South Africa

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South Africa

• A case study in Africa, the people who live there

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Located at the Southern tip of Africa, the area
that would become known as the country of South
Africa originally attracted European settlers as
a refueling station because of its strategic
location along the trade routes between Europe
and Asia.
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The arrival of the Dutch
The first colonists in South Africa were from
Holland. Very similar to the Pilgrims who
settled in America the Boers (or Afrikanners) as
they called themselves came to South Africa to
begin a new life of religious freedom. When they
arrived at the Cape the Boers found the native
Khoisan living and farming in the area.
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The leader of the Dutch was a man named Jan Van
Riebeeck. In 1660, in a gesture that takes on
awful symbolism, van Riebeeck planted a
bitter-almond hedge to separate the Khoisan and
the Europeans. It ran around the western foot of
Table Mountain down to Table Bay The hedge may
have protected the 120 Europeans but, having
excluded the Khoisan, the settlement suffered a
chronic labor shortage. In another wonderfully
perverse move, van Riebeeck proceeded to import
slaves from Madagascar, India, Ceylon, Malaya and
Indonesia.
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The population of South Africa continued to grow
in the Cape and new immigrants pushed out beyond
the almond hedge. Conflicts between the new
arrivals and the Khoisan led to violence and the
Dutch through their superior weapons proceeded to
annihilate the Khoisan. The survivors became
slaves and dependent on the Dutch.
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The Arrival of the British
Dutch power was fading by the end of the 18th
century and in response to the Napoleonic Wars,
the British decided to secure the Cape. The
British defeated the Dutch and the colony was
permanently ceded to the England in 1814. Cape
Towns economy benefited from the British
takeover, as the British allowed free trade. The
slave trade was abolished and the remaining
Khoisan were finally given the protection of the
law in 1828.
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The Great Trek
Unhappy with British rule the colonies Dutch
inhabitants moved out north.
The Boers were primarily upset with equality
being grated to South Africas black population
by the English.
As the Dutch moved the encountered more problems
with their new African neighbors the Xhosa and
the Zulu.
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Colonial Wars
The British and the Dutch and the native Africans
fought many battles for control of the interior
of South Africa between the time of the Great
Trek and the outbreak of World War I. However it
was the discovery of Diamonds and Gold that
caused the most conflict. Eventually the
superiority of the British military settled the
issue and the whole of South Africa became a
British colony. The Boers and the British grew
wealthy as mining replaced raising cattle as the
colonys dominant industry.
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The Union of South Africa
Soon after the Union of South Africa was
established in 1910, a barrage of racist
legislation was passed restricting black's
rights. After a last flutter with military
rebellion during WWI, the Afrikaners got on with
the business of controlling South Africa
politically. In 1948 elections the
Afrikaner-dominated and ultra-right National
Party took the reins and didn't let the white
charger slow down until 1994. Under apartheid,
every individual was classified by race, and race
determined where you could live, work, pray and
learn. Irrespective of where they had been born,
blacks were divided into one of 10 tribal groups,
forcibly dispossessed and dumped in rural
backwaters, the so-called Homelands. The plan was
to restrict blacks to Homelands that were,
according to the propaganda, to become
self-sufficient, self-governing states. In
reality, these lands had virtually no
infrastructure, no industry and were therefore
incapable of producing sufficient food for the
black population. There was intense, widespread
suffering and many families returned to squalid
squatter camps in the cities from which they had
been evicted.
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Apartheid
The legal separation of the races in South Africa.
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Typical shanty settlement where African lived
Typical White home in South Africa outside the
city of Kimberly
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A sample of some Apartheid laws

• South African Act 1909 - Established the South
  African Union, consolidated the power in
  all-white parliament.
• Mines Works Act 1911 1926 - Imposed a color
  ban on certain jobs, white people should have
  higher salaries than blacks at all times.
• Natives Land Acts 1913 1936 - Limited black
  people use of land to 13.
• Natives (Urban Areas) Act 1923 - Established
  segregation in the cities, forced blacks to carry
  special papers at all times to be allowed to stay
  in the cities.
• Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act 1949 - Banned
  marriages between the races.
• Population Registration Act 1950 - Forced all
  South Africans to register as Black, White, Asian
  or Colored.
• Immortality Act 1950 - Banned sexual relations
  between people from different races.
• Bantu Education Act 1953 - Enforced racial
  segregation of schools.

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Key figures in the end of Apartheid and the rise
of a new South Africa
Bishop Desmond Tutu
F.W. De Klerk
Nelson Mandela