Oude Ram Afrikaner (early 18th century in theTulbagh farmlands inSouth Africa – around 1760 inCape Town) was the leader of a clan that later became known as theOrlam Afrikaners, a sub-group of theOrlam. The clan consisted ofmixed-race descendants fromindigenousKhoikhoi and slaves fromMadagascar,India, andIndonesia. Members of this mixed race are today sometimes calledAfricanCreole people orCreole Africans, as well asColoureds.^[1]

The group around Oude Ram was the first to refer to themselves not as being from a specifictribe but to use the continental description,African.^[1] This is how Oude Ram and his descendants got the surnameAfrikaner, and their language the nameAfrikaans. Only much later in the second half of the 19th century did theCape Dutch adopt this attribution, too.^[2][3] The Khoi and mixed-race peoples became known, collectively, asColoureds,^[1] a term which was introduced by the British administration.^[4]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 theDutch East India Company. Subsequently, he and his sonAfrikaner Afrikaner were banned from theCape 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 ofRobben Island in 1761. He died there on 25 June 1777. His other son,Klaas, was exonerated and led the clan from the Cape Colony toSouth-West Africa in the 1770s.^[5]

Oude Ram Afrikaner was the first in the genealogy of the Orlam Afrikaners. After Oude Ram had died and his sonKlaas trekked with the clan to South-West Africa, the group dominated the area that today is centralNamibia for almost 100 years. This rule and domination started some time after Klaas Afrikaner and his sons moved toSouth-West Africa in the 1770s^[5] and founded the fortressǁKhauxaǃnas at the end of the 18th century,^[6] and it ended with the death ofChristian Afrikaner, Oude Ram's great grandson, in 1863.^[7]

• People from the Western Cape
• Coloureds
• 1700s births
• 1760s deaths

• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from March 2018
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Use South African English from May 2013
• All Wikipedia articles written in South African English
• Use dmy dates from December 2021