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A History of South Africa
South Africa contains some of the oldest & most beautiful archaeological sites in Africa. Extensive fossil remains at the Sterkfontein, Kromdraai & Makapansgat caves suggest that various australopithecines existed in South Africa from about three million years ago. These were succeeded by various species of Homo, including Homo habilis, Homo erectus & modern man, Homo sapiens. Bantu-speaking peoples, iron-using agriculturists & herdsmen, moved south of the Limpopo River into modern-day South Africa by the fourth or fifth century (the Bantu expansion) displacing the original Khoi & San speakers. They slowly moved south & the earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province are believed to date from around 1050. The southernmost group was the Xhosa people, whose language incorporates certain linguistic traits from the earlier Khoi & San people, reaching the Fish River, in today's Eastern Cape Province. These Iron Age populations displaced earlier hunter-gatherer peoples as they migrated.
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Painting of an account of the arrival
of Jan van Riebeeck, the first European to settle in South Africa, with Devil's
Peak in the background.The written history of South Africa begins with the accounts
of European navigators passing South Africa on the East Indies trade routes. The
first European navigator to achieve circumnavigation of the Cape was the Portuguese
explorer Bartolomeu Dias in 1488.
When Bartolomeu Dias returned to Lisbon he carried news of this discovery he called "Cabo das Tormentas" (cape of storms). But for his sponsor, Henry the Navigator, chose a different name, "Cabo da Boa Esperança" Cape of Good Hope for it promised a sea route to the riches of India, which was eagerly anticipated in Portugal.
Along with the accounts of the early navigators, the accounts of shipwreck survivors provide the earliest written accounts of Southern Africa. In the two centuries following 1488, a number of small fishing settlements were made along the coast by Portuguese sailors, but no written account of these settlements survives. In 1652 a victualling station was established at the Cape of Good Hope by Jan van Riebeeck on behalf of the Dutch East India Company. For most of the seventeenth & eighteenth centuries, the slowly-expanding settlement was a Dutch possession. The Dutch settlers eventually met the south-westerly expanding Xhosa people in the region of the Fish River. A series of wars, called Cape Frontier Wars, ensued, mainly caused by conflicting land & livestock interests.
To ease Cape labour shortages slaves were brought from Indonesia, Madagascar, & India. Furthermore, troublesome leaders, often of royal descent, were banished from Dutch colonies to South Africa. This group of slaves eventually gave rise to a population that now identifies themselves as "Cape Malays". Cape Malays have traditionally been accorded a higher social status by the European colonists — many became wealthy landowners, but became increasingly dispossessed as apartheid developed. Cape Malay mosques in District Six were spared, & now serve as monuments for the destruction that occurred around them.
Most of the descendants of these slaves, who often married with Dutch settlers, were later classified together with the remnants of the Khoikhoi (aka Khoisan) as Cape Coloureds. Further intermingling within the Cape Coloured population itself, as well as with Xhosa & other South African people, now means that they constitute roughly 50% of the population in the Western Cape Province.
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Historical nation-states of present-day
South
Africa
(including Boer republics & TBVC states)
Swellendam (1795)
Graaff
Reinet (1795-1796)
Waterboer's Land (1813-1871)
Adam Kok's Land (1825-1861)
Winburg
(1836-1844)
Potchefstroom (1837-1844)
Potchefstroom, North West (1844-1848)
Republic
of Utrecht (1854-1858)
Lydenburg Republic (1856-1860)
Nieuw Republiek (1884-1888)
Griqualand
East (1861-1879)
Griqualand West (1870)
Klein Vrystaat (1886-1891)
Stellaland
(1882-1885)
Goshen (South Africa) (1882-1883)
Zululand (1816-1897)
Natalia
Republic (1839–1843)
Orange Free State (1854-1902)
South African Republic
(1857-1902)
Union of South Africa (1910–1961)
Bophuthatswana (1977-1994)
Ciskei
(1981-1994)
Transkei (1976-1994)
Venda (1979-1994)
Republic of South
Africa (1961-present)
Great Britain seized the Cape of Good Hope area
in 1795 ostensibly to stop it falling into the hands of the French, but also seeking
to use Cape Town in particular as a stop on the route to Australia & India.
It was returned to the Dutch in 1803, but soon afterwards the Dutch East India
Company declared bankruptcy, & the British annexed the Cape Colony in 1806.
The British continued the frontier wars against the Xhosa, pushing the eastern
frontier eastward through a line of forts established along the Fish River &
consolidating it by encouraging British settlement. Due to pressure of abolitionist
societies in Britain, the British parliament first stopped its global slave trade
in 1806, then abolished slavery in all its colonies in 1833.
