceived as a South African invasion, was supported by a combination of Cuban forces and PLAN and ANC guerrillas, all armed with weapons supplied by the Soviet Union. Large white South African diasporas, both English- and Afrikaans-speaking, sprouted in Australia, New Zealand, North America, and especially in the UK, to which around 550,000 South Africans emigrated. 37. [24], The British explorers David Livingstone and William Oswell, setting out from a mission station in the northern Cape Colony, are believed to have been the first white men to cross the Kalahari desert in 1849. Family Education is part of the Sandbox Learning family of educational reference sites for parents, teachers, and students. [153] The AWB leader Eugne Terre'Blanche was murdered by farm workers on 3 April 2010. "Disease and Society: VOC Cape Town, Its People, and the Smallpox Epidemics of 1713, 1755, and 1767," Kleio 27, This page was last edited on 27 February 2023, at 09:53. A series of battles ensued, in which Mzilikazi was eventually defeated. [93], The first diamond discoveries between 1866 and 1867 were alluvial, on the southern banks of the Orange River. BP Willan, "The South African Native Labour Contingent, 19161918". In 1878, Waterboer led an unsuccessful rebellion against the colonial authorities, for which he was arrested and briefly exiled.[76]. The death penalty was abolished, land reform and redistribution policies were introduced, and equitable labour laws legislated. [74], Although no formally surveyed boundaries existed, Griqua leader Nicolaas Waterboer claimed the diamond fields were situated on land belonging to the Griquas. [51] The farmers had invested large amounts of capital in slaves. 2. Ledwaba Southern African, South African, Zulu From Zulu meaning "rock". Over several hundred years, borders have been made, changed and broken, making family history difficult to trace. 3,481 st most common surname in the world and it is an alternative spelling of Naidu. Two German African colonies were occupied, either by South Africa alone or with significant South African assistance. [75] The Boer republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State also vied for ownership of the land, but Britain, being the preeminent force in the region, won control over the disputed territory. Eventually, in the 1830s, large numbers of Boers migrated in what came to be known as the Great Trek. [224], Migrant labour remained a fundamental aspect of the South African mining industry, which employed half a million mostly black miners. Information on our advertising guidelines can be found. Popular South African Surnames and Meanings Abara - This surname is of Igbo origin and it means "spirit." Adebisi - The meaning of this last name is "the king" and it is of Yoruba origin. It is also a given name in Kerala. The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. A majority of politically moderate Afrikaners were pragmatic and did not support the AWB's extremism. There are 3,000 census records available for the last name South African. In 1896, the German Kaiser Kaiser Wilhelm had enraged Britain by sending congratulations to Boer republican leader Paul Kruger after Kruger's commandos captured a column of British South Africa Company soldiers engaged in an armed incursion and abortive insurrection, known historically as the Jameson Raid, into Boer territory. [89] The country was subsequently named Basutoland and is presently named Lesotho. It has been estimated that the total number of British and colonial troops deployed in South Africa during the war outnumbered the population of the two Boer Republics by more than 150,000. [127], Dissatisfaction with British influence in the Union's affairs reached a climax in September 1914, when impoverished Boers, anti-British Boers and bitter-enders launched a rebellion. [22] Bantu-speaking communities reached southern Africa from the Congo basin as early as the 4th century BC. [240][241], The post-apartheid period has been marked by numerous outbreaks of xenophobic attacks against foreign migrants and asylum seekers from various conflict zones in Africa. [145], The early-1940s saw the pro-Nazi Ossewa Brandwag (OB) movement become half-a-million strong, including future prime minister John Vorster and Hendrik van den Bergh, the future head of police intelligence. [53] The republic, under the premiership of Paul Kruger, defeated British forces in the First Boer War and remained independent until the end of the Second Boer War on 31 May 1902, when it was forced to surrender to the British. [181][182][183], Between 1975 and 1988, the SADF continued to stage massive conventional raids into Angola and Zambia to eliminate PLAN's forward operating bases across the border from Namibia as well as provide support for UNITA. 30. Keita Origin: Malian Meaning: "Worshipper." Kimathi Origin: Kenyan Meaning: "Earnest provider." Bankole Origin: West African (Yoruba) Meaning: "Build my house for me." Gbeho Origin: Ghanaian Meaning: Unknown. [citation needed] Smuts was invited to the Imperial War Cabinet in 1939 as the most senior South African in favour of war. The precious metal that underpinned international trade would dominate South African exports for decades to come. 2. Meaning: 'Lion.' 3. Following the defeat of the Boers in the AngloBoer or South African War (18991902), the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire on 31 May 1910 in terms of the South Africa Act 1909, which amalgamated the four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Colony of Natal, Transvaal Colony, and Orange River Colony. [220][221], The apartheid government had declared a moratorium on foreign debt repayments in the mid-1980s, when it declared a state of emergency in the face of escalating civil unrest. 