The history of South Africa has been dominated by the interaction and conflict of several different ethnic groups. The aboriginal Khoisan people have lived in the region for thousands of years. Most people, however, traces its history to immigration since then. Black South Africans are descendants of immigrants from further north in Africa that he first saw what now are the confines of the country a few thousand years. White South Africans are descendants of later European settlers, mainly from the Netherlands and Britain. The mestizos are descendants at least in part, of all these groups, as well as the slaves in the then East Indies, and many South Africans of Indian and Chinese origin, descendants of indentured laborers who arrived in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. South Africa's history is described here more broadly to cover the story not only of the present South African state, but other political organizations in the region, including the Khoisan, the various Bantu kingdoms in the region before colonization, the rule of the Dutch in the Cape and back of the British state there and in Natal and the Boer republics call, including the Orange Free State and the Republic of South Africa. South Africa was under an official system of racial segregation and white minority rule from 1948 known as Apartheid, equal to its first elections in 1994, when the ruling African National Congress came to dominate politics.


Ancient and Medieval History
From about 500 BC, some groups of San purchased cattle further north. Gradually, hunting and gathering gave way to ranching as the dominant economic activity, as these people tend to San small herds of cows and oxen. The arrival of livestock introduced concepts of personal wealth and property "in the Society of St. Community structures solidified and expanded, and developed chiefdoms. These pastors of people known as San Khoikhoi ("men of men '), compared with the People of San still hunter-gatherers, whom the colonial settlers known as the Bushmen. At the point where the two groups were mixed, mixed and difficult to differentiate, the term was Khoisan. Over time the Khoikhoi established themselves along the coast, while small groups of San continued to live at home.
About 2,500 years ago the Bantu peoples began to migrate across sub-Saharan Africa from the Niger Delta. El Pueblo de San of southern Africa and Bantu speakers had no writing method, so the researchers know little about this period outside of archaeological
The Bantu-speakers have started making their way south and east in 1000 BC, reaching the province of KwaZulu-Natal in 500 CE. Bantu speakers had a culture of advanced Iron Age, keeping pets and also the practice of agriculture, sorghum and other crops. They lived in small villages were established. Bantu speakers arrived in South Africa in small waves and not in a coherent migration. Some groups, the ancestors of today's Nguni peoples (the Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi and Ndebele), preferred to live near the coast. Others, now known as the Sotho-Tswana peoples (Tswana, Pedi and Basotho), settled in the Highveld, while today the people of Venda, Lemba, and Shangaan Tsonga made their homes in parts of northeastern South Africa
Bantu-speaking and Khoisan mixed, as evidenced by cave paintings that show two different groups interact. The type of contact is still unknown, although linguistic integration test survives, as several southern Bantu languages (notably Xhosa and Zulu) incorporated many consonants click above Khoisan languages. Archaeologists have found numerous Khoisan artifacts at the sites of Bantu settlements
From about 1200 AD, a commercial network began to emerge just north as evidenced by sites such as Mapungubwe. Moreover, the idea came from the sacred direction - a concept that transcends English terms such as "Kings" or "Queens" [1] Sacred elite leaders were members of the community, the types of prophets, people with supernatural powers and the ability to predict. in the future.
Through the interactions and trade with Muslim traders sailing the Indian Ocean south to Mozambique today - become a regional commercial center of gold production and trade in ivory and glass beads and porcelain from places as far as China

History of South Africa (1652-1815)
European expeditions
Main article: History of Cape Colony
Although the Portuguese enjoyed the successful nautical navigation the corporal, who showed little interest in colonization. fierce weather in the area and the rocky coast posed a threat to their ships, and many of their attempts to trade with the local Khoikhoi ended in conflict. The Portuguese on the coast of Mozambique more attractive, attractive bays for use as way stations for prawning, and links to ore in the interior.
The Portuguese had little competition in the region until the late 16 century, when English and Dutch began to challenge the Portuguese along their trade routes. Stops at the tip of the continent increased, and after became a regular stopover for scurvy-mounted equipment. In 1647, a Dutch ship sank in the present Table Bay in Cape Town. The crew abandoned the first Europeans to attempt settlement in the area, built a fort and stayed for a year until they were rescued.

