History of South africa

The Original South Africans

The written history of South Africa begins with the arrival of European explorers and colonists. Although not much is known about the history of the region before these times, the land was not an uninhabited one.

The San (or Bushmen) were probably the first human inhabitants of the Southern African region. About 100,000 BC these hunter-gatherers were gradually displaced by the pastoralist Khoikhoi. The Khoikhoi began to migrate down the west coast around 20,000 BC.

The next known historical events occurred around 300 AD, when iron-age communities developed in the northern and eastern regions of Southern Africa. These people began to migrate southwards around 500 AD, settling in the southern and western parts of the country, where adequate grazing could be found.

First Contact

First European contact with South African shores occurred on the 12th of March 1488, when Bartholomeu Dias landed at what was to become Mossel Bay and erected the first stone cross to mark his landing. A Portuguese explorer, Dias was searching for a sea trade route from Portugal to India as an alternative to the costly land route.

Vasco da Gama, another Portuguese navigator, completed the search in 1497 when he rounded the Cape of Good Hope and discovered the sea route to India.

The first important European figure in South Africa's written history is Jan van Riebeeck, who landed at the Cape on the 6th of April 1652 and set up a supply station for the Dutch East India Company. This settlement rapidly developed into the Cape Colony. The Dutch traded with the native Khoikhoi out of necessity, but the relationship was far from friendly.

Colonisation

The Cape Colony came under English control at the end of the 18th century, when England seized control from the Dutch. Hostilities with natives were rising sharply due to European expansion into native territories, and these caused numerous fatalities on both sides of the conflict.

The English encouraged settlement in South Africa to act as a buffer between the warring Xhosa and the Boers (farmers). An influx of English immigrants did nothing to assuage the conflict. Rather, it upset the relative unity of white South Africa at that time. Educated English moved to South African towns to pursue their old vocations, coming to dominate politics, trade and finance, while the largely uneducated Boers were confined to agriculture.

Great Treks

The 19th century saw massive conflict between native Africans in the form of the difaqane ("forced migration", as named by Sotho speakers) or mfecane ("crushing", as named by Zulu speakers).

Though perhaps not the primary cause of the difaqane, the rise of the violently expansionist Zulu kingdom under Shaka caused a ripple-effect of tribal displacement in the region. This accelerated the formation of the nations of the Sotho (now Lesotho) and the Swazi (now Swaziland).

South African European society was also splitting. The Boers had grown increasingly discontented with British rule, particularly with the declaration of the equality of the races, and large groups of Boers trekked away into the interior to find greater independence. This movement is known as the Great Trek.

The Trekkers found vast expanses of apparently uninhabited land in the South African interior. Where it was occupied, the inhabitants were weakened by the difaqane, and their weakness reinforced Boer perceptions that their arrival heralded the coming of civilisation to uncivilised communities.

The Zulus and the newly formed nation of Lesotho provided much tougher opposition to Boer expansion. Protracted and bloody but largely fruitless conflicts resulted in a series of flimsy treaties that characterised the following fifty years, during which white domination increased and fermented.

The rift between the Boers and the English was deepened with the abolition of slavery, which contravened what the Boers saw as a divinely ordained hierarchy of the races. Discontent was partially assuaged by the Masters and Servants Ordinance, which entrenched white control in line with the conservatism sense of racial superiority of the British. British numbers grew at the Cape, the Eastern Cape, in Natal and after gold and diamonds were discovered, in parts of the Transvaal (now Gauteng).

Anglo-Boer War

The Great Trek halted at Bloemfontein, where the trekkers established their first republic. Here the movement split - some trekkers continued north while others crossed the Drakensberg into Natal.

The Zulus controlled Natal at the time, and Boer leader Piet Retief went to parley with their King Dingaan, who had succeeded Shaka as king after murdering him. Dingaan killed Retief, leading to a series of battles between the Boers and the Zulus. The conflict culminated on the 16th of December 1838 in the Battle of Blood River, at which the Boers killed several thousand Zulus, reputedly causing the Ncome river to run red with blood.

