Pre-Apartheid
Introduction
Since the circumnavigation of Africa was the only viable sea route found to trade with East Asia, South Africa had a vital role until the opening of the Suez canal in 1869. And, when it seemed that the area lost its importance, the discovery of gold and diamonds in the subsoil brought a lot of attention to the land.
The main reason why Europeans began to search for a sea route to the East was to avoid paying expensive customs duties, or taxes to the Ottoman Empire which controlled the trade routes to the East. The first to try were the Spaniards and the Portuguese with respectively Cristopher Columbus and Bartolomeu Dias. Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa. In late 1497, the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sailed around the Cape of Good Hope using Dias's navigational charts. They arrived in India for the first time circumnavigating the African continent in 1498.
Dutch and East India Company
The first permanent settlement at the cape was established by the dutch in 1652. The Dutch East India Company (in the Dutch of the day: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) had no intentions of colonisation, only to secure a base camp where passing ships could shelter and be serviced and restock on supplies. The company imported Dutch farmers to establish farms to supply the passing ships as well as to supply the growing VOC settlement. The VOC also brought 71,000 slaves to Cape Town from India, Indonesia, East Africa, Mauritius, and Madagascar. The VOC considered it impolitic to enslave the local aboriginals, so it began to import large numbers of slaves.
British colonization
The 19th Century
The British seized the Cape in 1795 to prevent it from falling into French hands after the latter invaded the Netherlands. Initially, British control was aimed to protect the trade route to the East, however, the British soon realised the potential to develop the Cape for their own needs. The Cape became a vital base for Britain prior to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, and the Cape’s economy was meshed with that of Britain.
Large groups of settlers, high birth rates, and wasteful land usage produced a shortage of land, so they acquired more land through military intervention. Until the 1840s the British vision of the colony did not include African citizens.
The collapse
As the 1860s came to an end, the great African states began to weaken. Many important African leaders died during this period and Europeans were determined to exploit Africans as a source of labour and to acquire the last large fertile areas controlled by them. in the late 1860s the discovery of gold and diamonds reactivated the idea of a federated South Africa. This led to multiple wars against the indigenous populations throughout the whole second half of the century. By 1900 no autonomous African societies remained in the region.
The road to apartheid
Britain's total hegemony on South Africa was asserted after the South African War (1899–1902). 500,000 imperial troops fought against 87,000 republican burghers, Cape “rebels,” and foreign volunteers. The numerical weakness of the Boers was offset by their familiarity with the terrain, support from the Afrikaner populace, and the poor leadership and dated tactics of the British command. Although often styled a “white man’s war,” both sides used black people. The rebels surrendered and signed the Treaty of Vereeniging which allowed the white minority to decide the political fate of the black majority. After the war, a process of reconstruction that lasted 8 years lead to the birth of the Union of South Africa on May 31, 1910. Reconstruction also ensured that settler minorities would prevail over the black majority. Black societies were policed and taxed more effectively, and the new constitution excluded blacks from political power. Racial segregation was further developed through policies proposed during reconstruction and solidified after 1910.
Both Afrikaner and black nationalism utilized new political vehicles. Syndicalist white workers and Afrikaner republican diehards fought against employers and government, their clashes culminating in the Rand Revolt of 1922. Black protests against the new order ranged from genteel lobbying and passive resistance to armed rural revolt, strikes, and mass mobilization.
The Pact years (1924-1933)
Hertzog’s Pact government strengthened South Africa’s autonomy, aided local capital, and protected white workers against black competition.
Blacks gained little during this period and continued to lose earlier benefits. For them, segregation meant restricted mobility, diminished opportunities, more-stringent controls, and a general sense of exclusion. Economic conditions in the reserves continued to deteriorate, the terms of tenancy became more onerous on white-owned farms, and the urban slums provided a harsh alternative for those who left the land.