Arrival of the Dutch


Shortly thereafter, the Society of the Dutch East Indies (in the languages of the day: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC) decided to establish a permanent settlement. The VOC, one of the largest trading houses in Europe, sailing the spice route from the East, had no intention of colonizing the area, instead of wanting only to establish a secure base camp where passing ships could shelter, and where hungry sailors could stock up on new supplies of meat, fruits and vegetables. To this end, a small VOC expedition under the command of Jan van Riebeeck arrived in Table Bay on April 6, 1652.
While the new settlement traded out of necessity with the nearby Khoikhoi, was not a friendship, and company officials made deliberate attempts to restrict contact. Partly as a result, VOC employees found themselves facing a shortage of labor. To remedy this, he released a small number of Dutch from their contracts and allowed them to establish farms, which offer the solution of VOCs and their crops. This arrangement has been very successful, producing abundant supply of fruits, vegetables, wheat and wine, but also later raised cattle. The small initial group of free burghers, as these farmers are known, growing in number and began to expand their farms further north and east in the territory of the Khoikhoi.
Most of the bourgeoisie had Dutch ancestry and belonged to the Reformed Calvinist Church of the Netherlands, but there were also many Germans and some Scandinavians. In 1688 the Dutch and Germans joined the French Huguenots, also Calvinists fleeing religious persecution in France under Louis XIV.
In addition to establishing the system of free hamburger, van Riebeeck and the VOC also began importing large numbers of slaves, mainly from Madagascar and Indonesia. These slaves often married Dutch settlers and their descendants became known as mestizos Cape and Cape Malays. A significant number of the descendants of white slaves and unions were absorbed into the local proto-Afrikaans speaking whites. With this additional manpower, the areas occupied by the VOC expanded further north and east, with inevitable clashes with the Khoikhoi. The newcomers drove the Khoikhoi from their traditional lands, decimated with introduced diseases, and destroyed with superior weapons when they defended what they did in a series of great wars and the guerrilla resistance movements that lasted until the century 19. Most survivors were left with no choice but to work for the Europeans in an operating agreement that differed little from slavery. [Citation needed] Over time, the Khoisan, European supervisors and imported slaves mixed with the children of these unions that form the basis for today's black population.
The best known of the Khoikhoi groups including the Griqua, who had originally lived on the west coast between St. Helena Bay and the Cordillera de Cedeño. In the 18th century, they managed to acquire guns and horses and began trekking to the north-east. Along the way, other groups of Khoisan, Coloureds, and even white adventurers joined them, and quickly gained a reputation as a formidable military force. Ultimately, the Griquas reached about the current Highveld Kimberley, where he carved out a territory that became known as Griqualandalina.


Bourgeois expansion

As the bourgeoisie, also continued to expand in the rugged hinterland north and east, many began to take a lifestyle of semi-nomadic pastoralists, in some ways not far removed from that of the Khoikhoi who displaced. In addition to their flocks, a family can have a car, a tent, a Bible and a few weapons. As they became more settled, they built a mud-walled house, is often by choice, the days of travel from the nearest European settlement. These were the first of the Trekboers (Wandering farmers, later shortened to Boers), completely independent of official controls, extremely self-sufficient and isolated. Your lifestyle produced hard individualists who were well acquainted with the land. Like many pioneers of Christian experience, the bourgeoisie tried to live his life - and for the construction of a theocracy - on the basis of their particular Christian denominations (Dutch Reformed Church) with the text characters and plot exegesis found in the Hebrew scriptures (as opposed to the Christian Gospels and the Epistles).