Caught between the English (who had settled in Natal) and the Zulus, many Boers abandoned the region and resolved to head north once more. They established two Boer republics; the Transvaal and the Orange Free State (OFS). The discovery of diamonds soon undermined the fledgling stability of these two states, when the British annexed the diamond area (to which both Boer republics laid claim) for itself.

The first Anglo-Boer war broke out in 1880, and was over nearly as soon as it had begun, with a rampant Boer victory at Majuba. Paul Kruger, leader of the rebellion, became head of the resulting South African Republic (SAR).

The discovery of gold on the Boer-controlled Witwatersrand precipitated a second conflict. The Jameson Raid of 1895 (which seemed to have been instigated by the British, but about which they professed innocence and great embarrassment) nearly sparked war, but resulted in the SAR and the OFS forming an alliance. The situation finally peaked in 1899, when an exchange of frustrated demands between the Boers and the English resulted in a second declaration of war.

The second Anglo-Boer War lasted longer than the first, and the British preparedness gradually overwhelmed the Boers. By mid-1900 every Boer town had surrendered, but guerrilla resistance continued for the next two years. This was met by scorched-earth tactics by the British, who imprisoned Boer prisoners (mostly women and children) in concentration camps where 26,000 individuals died of disease and neglect.

Peace?

The Treaty of Vereeniging in 1902 brought an uneasy truce to the region, whereupon the British set about rebuilding the war-torn country, particularly the mining industry.

By 1907 the Witwatersrand produced a full third of the world's gold. Afrikaners found themselves increasingly isolated by British policies, restricted to agriculture while genuine wealth and power lay in the mining industry. They were particularly angered by the imposition of English as an official language for education and the workplace. Afrikaans came to be seen as a people's language of resistance.

Meanwhile, blacks and coloureds were completely marginalised by the system - disenfranchised and discriminated against in almost every arena. The government imported Chinese labourers to undermine resistance. 4,000 Zulus died protesting oppressive tax legislation in the Bambatha Rebellion of 1906.

The British continued to work towards a Union of South Africa, which was achieved in 1910 under the Act of Union. English and Dutch were the official language (Afrikaans was not recognised until 1925) and only whites had the vote or access to parliament.

Oppression

The South African National Party (later known as the South African Party or SAP - an acronym that now, ironically enough, stands for the South African Police) headed the Union with a pro-British, white-unity policy. Radical Boers split away to form the National Party (NP).

Despite their 75% population majority, blacks had no representation in government. They were systematically discriminated against in legislation: striking was made illegal, skilled jobs were reserved for whites, blacks were barred from military service, 'pass laws' restricted black people's freedom of movement. 90% of South African land was owned by the white 20% of the population.

Black opposition coalesced in 1923 under the South African Native National Congress (later the African National Congress, ANC). Meanwhile Mahatma Ghandi worked for many years with the Indian populations of Natal and the Transvaal to protest against the encroachment of their rights.

In 1924 the National Party gained power in alliance with the smaller Labour Party, propelling Afrikaner nationalism to the forefront of South African government policy. A fragile coalition of the NP with the SAP fell apart when Jan Smuts led South Africa into the Second World War on the side of the Allies. In the aftermath, the Afrikaner-dominated NP retained its hold on power.

Apartheid

Successive NP administrations further entrenched the ideal of Afrikaner superiority and black oppression through harshly discriminative legislation in the legacy known as apartheid. Though its origins are generally attributed to Afrikaner government, the term 'apartheid' was first used by Jan Smuts in 1917 and originated from the British colonialist policy of pass laws.

NP government legislation prohibited mixed marriages, criminalised interracial sex and classified each individual by race, establishing a classification board to rule in questionable cases. The 1950 Group Areas Act geographically separated racial groups. The Separate Amenities Act designated separate beaches, buses, hospitals, schools and universities.

