History of South Africa

The Peoples of South Africa

Modern South Africa is composed of many peoples who, as a result of the country's history, fall into four main race-based categories: indigenous Africans or Blacks, Europeans or Whites, Asians or Indians, and Coloreds.

The African majority consists of three main cultural groups: the Khoikhoi, the San or Khoisan people of the Cape region and the Bantus. The so-called Coloreds are mixed of African (mostly Khoisan), European and Malay descent. Together these groups constitute nearly 80% of the South African population. The rest of the population consists of immigrant groups and their descendants. Whites, at 11%, are the largest immigrant group followed by Asians at three percent. Asian presence in South Africa is traceable to 17th century slaves from the Malay peninsula, brought with other slaves from East Africa and Madagascar beginning as early as 1657. Much later, indentured laborers from India (1860) and China (1902) arrived to swell the Asian population.

Impact of European Expansion

Europeans first established a temporary Dutch East India Company supply base on the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. The base grew into a permanent colony, which deeply unsettled all aspects of the region's life and progressively diminished indigenous prospects until the last decade of the 20th century.

Khoisans were the first to feel the Europeans' impact. Relations began fairly, until European settler incursions on Khoisan land began. Many Khoisans died from smallpox epidemics, especially in 1713. The Khoisans counter-attacked European settlements, but it wasn't long before they were completely dominated by Europeans. Many, such as the hunter-gatherer Bushmen, were massacred by Boer commandos: 2,500 by 1795.

Expansion by the Boers brought them into contact with eastern Cape Xhosa. Trade soon turned to threats of dispossession, and wars began in the 1770s lasting nearly 100 years. Unable to dislodge the Xhosa in the east, the Boers, aided by British troops and the Mfecane--a series of intra-African wars--trekked northward to the Orange River valley.

British Control

The Napoleonic Wars inspired the British capture of the Cape in September 1795. This created opportunities for Xhosa reprisals--sometimes carried out jointly with Khoisan allies (1799)--against Boers. The British briefly lost (1802 Treaty of Amiens) then regained (1806) the Cape and introduced English-speaking settlers. In 1820, the first 5,000 British settlers occupied the Zuurveld, taken from the Xhosa in war (1811 to 1819).

Under British rule, Khoisans, held in peonage during Boer control, were freed. Restrictive pass laws limiting their movement were abolished. In 1838, slaves were freed under the 1833 Emancipation Act. These became the core of that peculiar South African racial category "coloreds".

The Mfecane and the "Great Trek"

During the early nineteenth century, revolving-door raids between European settlers and Africans took their toll on both communities. Xhosa attacks in 1834 leveled most white border settlements and Boers, seeking to rebuild and to escape British rule, set off inland on their "Great Trek."

The greatest impacts occurred within African communities. European encroachment forced different groups to intrude on each other's territories causing friction and eventually the Mfecane -- a series of inter-African wars. The Mfecane created room for successful Boer settlements in the heavily populated African heartland of Natal and the highveld

The Boers established Natalia Republic after the 1838 defeat of Dingane's army at the Ncame (Battle of Blood) River. The British annexed Natalia in 1843 and the Boers crossed the Vaal River to join other Afrikaners in the Transvaal and Orange River valley. In 1854 and '57, they set up two Afrikaner republics, Orange Free State and the Transvaal (South African) Republic.

Asian Labor Immigrants

Meanwhile, by 1860, Natal's sugarcane fields needed laborers, but as Africans shunned the low pay, Indian indentured laborers on five-year renewable contracts became the answer. Despite poor conditions, about 10,000 Indians entered Natal during the 1870s, and a new class of self-sponsored skilled immigrants arrived and spread into Transvaal and Orange Free State. Over 100,000 Indians lived in South Africa by the turn of the century.

The discovery of diamonds in the Orange and Vaal Rivers (1867) and the gold rush (1886) in Witwatersrand brought big changes. Rail tracks grew from 69 miles (1870) to 1800 miles (1886) and 3,600 miles (1895). In 1881, President Paul Kruger refused to grant the vote to English and German Uitlanders dominant in gold and diamond trades. An 1895 abortive Uitlander uprising prompted Kruger to build up arms and strengthen alliances with Orange Free State.

The South African war or "Boer War" broke out in October 1899 after the British refused Kruger's ultimatum to remove 10,000 troops newly stationed in the Cape. The war ended in 1902 with British victory and the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging, which left the fate of Africans in Boer hands.

While Africans were being heavily taxed, restricted to reserves and poorly paid jobs on white farms and mines, £16 million was spent to restore Afrikaner farms. When in 1902 Africans balked at wage reductions from pre-war 60s to 45s, Milner imported Chinese indentured laborers to undercut the Africans' bargaining power and gold production swelled from £1.0 million in 1901 to £32 M in 1910. The 1906 Bambatha tax revolt, led by a Zulu chief in Natal against a new poll tax, resulted in 4,000 Africans massacred and 7,000 others imprisoned by colonists. Heavy taxation and no government support ensured that Africans would remain dependent on whites for work and income.

The Union of South Africa and Apartheid

The Union of South Africa was proclaimed on May 31, 1910 with Louis Botha as first prime minister and leader of the South African Party (SAP). A new constitution confirmed existing electoral arrangements denying the African vote everywhere but in the Cape, and vested all power in an all-white parliament. Botha's death in 1919 brought Jan Smuts to the prime ministership. In 1923, J.B.M. Hertzog, preaching segregation and a pro-Afrikaner message, defeated Smuts with a National Party (NP)/Labor alliance, which became the United Party in 1934, to be challenged by Daniel Malan's Purified National Party.

