Colour, Confusion and Concessions

For more than 300 years Chinese have been part of the fascinating mix of people who make up the inhabitants of the southern tip of Africa. Too minuscule in number to warrant any serious historical attention, they were unknown and largely forgotten in the wider South African context. The intention behind this work is to fill a gap in available histories by producing the first comprehensive record of the Chinese in South Africa from the earliest times to the present. A key objective is to correct the widely held misconception that the present-day Chinese are descendants of the labourers contracted to work on the Reef gold mines at the turn of the century.