Pass laws required blacks and coloureds to carry identity documents that acted as passports by which travel to white areas could be controlled - blacks could not legally live in or even visit white areas without explicit permission. Coloureds were removed from the common voters' roll in 1956, occupying instead a secondary voters' roll. Blacks had never belonged to any such voters' roll.

'Independent homelands' were established, to which blacks would belong once they had been stripped of South African citizenship. 87% of land was reserved for whites, coloureds and Indians, while blacks working in South Africa became 'guest labourers'.

From the 1960s to the 1980s the government enforced the tenets of the Group Areas Act by a system of forced removals, relocating racial groups to the areas designated by government. The most famous of these was the forced relocation of 60,000 individuals from Johannesburg into the township of Soweto (South Western Township).

Even the few areas in which blacks were allowed to own land (such as Sophiatown, a vibrant and symbolic multiracial community in Johannesburg) were destroyed, their residents deposited in new areas, and white-only communities (Triomf - or 'Triumph' - in Sophiatown's case) established.

Condemnation and Struggle

Internal resistance to apartheid came from the African National Congress (ANC) and the more extreme Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). The ANC agenda of 1949 advocated open resistance by strikes, public disobedience and protest marches.

Though they met with heavy resistance and occasionally became violent, these protests continued throughout the 1950s. In 1955 the ANC and other organisations developed the Freedom Charter, which outlined their vision of a non-racial, democratic state. This document is still central to the ANC's vision of the new South Africa.

The PAC was formed when disappointed members broke away from the conservative and explicitly diplomatic ANC, seeking to sever all ties with white government. They immediately began a series of demonstrations against the hated pass laws.

On the 21st of March 1960, a crowd of black people gathered at Sharpeville near Vereeniging to demonstrate against pass laws. Estimates of the size of the gathering range from 300 to 20,000. They marched on the local police station, offering themselves for arrest for not carrying pass books. The police opened fire, killing 69 protestors and injuring 186. Most of these were later revealed to have been shot in the back, despite the crowd having been effectively unarmed.

Resistance

After the Sharpeville Massacre, the government outlawed both the ANC and the PAC. In response, the ANC modified its policy of non-violence to adopt guerrilla terrorist tactics. The government, under Hendrik Verwoerd, declared a state of emergency, authorising detention without trial.

Approximately 18,000 demonstrators were arrested, while the armed wings of the ANC (Umkhonto we Sizwe - Spear of the Nation) and the PAC (Poqo - 'pure' or 'alone') began a campaign of sabotage. In July 1963, nine members of the ANC underground movement, including Nelson Mandela, and three others were arrested and tried for treason in the famous Rivonia Trial.

During the trial Mandela made his famous statement: "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."

After the trial, which was condemned by the United Nations Security Council and was a major cause for the subsequent imposition of international economic sanctions against South Africa, Mandela and seven others were sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism. Other prisoners managed to escape.

It may be interesting to note that the USA's Ronald Reagan and the UK's Margaret Thatcher administrations opposed the imposition of sanctions against apartheid South Africa, seeing the Nationalist government as a bastion against Marxist influences. Reagan (probably foremost among South Africa's most hated US presidents) and Thatcher both declared the ANC a terrorist organisation, and Thatcher stated that anyone who thought that the ANC would someday form the South African government was "living in cloud cuckoo land".

South Africa entered its darkest days after the Rivonia Trial. Apartheid legislation was reinforced and the divisions between the races were deepened. Hendrik Verwoerd was stabbed to death in Parliament, but successors B.J. Vorster and P.W. Botha continued his policies.

Black Consciousness

Resistance grew in force during the 1970s, effected through trade unions in the form of strikes and through the South African Students' Organisation under the leadership of Steve Biko.