British Corporal

South African History (1815-1910)
As the 18 th century came to an end, the Dutch mercantile power began to fade and the British moved to fill the void. Seized the Cape in 1795 to avoid falling into the hands of Napoleonic France, then briefly left the Dutch again (1803), before finally winning in 1806. British sovereignty in the area was recognized at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.
At the southern tip of the continent the British found an established colony with 25. 000 slaves, 20,000 white colonists, 15,000 Khoisan, and 1,000 freed black slaves. Power was only a white elite in Cape Town, and differentiation on the basis of race was deeply entrenched. Outside Cape Town and immediately inland, isolated shepherds black and white populous country.
Like the Dutch before them, the British initially had little interest in the Cape Colony, other than a strategically located port. As one of its first tasks trying to resolve a troublesome border dispute between the Boers and Xhosa on the eastern border of the colony. In 1820 the British authorities persuaded about 5,000 middle-class British immigrants (most of them "in commerce") to leave behind Great Britain and settle on tracts of land between the groups in conflict with the idea of offering a buffer zone. The plan was singularly successful. Within three years, nearly half of these 1,820 settlers had gone to the cities, in particular Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth, to continue the work he had held in Britain.
While doing nothing to resolve the border dispute, this influx of settlers solidified the British presence in the area, thus fracturing the relative unity of white South Africa. When the Boers and their ideas had gone before largely unanswered, white South Africa now had two distinct linguistic groups and two cultures. A pattern soon emerged which English-speakers became highly urbanized, and dominated the political, trade, finance, mining and manufacturing, while the Boers largely uneducated were relegated to their farms.
The gap between British settlers and the Boers further widened with the abolition of slavery in 1834, a move that the Boers generally regarded as the God-given order of the races. However, the conservatism of the British colonists stopped any radical social reformS, and in 1841 the authorities adopted a Masters and Servants Ordinance, which perpetuated white control. Meanwhile, the number of British immigrants increased rapidly in Cape Town in the east of the Cape Colony (now Eastern Cape province), in Natal. The discovery of diamonds in Kimberley and the subsequent discovery of gold in some parts of the Transvaal, mainly around Gauteng today led to a rapid increase in immigration of fortune seekers from all over the world, including Africa itself. [3]


Difaqane and destruction


The 19th century was a time of immense upheaval in relation to the military expansion of the Zulu kingdom. Sotho-speakers know this period as the difaqane ("forced migration"), while the Zulu-speakers call the Mfecane ("crush").
Full causes difaqane remain controversial, although some factors stand out. The emergence of a unified Zulu kingdom had a particular meaning. In the 19 th century, the Nguni tribes in KwaZulu-Natal, began to change from a loosely organized collection of kingdoms in a centralized state and military. Shaka Zulu, the son of the head of the small Zulu clan, became the driving force behind this change. In just the first of an outcast, Shaka was in the battle and gradually managed to consolidate power in his own hands. He built large armies, breaking with tradition by placing clan armies under the control of its own officers and not hereditary chiefs. Shaka then undertake a massive program of expansion, killing or enslaving those who resisted in the territories they conquered. Your impis (warrior regiments) were punished with rigor: failure in battle meant death.
The villages in the path of Shaka's armies out of his way, becoming offenders in their turn against their neighbors. This displacement wave propagation in southern Africa and beyond. Also accelerated the formation of several states, especially those of the Sotho (now Lesotho) and Swaziland (now Swaziland).
In 1828 Shaka was assassinated by his half-brothers Dingane and Umhlangana. The weaker and less skilled Dingane became king, the military discipline while continuing the despotism. Dingane also tried to establish relations with British traders on the Natal coast, but events have started to unfold, to see the demise of the independent Zulu.


The Great Trek


Great Trek
Meanwhile, the Boers had begun to grow increasingly dissatisfied with British rule in the Cape Colony. The British announcement of racial equality in particular, are angry, and they too were unhappy with the process of paying compensation for slaveholders that slaves had been freed. Since 1835, several groups of Boers, together with large numbers of Khoikhoi and black servants, decided to walk outside to the inside for greater independence. North and east of the Orange River (forming the border of Cape Colony), these Boers or Voortrekkers ("Pioneers") found vast tracts of grazing land, apparently uninhabited. They had apparently entered into their promised land, with enough room for their cattle to graze and their culture of independence against the city to prosper. Little did they know what they found - deserted pasture lands, disorganized bands of refugees, and tales of brutality - difaqane result, instead of representing the normal state of affairs.
With the exception of the most powerful Ndebele, the Voortrekkers encountered little resistance among the scattered peoples of the plains. The difaqane had dispersed, and the remains lacked horses and firearms. His weakened condition also solidified the Boers' belief that European occupation meant the coming of civilization to a savage land. However, the mountains where King Moshoeshoe had begun to build the Basotho nation that would later become Lesotho and the wooded valleys of Zululand proved a more difficult proposition. Here the Boers met strong resistance, and their raids sparked a series of skirmishes, fights, and the weak treated waste in the next 50 years of increasing white domination.



