Oude Ram Afrikaner

Who is Oude Ram Afrikaner?

Oude Ram Afrikaner was the leader of a clan that later became known as the Orlam Afrikaners, a sub-group of the Orlam. The clan consisted of mixed-race descendants from indigenous Khoikhoi and slaves from Madagascar, India, and Indonesia. Members of this mixed race are today sometimes called African Creole people or Creole Africans, as well as Coloureds.

The group around Oude Ram was the first to refer to themselves not as being from a specific tribe but to use the continental description, African. This is how Oude Ram and his descendants got the surname Afrikaner, and their language the name Afrikaans. Only much later in the second half of the 19th century did the Cape Dutch adopt this attribution, too. The Khoi and mixed-race peoples became known, collectively, as Coloureds, a term which was introduced by the British administration. There is not much known about the biography of Oude Ram and the Orlams' pre-1760 history. It is documented that his clan came in conflict with the Dutch East India Company. Subsequently he and his son Afrikaner Afrikaner were banned from the Cape Colony and sentenced to life in prison. While Oude Ram probably died soon after the conviction, his son Afrikaner became one of the first prisoners of Robben Island in 1761. He died there on 25 June 1777. His other son, Klaas, was exonerated and led the clan from the Cape Colony to South-West Africa in the 1770s.