Boers

Boers ( BOORZ; Afrikaans: Boere; [ˈbuːrə]) are the descendants of the proto Afrikaans-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled the Dutch Cape Colony, which the United Kingdom incorporated into the British Empire in 1806. The name of the group is derived from Trekbœr then later "boer", which means "farmer" in Dutch and Afrikaans. In addition, the term Boeren also applied to those who left the Cape Colony during the 19th century to colonise the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal (together known as the Boer Republics), and to a lesser extent Natal. They emigrated from the Cape to live beyond the reach of the British colonial administration, with their reasons for doing so primarily being the new Anglophone common law system being introduced into the Cape and the British abolition of slavery in 1833. The term Afrikaners or Afrikaans people is generally used in modern-day South Africa for the white Afrikaans-speaking population of South Africa (the largest group of White South Africans) encompassing the descendants of both the Boers, and the Cape Dutch who did not embark on the Great Trek. According to a genetic study, 4.7% of their DNA is of non-European origin. 1.3% being Khoisan, 1.7% from South Asia, slightly less than 1% from East Asia and 0.8% from East and West Africa.