British, the Boers and Zulus

The Great Trek was first arrested in Thaba Nchu, near present Bloemfontein, where hikers established a republic. Following disagreements among their leaders, the Voortrekker groups split. While some headed north, most crossed the Drakensberg into Natal with the idea of establishing a republic there.
From the Zulu controlled this territory, the Voortrekker leader, accompanied by some 70 men from their community Trek-Boer, Piet Retief, visited the king kaSenzangakhona Dingane (Shaka's brother). Dingane promised land in payment for a favor. People Batlokwa, Sekonyela chief had stolen the cattle from him and wanted him back. Retief went to them and recover the cattle. After receiving the specified cattle, Dingane invited Retief and his men in his yard, where they were given all the land between the Tugela river until the Drakensberg iZimvubu. The treaty between the two men today is in a museum in the Netherlands. In celebration, Dingane invited Retief and his men come to drink uTshwala (traditional Zulu beer) in his yard, but the Boers had to give up all their guns away. Also included in the offer were the weapons and money. While drinking and being entertained by Zulu dancers, Dingane shouted "Bulalani abathakathi" (Kill the wizards "Sometimes also reported that" Bambani abathakathi "," Seize the wizards "). Dingane men, men having taken Retief by surprise, the men dragged to a hill Hloma Mabutas (or perhaps kwaMatiwane) when, one by one, all were killed, leaving Retief to the end so he could see.
After slaughter, the impis returned to the camp where Retief and his fellow farmers had left their wives, children and livestock. Taken by surprise, women, children and farmers remaining (approximately 500) also died in the place called "Weenen, but unpaid, who managed to stop the initial attack and managed to escape without many of their weapons and animals . A missionary, the Rev. Owen had seen all of this place and went to take Dingane to give the dead a proper burial. While the reverend and his assistant were burying the dead and their reading of their rights last, who happened to pass through the backpack Retief, still contains the tried and some personal items.
In the battle of Itala, the attempt by a Boer army of revenge failed miserably. The culmination came on 16 December 1838, in the Ncome River in Natal. The Boers established a defensive enclosure or laager before the Zulu attack. Although only three Boers were injured, killed about three thousand Zulu warriors with three guns and an elephant gun (along with other weapons). Before the battle, on 9 December 1838, the Boers made a vow to God that if He protected them and defeated his enemy, will build a church on their behalf and they and their descendants will remember the day and date . In memory of this vote in the 1920 December 16 became a holiday in South Africa. Both allegedly caused bloodshed Ncome waters red track, so the shock is historically known as the Battle of Blood River.

The Voortrekkers, victorious despite their numbers, saw his victory as an affirmation of divine approval. However, their hopes for the establishment of a republic was short-Natal. The British annexed the area in 1843, and founded the colony of Natal again today the city of Durban. Most of the Boers, feeling increasingly caught between the British on one side and the native populations of Africa, on the other, to the north.
The British set about the establishment of large sugar plantations of Natal, but found few people in the neighboring Zulu willing to provide labor. The British resistance to the rigidity of its invasion of the Zulus, a country with well-established traditions of warfare, who inflicted one of the most humiliating defeats in the British army at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879, where more than 1400 British soldiers were killed. During the Anglo-Zulu War in progress, the British eventually established their control over what was named below, Zululand, and is now known as KwaZulu-Natal.
The British came to India to solve its labor shortage, as Zulu men refused to take the subordinate position of workers and in 1860 the SS Truro arrived at the port of Durban, with more than 300 people on board. During the next 50 years, 150,000 Indian indentured came over as well as numerous free "passenger Indians", building the foundation of what would be the largest Indian community outside India. Already in 1893, when Mahatma Gandhi came to Durban, Indians outnumbered whites in Natal. (See Asians in South Africa.)