127. Germany's Ludwig Loewe company, later known as Deutsche Waffen-und Munitionfabriken, delivered 55,000 of these rifles to the Boers in 1896. Prinsloo is an Afrikaans surname. More than a decade later 36,000 Cuban troops were deployed throughout the country helping providing support for MPLA's fight with UNITA. Find your family's origin in the United States, average life expectancy, most common occupation, and more. Lesotho, South Africa Kolobe Wild Hog Free State Bagananwa/Bahananwa Sesotho sa Leboa: South Africa Tshwene Baboon Bahurutshe, Limpopo Bahlakoana Sesotho Lesotho, South Africa Free State, Koena, families descending from Disema and Molapo, second and third born sons of Napo a Koena. [67] Members of this mixed-race community formed the core of what was to become the Griqua people. Religion was a very important aspect of the settlers culture and the bible and church services were in Dutch. Guelke, Leonard (1976). At the start of the war, Bank of England officials in London worked with South Africa to block gold shipments to Germany, and force mine owners to sell only to the British Treasury, at prices set by the Treasury. [222] The debt was finally settled in September 2001. The Cape Colony was unusual in southern Africa in that its laws prohibited any discrimination on the basis of race and, unlike the Boer republics, elections were held according to the non-racial Cape Qualified Franchise system, whereby suffrage qualifications applied universally, regardless of race. 32. [97] No material benefits accrued to the Griquas as a result of either colonisation or annexation; they did not receive any share of the diamond wealth generated at Kimberley. [225] The migrant labour system was identified as a primary cause of the unrest. This did not prevent the outbreak of a Second AngloBoer war. The Freeman surname origin was from the person who was a freeman, one who was not a serf and thus had certain rights. Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa. The convention declared that apartheid was both unlawful and criminal because it violated the Charter of the United Nations. In a referendum held on 17 March 1992, the white electorate voted 68% in favour of democracy. Prosecutions before the courts of the Union of South Africa were instituted in the name of the Crown and government officials served in the name of the Crown. It translates as "of the roof". Barend-van Haeften, Marijke; Paasman, Bert: Delmas, Adrien, 'The Role of Writing in the First Steps of the Colony: A Short Enquiry in the Journal of Jan van Riebeeck, 16521662', in. However, there was competition for land, and this tension led to skirmishes in the form of cattle raids from 1779. Friction between the Griquas and the settlers over land rights resulted in British troops being sent to the region in 1845. [226], In 2014, around 47% of (mostly black) South Africans lived in poverty, making it one of the most unequal countries in the world. [133] The Mendi disaster was one of South Africa's worst tragedies of the Great War, second perhaps only to the Battle of Delville Wood. [169] [214] ANC icon Nelson Mandela, asserted in a statement released on 25 January 1990: "The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC, and a change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable. British policy with regard to South Africa would vacillate with successive governments, but the overarching imperative throughout the 19th century was to protect the strategic trade route to India while incurring as little expense as possible within the colony. [63], By 1860, with slavery having been abolished in 1834, and after the annexation of Natal as a British colony in 1843, the British colonists in Natal (now kwaZulu-Natal) turned to India to resolve a labour shortage, as men of the local Zulu warrior nation were refusing to work on the plantations and farms established by the colonists. [251] As of 18 July, over 3,400 people had been arrested, while as of 22 July, 337 people had died in connection with the unrest.[252]. Mannan is also a Muslim surname. Pro-apartheid South Africans attempted to justify the Bantustan policy by citing the British government's 1947 partition of India, which they claimed was a similar situation that did not arouse international condemnation. It pursued a very violent strategy known as "ungovernability", they killed thousands of opposition party, mostly members of Inkatha Freedom Party in some cases burning them alive, including rent boycotts, student protests, and strike campaigns. This list of 100 African girl names includes their meanings, variations, and countries of origin. The territory of the South African Republic became known after this war as the Transvaal Colony.[54]. [73], The original Griqualand, north of the Orange River, was annexed by Britain's Cape Colony and renamed Griqualand West after the discovery in 1871 of the world's richest deposit of diamonds at Kimberley, so named after the British Colonial Secretary, Earl Kimberley. Retief Afrikaans Afrikaans form of Rtif. The incident was widely criticised by the public, civil society organisations and religious leaders. These are the 10 most common African American surnames according to the 2000 census: Williams: Williams is a patronymic of English origin of someone with a forebear named William. 1. It authorised the forced evictions of thousands of African people from urban centres in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) to what became described colloquially as "Bantustans" or the "original homes", as they were officially referred to, of the black tribes of South Africa. He eventually surrendered to a combined deputation of Boer and British forces on 2 December 1879. The prehistory and history of South Africa span nearly the entire known existence of human beings and their ancestorssome three million years or moreand include the wandering of small bands of hominins through the savanna, the inception of herding and farming as ways of life, and the construction of large urban centres. Afrikaans, previously regarded as a low-level Dutch patois, replaced Dutch as an official language of the Union. [139][140], About 334,000 South Africans volunteered for full-time military service in support of the Allies abroad. This position was rejected by many rural Afrikaners who supported the Maritz Rebellion. Elements of