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Roots. In 1652 the first Dutch settlers arrived at an area adjacent to the Cape of Good Hope occupied by Khoikhoi (Hottentot) clans. French Huguenots later joined the Dutch, and by the 18th century most Khoikhoi had lost their lands to these European settlers. The colonists, mostly farmers and cattle herders, became known as Boers, and soon developed their own distinctive culture and language (Afrikaans). The British took the Cape Colony from the Dutch in 1795, and after a period from 1803 to 1806 when the Dutch won it back, kept control of the Cape until 1910. After 1820 thousands of British colonists arrived in South Africa, and they demanded that English law be imposed. Clashes between the British coastal colonies and the inland states established by the Boers culminated in the Boer War (1899-1902), in which British authority was extended over the Afrikaners. In 1910, the four areas of the country (the Orange Free State, the Cape, Natal, and the Transvaal) were united as the Union of South Africa of the British Empire. An uneasy power-sharing between the English-speakers and the Boers (who now called themselves Afrikaners to show their roots and love for Africa) held sway until the 1940s, when the Afrikaner N