Growth of South Africa's independence

The Boers thus persevered in their search for land and freedom, ultimately establishing several Boer republics, for example, the South or the Transvaal Republic and Orange Free State. For a while it seemed that these republics would become stable states, despite their sparse population spread of fiercely independent Boers, the industry, agriculture and small. The discovery of diamonds near Kimberley world turned the Boers on the head (1869). The first diamond of land belonging to the Griqua, but to which both the Transvaal and Orange Free State claimed. Britain quickly intervened and solved the problem by annexing the area itself.
The discovery of diamond mines of Kimberley unleashed a flood of European and black workers in the area. Cities sprang up where people ignore the "correct" the separation of whites and blacks, and the Boers expressed anger that had lost their impoverished republics in the economic benefits of this revolution minerals.


The Anglo-Boer War

Anglo-Boer War

Boer War
Boer resentment of many years became full-blown rebellion in the Transvaal (under British control since 1877), and the Anglo-Boer War, known by Afrikaners as the "War of Independence broke out in 1880. The conflict ended almost as soon as it began with a landslide victory in the Battle of Majuba Hill Boer (27 February 1881). The republic regained its independence as the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South Africa), or ZAR. Paul Kruger, one of the leaders of the revolt, became president of the ZAR in 1883. Meanwhile, the British, who saw his defeat at Majuba as an aberration, forged ahead with his desire to federate the Southern African colonies and republics. They saw this as the best way to reach an agreement with the fact that most white Afrikaner, and to promote its larger strategic interests in the area.


Interwar period

In 1879 Zululand came under British control. Then in 1886 a form of Australia discovered gold on the Witwatersrand, accelerating the process of federation and the Boers try another coup. Johannesburg's population exploded to 100,000 in the mid 1890's, and the ZAR suddenly found itself hosting thousands of uitlanders, both white and black, with the Boers pushed into the background. The influx of Black labor in particular worried the Boers, as the scarcity of jobs meant that they would suffer more economic hardship.
The enormous wealth of the mines, largely controlled by Europeans "Randlords" soon became irresistible to the British. In 1895, a group of renegades led by Captain Leander Starr Jameson entered the ZAR with intent to cause an uprising on the Witwatersrand and installing a British administration. This raid was known as the Jameson Raid. The plan ended in failure, but it seemed obvious to Kruger there was at least the tacit approval of government of the Cape Colony, and that his republic is facing danger. He reacted by forming an alliance with the Orange Free State.

Anglo-Boer War

Second Boer War

The situation peaked in 1899 when the British demanded voting rights of 60. 000 foreign targets in the Witwatersrand. Until then, Kruger's government had excluded all foreigners from the franchise. Kruger rejected the British demand and called for the withdrawal of British troops from the borders of the ZAR is. When the British refused, Kruger declared war. The Anglo-Boer War lasted longer than the first, and the British preparation exceeded that of Majuba Hill. In June 1900, Pretoria, the last major cities Boer, had surrendered. However, the Boer bittereinders resistance continued for two more years of guerrilla-style battles, the British met in turn with scorched earth tactics. In 1902 26.000 women and children died of disease and neglect in the concentration camps. May 31 1902 a superficial peace came with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging. Under its terms, the Boer republics acknowledged British sovereignty, while the British, in turn pledged to the reconstruction of the areas under their control.

