A member of the White Afrikaans‐speaking population of South Africa. The term is used particularly to refer to the descendants of the families that emigrated from the Netherlands, Germany, and France before 1806, that is, before Britain seized the Cape Colony. Most Afrikaners follow the Christian Calvinist tradition, which, through the belief that salvation is only possible for a predetermined group of people and cannot be gained by any other individual, even by leading a religious life, contributed to the concept of apartheid.