The discovery of diamonds in 1867 & gold in 1886 encouraged economic growth & immigration, intensifying the subjugation of the natives. The Boers successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, much better suited to local conditions. However, the British returned in greater numbers without their red jackets in the Second Boer War (1899–1902). The Boers' attempt to ally themselves with German South-West Africa provided the British with yet another excuse to take control of the Boer Republics.
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Boer women & children in British concentration campsThe Boers resisted fiercely, but the British eventually overwhelmed the Boer forces, using their superior numbers, improved tactics & external supply chains. Also during this war, the British used controversial concentration camps & scorched earth tactics. The Treaty of Vereeniging specified full British sovereignty over the South African republics, & the British government agreed to assume the £3 000 000 war debt owed by the Afrikaner governments. One of the main provisions of the treaty ending the war was that 'Blacks' would not be allowed to vote, except in the Cape Colony.
After four years of negotiations, the Union of South Africa was created from the Cape & Natal colonies, as well as the republics of Orange Free State & Transvaal, on May 31, 1910, exactly eight years after the end of the Second Boer War. The newly-created Union of South Africa was a dominion. In 1934, the South African Party & National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between Afrikaners & English-speaking 'Whites', but split in 1939 over the Union's entry into World War II as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move which the National Party strongly opposed.
In 1948 the National Party was elected to power, & began implementing a series of harsh segregationist laws that would become known collectively as apartheid. Not surprisingly, this segregation also applied to the wealth acquired during rapid industrialisation of the 1950s, '60s, & '70s. While the White minority enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Africa, often comparable to "First World" western nations, the Black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, & life expectancy. However, the average income & life expectancy of a black, 'Indian' or 'coloured' South African compared favourably to many other African states, such as Ghana & Tanzania.
Apartheid became increasingly controversial, leading to widespread sanctions & divestment abroad & growing unrest & oppression within South Africa. (See also the article on the History of South Africa in the apartheid era.) A long period of harsh suppression by the government, & at times violent resistance, strikes, marches, protests, & sabotage, by various anti-apartheid movements, most notably the African National Congress (ANC), followed. In the late 1970s, South Africa began a program of nuclear weapons, & in the following decade it produced six deliverable nuclear weapons. The rationale for the nuclear arsenal is disputed, but it is believed that Vorster & P.W. Botha wanted to be able to catalyse American intervention in the event of a war between South Africa & the Cuban-supported MPLA government of Angola.
In 1990 the National Party government took the first step towards negotiating itself out of power when it lifted the ban on the African National Congress & other left-wing political organisations, & released Nelson Mandela from prison after twenty-seven years' incarceration on a sabotage sentence. Apartheid legislation was gradually removed from the statute books, & South Africa also destroyed its nuclear arsenal & acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The first multi-racial elections were held in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. It has been in power ever since. Tens of thousands died in the late 20th Century in South Afric & over a million in Souther Afric as of National regime crushing of political ricvals, & it's machinations, also HIV started to spread massively aided by massive inequality & the way the economy was organised, & how social services were not for most people, & would take time to be so, & as of the wars. this era.
Despite the end of apartheid, millions of South Africans, mostly black, continue to live in poverty. This is as of the legacy of the apartheid system. Since the end of Apartheid, the HIV crisis that was rising massively at the end of the National government, has kept on rising but has now stopped rising, far earlier than lands like Swaziland. In that era though many social aspects have been upped from elictricty to literacy massively.
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The World's Most powerful countries in periods across Human History, like 1900, or 1800
A top 20, of the world's most powerful countries ever as in USA V Mongol Empire + it V Soviet Union
Here are some more sites, there are books & articles on the subjects in many internet places, or internet book shops, bookstores, at the bottom, are lists of which were the worst regimes of the past few centuries.
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An Index with links to almost all our sites.
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What regimes were the 10 most worst in the 20thC, by damage they caused,
The Battles of Isandlwana & Rorkes Drift
A History of the fascinating medieval Kingdom of Kongo, a amazing story
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The History Lounge, - Where you can peruse & mull over a massive range of great historical related web sites.
A site on the Belgian Congo, & how the king of that land killed 10s of millions of Congolese
Why the French Revolution was good
The most evil regimes of the 19th Century
The Best regimes ever in terms of achievers
Worst 17th Century regimes ever
What would happen in a war between these sides
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A list stating what were the worst 1990s regimes
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What were the worst 15th Century regimes ever
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A site stating the 10 largest majority English speaking lands, as their main tongue in the world
A site on space, & the records to do with this subject
A site on a time traveling revolutionary
My Worst regimes of the 20th century essay
My worst regimes of the 20th century stats