1. Contrary to international usage, in South Africa the term ‘coloured’ does not refer to black people in general. It instead alludes to a phenotypically diverse group of people descended largely from Cape slaves, indigenous Khoisan peoples and other blacks who had been assimilated into Cape colonial society by the late nineteenth century. Being also partly descended from European settlers, coloureds are popularly regarded as being of ‘mixed race’ and hold an intermediate status in the South African racial hierarchy, distinct from the dominant white minority and the numerically preponderant African population
2. This biblically derived justification for the enslavement of Africans and the racial oppression of blacks is based on the curse that Noah is supposed to have placed on the descendants of his son, Ham, for having observed him naked. According to the myth, Noah's curse damned Ham's descendants to be the servants of the offspring of his other sons, Shem and Japheth. In their dispersal over the earth after the flood Ham's descendants, as a consequence, were believed to have degenerated into barbarism and savagery and to have lost their awareness of God
3. Marais, J. S. 1968.The Cape Coloured People, 1652–19371–31. Johannesburg For some examples, see; H. Cruse,Die Opheffing van die Kleurlingbevolking(Stellenbosch, 1947), 9–25; F.A. van Jaarsveld,Van van Riebeeck tot Verwoerd, 1652–1966(Johannesburg, 1971), 29–31