Biko was a medical student. Writing under the pseudonym Frank Talk, he spearheaded the Black Consciousness Movement, which stressed the need for psychological liberation, black pride, and non-violent opposition to apartheid. Resistance now focussed mainly on the introduction of Afrikaans as an educational medium.

Biko also criticised the hypocritical nature of white liberal opposition to apartheid, saying that, as necessary beneficiaries of the apartheid system, whites could not appreciate the urgency of the need for change.

White resistance to apartheid was nonetheless active, and represented in parliament under Helen Suzman's Progressive Party. This was criticised for being ineffective and for allowing the Nationalists to say that they allowed the opposition a legitimate public voice.

Siege

During the 1980s the Nationalist government was under international and internal siege, and responded with extreme violence. Armoured cars patrolled the townships, destroying homes and often murdering residents. The ANC and PAC responded by bombing public buildings and forcing black populations not to cooperate with the authorities.

Black-on-black violence soared during the 1985-1988 period, with blacks who resisted ANC tactics being murdered by having a burning tyre placed around their necks.

Pressured by internal violence, international denunciation and a falling white proportion of the population, the government began to admit the need for change. It implemented only small-scale repeals of apartheid legislation, spurring new waves of violent protest as well as a conservative white backlash.

Economic sanctions began to bite, and the value of the South African Rand plunged. In 1985 the government declared a state of emergency that was to last five years. The media was censored. 30,000 people had been detained without trial by 1988, and thousands tortured. By this time the tunes of the US and the UK had changed dramatically - both encouraged government negotiation with the black majority.

Democracy

In F.W. de Klerk's inauguration speech in February 1990 he lifted the ban on the ANC, the PAC and other political parties. Restrictions on the media were lifted. On the 11th of February 1990, after 28 years of incarceration, Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

Gradually the legal architecture of apartheid was dismantled. In the last whites-only vote in South Africa, a referendum in 1992, voters gave the government a mandate to negotiate a new constitution with the ANC and other political groups.

In 1991 the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) worked to produce a multiracial interim government and a new democratic constitution. This was a period of massive political violence following the assassination of Chris Hani, leader of the South African Community Party. It was later revealed that this violence was ordered or condoned by elements in the police and the government.

The draft constitution was completed in 1993. Eventually producing the most liberal constitution in the world, the first draft guaranteed freedom of speech, religion, and association, and forbade discrimination on almost any grounds. At midnight on the 26th of February the old flag was lowered and replaced by the new South African flag.

To the surprise of many, South African's first democratic election proceeded peacefully amidst an almost tangible feeling of national goodwill. The ANC won 62.7% of the vote and Nelson Mandela became the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

Nine years after Margaret Thatcher ridiculed those who thought the ANC would someday govern South Africa, she attended the London ceremony at which Nelson Mandela, two years into his presidency, was honoured by the British nation.

The Rainbow Nation

South Africa's beloved Madiba led the country through the first four years of its fledgling multiracial democracy. A leader with a magical personal touch, he famously wore the Springbok rugby jersey (until then very much a 'white' emblem) at the country's victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, and he wore the Bafana Bafana kit when the soccer team won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1996.

He handed power to his successor, Thabo Mbeki, in 1997. Hardly as well-loved as Mandela, Mbeki has nonetheless been a shrewd politician. His tacit denial of South Africa's rampant HIV/AIDS crisis and his failure to condemn forced land redistribution in neighbouring Zimbabwe earned him critical rebukes from unnerved investors and populace alike.

South Africans in general are optimistic about the state of the nation, proud of its natural beauty, liberal constitution and historical victory over apartheid. Large problems remain, however: HIV/AIDS, economic inequality, widespread poverty, very high levels of violent crime, lingering (or widespread, depending on one's point of view) undercurrents of racism, and government corruption.

While admitting the magnitude of these challenges, South Africans in general face them stoically and optimistically - unmitigated cynicism is rare. Ask a South African how they feel about their country and their eyes will light up more often than not.

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