the South African Army refused to fight against the Germans and along with other opponents of the government; they rose in an open revolt known as the Maritz Rebellion. The establishment of the staging post by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652 soon brought the Khoikhoi into conflict with Dutch settlers over land ownership. [243] South Africa received more than 207,000 individual asylum applications in 2008 and a further 222,300 in 2009, representing nearly a four-fold rise in both years over the levels seen in 2007. Use census records and voter lists to see where families with the South African surname lived. Coetzee ( Afrikaans: [kutsi]) is an Afrikaans surname. [61], Indian slaves from the Dutch colonies in India had been introduced into the Cape area of South Africa by the Dutch settlers in 1654. As punishment to the Basotho, the governor and commander-in-chief of the Cape Colony, George Cathcart, deployed troops to the Mohokare River; Moshoeshoe was ordered to pay a fine. [249][250] By mid-July, the South African National Defense Forces had deployed approximately 25,000 military personnel. Mokopane and his followers, anticipating retaliation by the settlers, retreated into the mountain caves known as Gwasa, (or Makapansgat in Afrikaans). Abara (Igbo origin) meaning "spirit". When the war ended, Smuts represented South Africa in San Francisco at the drafting of the United Nations Charter in May 1945. The rebel leaders were prosecuted, fined heavily and sentenced to imprisonment ranging from six to seven years. Social Security Death Index (SSDI) for South African, Browse profiles of historical people with the South African last name, This page needs Javascript enabled in order to work properly. [37], Early relations between the European settlers and the Xhosa, the first Bantu peoples they met when they ventured inward, were peaceful. [211] As the culmination of mounting local and international opposition to apartheid in the 1980s, including the armed struggle, widespread civil unrest, economic and cultural sanctions by the international community, and pressure from the anti-apartheid movement around the world, State President F. W. de Klerk announced the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party, as well as the release of political prisoner Nelson Mandela on 2 February 1990, after twenty-seven years in prison. [3], European exploration of the African coast began in the 13th century when Portugal committed itself to discover an alternative route to the silk road that would lead to China. The uprising spread throughout the country. It caused the consolidation of groups such as the Matebele, the Mfengu and the Makololo. 4. Ababio - Origin: Ghanaian. [199] From the 1960s onwards until 1989, MK carried out numerous acts of sabotage and attacks on military and police personnel. [167] The attacks were then falsely attributed by the government to "black-on-black" or factional violence within the communities. Information department, Government of Lesotho. Finding and extracting the deposits far below the ground called for the capital and engineering skills that would soon result in the deep-level mines of the Witwatersrand producing a quarter of the world's gold, with the "instant city" of Johannesburg arising astride the main Witwatersrand gold reef. The Cape nonetheless remained nominally part of the British Empire, even though it was self-governing in practice. Abebe - Origin: Ethiopian. The republic regained its independence as the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek ("South African Republic"), or ZAR. In 2015, the discovery near Johannesburg of a previously unknown species of Homo was announced, named Homo naledi. [244], Civil unrest occurred in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces in July 2021, sparked by the imprisonment of former President Jacob Zuma for contempt of court, after he declined to testify at the Zondo Commission, an inquiry into allegations of corruption during his term as president from 2009 to 2018. The VOC, one of the major European trading houses sailing the spice route to the East, had no intention of colonizing the area, instead wanting only to establish a secure base camp where passing ships could be serviced and restock on supplies. 25,000 Black South Africans were recruited at the request of the British War Cabinet to serve as non-combatant labourers in the South African Native Labour Contingent (SANLC). With a population of roughly 6 million, between 19141918, over 250,000 South Africans of all races voluntarily served their country. The British, who at that time controlled the area between the Orange and Vaal Rivers called the Orange River Sovereignty, decided a discernible boundary was necessary and proclaimed a line named the Warden Line, dividing the area between British and Basotho territories. "[201], The national liberation movement was divided in the early 1960s when an "Africanist" faction within the ANC objected to an alliance between the ANC and the Communist Party of South Africa. [23] The advancing Bantu encroached on the Khoikhoi territory, forcing the original inhabitants of the region to move to more arid areas. [4] The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in Cape Town under the command of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652,[5] European workers who settled at the Cape became known as the Free Burghers and gradually established farms in the Dutch Cape Colony.[6]. By that time, more than 2,000,000 children were orphaned due to the epidemic. [110], Of the leading 25 foreign industrialists who were instrumental in opening up deep level mining operations at the Witwatersrand gold fields, 15 were Jewish, 11 of the total were from Germany or Austria, and nine of that latter category were also Jewish. [citation needed], The TRC, at the conclusion of its mandate in 2004, handed over a list of 300 names of alleged perpetrators to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for investigation and prosecution by the NPA's Priority Crimes Litigation Unit.