• South Africa:
• History

South Africa - History

Stone-age Khoisan hunter-gatherers inhabited the region for about 8,000 years. At some period before 300 AD iron-age communities of pastoralists – almost certainly people of the Bantu groups – were living in the interior. The San people (Bushmen) were pushed towards the hostile desert areas; the Khoi-Khoi (Hottentots) added pastoralism to their economy, possibly learned from the more advanced and powerful Bantu, and inhabited the South-West Cape.

People of the Bantu groups, constituting South Africa’s majority, are related to the peoples of other east and southern African countries, and come from four main linguistic groups: the Nguni, Sotho–Tswana, Venda and Tsonga. The Nguni (including Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi peoples) are by far the largest.

The first European settlers arrived at the Cape in 1652. They were Dutch farmers sent to re-provision ships of the Dutch East India Company. They were joined in 1688 by Huguenots (French Protestant refugees), followed by groups from Belgium, Britain, France and Germany, and augmented by often highly-skilled slaves from Indonesia and Malaya.

Control of the Cape passed from the Dutch to the French and, after 1814, the British. The European and racially-mixed groups developed the language of Afrikaans, a sense of folk identity as Afrikaners, or Boers (farmers), and a religious identity as strict Calvinists. They developed a ranching-centred style of agriculture suitable to the terrain (and similar to that of the Bantu peoples) and, as their numbers grew and the distant administrative authority became more irksome and foreign, migrated towards the interior.

Continuing friction on the Eastern Cape frontier and the abolition of slavery by Britain triggered a significant migration, the Great Trek, which from 1836–38 onwards brought them into direct conflict with the African peoples. While the black societies welcomed the traders and missionaries, between them and the Boers was direct competition for land.

The Africans were themselves in upheaval in the 19th century. In Natal, a military genius, Shaka, had moulded the formerly insignificant Zulus into a powerful fighting force and developed an economy of war. The Xhosas had been weakened by 100 years of battle with the white settlers along the Eastern Cape frontier. The Boers trekked inland, defeating first the Ndebele and then other tribes, and establishing the Boer Republics of the Transvaal (South African Republic) and Orange Free State.

Meanwhile, Britain was also expanding, taking Natal in 1843 and then following the Boers inland. The first Indians came in 1860 to work as indentured labourers in the Natal sugar fields and, in 1867, diamonds were discovered, triggering adventurer immigrants from many countries. Gold was discovered in 1871 – in a Boer Republic. Britain went to war with the Boers and, with difficulty, defeated them. Having also finally defeated the Zulus, Britain gained control of all South Africa. The four provinces were united in 1910 into the dominion of the Union of South Africa, and the country’s independence was formally recognised under the Statute of Westminster in 1931.

The country had come to independence with a constitution which effectively denied black rights. Most areas excluded black, coloured and Indian people from the vote. Resistance to racial discrimination was begun by Mahatma Gandhi, who arrived in South Africa as a young lawyer in 1893. He led the first passive resistance to the pass laws in 1906. In 1912, the African National Congress (ANC) was founded, to fight for full constitutional rights for blacks.

However, South Africa steadily reduced black rights. In 1913, land acts severely limited the rights of blacks to own land or live in certain areas. In 1936, black voters were removed from the common voters’ roll in the Cape.

The apartheid years: In 1948, the National Party (NP) came to power on an electoral platform of apartheid, and moved rapidly in enacting a policy of racial segregation into law. The ANC, in collaboration with the Indian Congress, Coloured People’s Congress and Congress of Democrats (mainly white communists and anti-racists), launched the Freedom Charter and, in 1952, the Defiance Campaign in response. More apartheid laws, separating education and public amenities, followed. Then, in 1960, the police at Sharpeville shot and killed 69 peaceful demonstrators. The ANC, Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), South African Communist Party (SACP) and other anti-apartheid movements were banned and went under ground or into exile. The ANC adopted a policy of armed struggle and Nelson Mandela, as head of its new military wing, launched a sabotage campaign. In 1963 Mandela and Walter Sisulu and other ANC leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment.

After the Sharpeville massacre the world woke up to apartheid. South Africa became a pariah nation, forced out of the Commonwealth and increasingly isolated internationally. The UN declared apartheid to be a danger to world peace in 1961 and a crime against humanity in 1966.

During the 1970s some three million people were forcibly resettled in ‘homelands’. Further shock-waves ran through the international media when, in 1976, schoolchildren in Soweto protesting against school classes in the Afrikaans language were shot by police and this sparked a violent uprising throughout the country in which some 600 mainly young people were killed. Popular activist Steve Biko (a young leader of the Black Consciousness Movement) was beaten to death while in police custody in 1977, and his name became a rallying cry of resistance.

In 1983, the government introduced a new tricameral parliament, which gave representation (in separate chambers) to white, coloured and Indian people, but excluded blacks. Intended as an act of appeasement, this aroused new united opposition, led by a new umbrella body, the United Democratic Front, with strong representation from the churches and trade unions as well as political parties. In 1985, the Congress of South African Trade Unions was founded. Despite the powerful police and military apparatus, black resistance intensified.

From the mid-1980s, the Commonwealth, US and EU introduced political, sporting, cultural and economic sanctions. The Commonwealth was consistently among the leaders in international action against apartheid, for example with its Gleneagles Agreement against sporting contacts with South Africa (1977). The Commonwealth also led the peaceful dismantling of apartheid, starting in 1985 with establishment of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (led by Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser).

Within South Africa, political protest grew, and began to take an increasingly violent form, influenced by Umkhonto we Sizwe (‘Spear of the Nation’, the military wing of the ANC). The country was becoming ungovernable, and its economy disastrously weakened.

The ending of apartheid: In 1989, F W de Klerk succeeded P W Botha as president, and immediately began negotiations to unscramble apartheid. Within months Walter Sisulu and seven other imprisoned leaders were released and the bans on the ANC, PAC and SACP were lifted. In February 1990, Mandela was released. Apartheid laws were repealed. In August 1990, the ANC suspended the armed struggle, and began negotiations with the government.

Political violence intensified within South Africa, with fierce competition between the ANC and the Zulu traditionalist Inkatha Freedom Party. Nonetheless, all-party negotiations – the Convention for a Democratic South Africa – began in December 1991. An all-white referendum showed that the whites were in favour of abolishing apartheid and agreement was reached in June 1993. A multiparty transitional executive council was formed to partner the government until the elections for a new parliament could be held. As the reform process gathered momentum from 1989, international sanctions were lifted.