South Africa declared war on Germany in 1939. World War II saw Malan in opposition to Smuts' government. Malan's National Party, using the word "apartheid" for the first time, promised to ensure white supremacy through stronger enforcement of race separation and narrowly won the 1948 election. (See also, The Roots of Apartheid.)

Though it took about 40 years to manifest, the rise of the NP was the beginning of the fall of white supremacy. In 1959 Malan consolidated African reserves into 10 separate "homelands" hoping to restrict Black citizenship and residency (70% of the population to 10% of the land) in them. He granted homelands "independence" in 1976 and made it illegal for Blacks to remain in the city without permits from whites. He took control of Black schools from missionaries and began administering "Bantu Education."

South African Native Convention and The African National Congress

The Treaty of Vereeniging (1899) and the whites-only Durban Constitutional Convention (1908) spurred African organizations to petition for rights and convene the Bloemfontein South African Native Convention in 1909 to discuss the constitution. The Indian community was represented by Mohandas K. Gandhi when delegates took the SANC resolutions to London.

The ANC was created January 1912. It became the key organization for responding to government policies. Relying initially on petitions for fighting oppression, the ANC experienced a quiet period during the 1920s. An attempted revival, with alliance to the communist party, led to the ouster of president J.T. Gumede's in 1930.

Formation of its Youth League in 1944 changed the ANC from a cautious organization to a militant mass movement. With leaders including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Oliver Tambo, the League's message of self-determination and pride appealed to the masses and other anti-apartheid groups. In 1947, a pact was reached with the Indian Congress to support each other's campaigns. The ANC adopted the League's "Programme of Action," calling for strikes, boycotts and defiance, in 1949. This began an era of great activism.

In June 1955, the ANC collected ideas from a variety of South African groups and developed the "Freedom Charter" for a non-racialist nation. The government cracked down on anti-apartheid groups in 1956, arresting 156 people on high treason charges.  In March 1960, the Sharpville Massacre occurred in which police killed 69 and wounded 186 people during a Pan African Congress-organized anti-pass strike. A week later, the ANC organized mass burning of the hated passes, and the government banned both organizations and declared a state of emergency.

The ANC went underground and created a military wing in June 1961. Umkhonto we Sizwe or Spear of the Nation was sabotaging selected government installations by December. Despite the ban, future South African president Mandela traveled the country organizing. He represented the ANC during an African summit in Addis Ababa in 1961. He was arrested in August 1962 and charged with inciting riots and leaving the country without permit. He was given five years and a year later, other Umkhonto members were arrested at a Rivonia farm hideout. They were arraigned, with the already incarcerated Mandela, on 193 acts of sabotage committed in one year.

Remaining ANC leaders left South Africa for Zambia. They reviewed their tactics, made alliances with other freedom fighters like ZAPU (Zimbabwe), cultivated international support, rebuilt underground networks within South Africa and, in 1969, opened membership to all supporters of the liberation cause. Inside the country, a lull in activity belied a new generation of anti-apartheid militants -- students and young-adult intellectuals -- soon to emerge.

Black Consciousness Movement

Steve Biko, a medical student, articulated the philosophy of Black consciousness, and cultural and spiritual self-renewal. He was tortured and murdered in police custody in 1976. Decades of such atrocities in South Africa had led, in 1973, to a United Nations declaration of apartheid as "a crime against humanity."

When Mozambique (1975) and Zimbabwe (1980) became independent, the international isolation of the South African regime grew and the ANC gained closer bases for guerilla strikes. Under pressure, Prime Minister Pieter W. Botha, in 1978, repealed some apartheid laws, including removing interracial sex and marriage bans, pass laws, segregation of some public facilities, and opening certain jobs previously reserved for whites only. He also introduced indirect rule by appointing compliant Blacks as councilors and police officers for the Black townships.  Botha's new constitution resurrected separate parliamentary chambers for Indians and Coloreds and vested great powers in an executive president. The white chamber retained veto power over the other two. Africans remained disenfranchised.

Building up military strength, he occupied Namibia, assisted Renamo and UNITA rebels in Mozambique and Angola, and made frequent anti-guerilla raids into neighboring states.

In 1983, the United Democratic Front launched strikes and boycotts, and Black youths rendered the townships ungovernable. Declaring a state of emergency, Botha censored media coverage. For three years, state security agents rained terror on African townships. In 1986 the United States imposed limited economic sanctions.

Some National Party leaders secretly met the imprisoned Mandela in 1986. F. W. de Klerk eased out Botha in 1989 and removed bans on anti-apartheid organizations in 1990. In February, Mandela was released.

The End of Apartheid

In 1991, the pillars of apartheid policy -- Group Areas Act, Native Land Acts, and the Population Registration Act -- were abolished. A new constitution was instituted in December 1993. The first election by universal suffrage took place in April 1994. The ANC won by a landslide and on May 10, Nelson Mandela became President of South Africa in a "government of national unity." Mandela retired in 1999 and Thabo Mbeki took over. The ANC won an even bigger majority in the 1999 elections.

The government of South Africa is slowly erasing the wounds of apartheid with programs for improved education, housing, electricity, water, and sanitation.

One of the processes it put in place was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), chaired by 1984 Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Constituted in 1995, the TRC was empowered to grant amnesty and compensation to victims. Its work, involving investigation of apartheid-era human rights abuses, was finished in 1998.

Background Sources

• T.R.H. Davenport, South Africa: A Modern History, 2nd edition, University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1978.
• Richard Elphick, Kraal and Castle: Khoikoi and Founding of White South Africa, Yale University Press, New Haven 1977.

Further Information

• Notes
• The Roots of Apartheid
• Global Minorities' Resources-South Africa