Kaffir

The term Kaffir (and variations of it such as Caffir in some instances; or Kaffer in Dutch and Afrikaans) was the name used by the Dutch settlers in the mid 17th century, to refer to black people, notably people of African or Bantu origin.

Today the term is seen as possibly the most virulently spurned term of racial abuse in the country, a South African equivalent of the American nigger.

The term was later replaced by such more neutral terms as Native and Non-European under British and Apartheid rule, but by the 1980's all such the terms were seen as highly derogatory and replaced by the term black as opposed to white.

The terms are not only found in numerous books, novels, poems and plays from the 18th to the 20th century, a number of them classic works, but also in the names of plants, places, and so on.