Union of South Africa

During the years immediately after the war the British turned their attention to rebuilding the country, in particular the mining industry. In 1907 the Witwatersrand mines produce about a third of the world's annual gold production. But peace brought by the treaty was still fragile and challenged all parties. Afrikaners were in the ignominious position of poor farmers in a country where large foreign-owned mining companies and made them irrelevant. Britain's failed attempts to Anglicise, and to impose English as the official language in schools and the workplace in particular, are angry. Partly as a reaction to this, the Boers were to see the afrikaans as volkstaal ("language of the people") and as a symbol of the Afrikaner nation. Several nationalist organizations emerged.
The system of blacks and mestizos left completely marginalized. The authorities imposed heavy taxes and reduced wages, while the British provisional administrator encouraged the immigration of thousands of Chinese to undercut any resistance. Resentment Bambatha Rebellion broke out in 1906, in which 4,000 Zulus were killed after protesting against the onerous tax legislation.
The British meanwhile moved ahead with their plans for marriage. After several years of negotiations, the South Africa Act 1909 brought the colonies and republics - Cape Colony, Natal, Transvaal and Orange Free State - along with the Union of South Africa. Under the provisions of the Act, the Union remained British territory, but the home of Afrikaner rule. The British embassy Commission Territories of Basutoland (now Lesotho), Bechuanaland (now Botswana), Swaziland and Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe) continued under direct rule from Britain.
English and Dutch became the official languages. Afrikaans was recognized not as an official language until 1925. Despite a major campaign by blacks and mestizos, the franchise of voters remained in the pre-Union republics and colonies, and only whites could win the parliamentary elections.
The most significant is the new Union of South Africa won international respect, on the condition of British rule putting it on par with three other major British dominions and allies: Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Native Land Act of 1913 was the first major piece of segregation legislation passed by the Parliament of the Union, and remained a cornerstone of apartheid until the 1990s when he was replaced by the current refund policy land. Under the law, blacks were relatively narrow legal ownership of land, at this stage to 7% of the country. This increased to over 13% to about 158, 734 km ² a 1/6th larger than Greece, resulting in a population density of 30/km ², as U.S. modern. The law created a system of land tenure that deprived most people of South Africa the right to own land outside the reserves that had important socio-economic impact, because the owners did not develop and leverage Earth in a successful commercial application.
segregationist legislation also includes the rights and Ballot Act (1892), which limited the black vote by finance and education, the Legislative Assembly of Natal, Bill (1894), which deprived the Indians of the right to vote, General Fertilizer Regulation Bill (1905), which denied blacks the vote total, limited to fixed areas and inaugurated the infamous Pass System, Asian Registration Act (1906) requires that all Indians to register and make passes, the South African Law (1910) than whites voting, allowing them complete political control of all other racial groups, the aforementioned Law of Indigenous Land (1913) which prevented all blacks, with the exception of Cape , from buying land outside "reservations." The reserves were the "homelands" of South Africa's black tribes. Reservations later became known as Bantustans that the goal was not to make independent, ethnically homogeneous states quasi-independent. At this time the state actually booked 87% of the land they could purchase only whites, Native Urban Areas Bill (1918) designed to move the blacks who live in "white" South Africa specific "places" as a safety precaution, the Urban Areas Act (1923) which introduced residential segregation in South Africa and provide labor for cheap unskilled mining and farming industry white, the Color Bar Act (1926) , preventing blacks from the practice of trades, the Native Administration Act (1927) made the British Crown, instead of paramount chiefs, the supreme commander on all matters of Africa; Fatherland and Trust Act (1936) that complements the Native Land Act 1913 and in the same year, the representation of Native Law, which eliminated black voters roll Cape. The final legislation of 'apartheid' approved by the Parliament of South Africa before the beginning of the era of apartheid was the Asiatic Land Tenure Bill (1946), which prohibited the sale of further land to the Indians.


Participation in the World Wars


At the outbreak of World War I, South Africa joined Britain and the Allies against the German Empire. Both Prime Minister Louis Botha and Jan Smuts Defense Minister, were former Boer War generals who had fought against the British in a while, but now became active and respected members of the Imperial War Cabinet. Elements of the South African army refused to fight against the Germans and, along with other opponents of the government rose in a revolt known as the Maritz Rebellion. The government declared martial law on October 14, 1914, and forces loyal to the government under the command of General Louis Botha and Jan Smuts proceeded to destroy the rebellion. The main Boer activists were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of six to seven years and heavy fines.
Almost a quarter of a million South African military units served in South Africa in supporting the Allies during World War This included 43,000 in German South-West Africa and 30,000 on the western front. It is estimated that 3,000 South Africans also joined the Royal Flying Corps. The total South African casualties during the war was for 18,600. South Africa helped the war effort of the Allies for the capture of two German colonies in Africa and German East Africa, West Germany, as well as participating in battles in Western Europe and the Middle East.
During the Second World War, the South African ports and harbors, and in Cape Town, Durban and Simon, were important strategic assets for the Royal Navy. About 334,000 South Africans are offered for full-time military service in support of allies abroad. About 9,000 were killed in action and many others were captured by the Axis and held as prisoners of war. Prime Minister Jan Smuts was not only important general British constant advice was sought wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Smuts was invited to the Imperial War Cabinet in 1939 as the oldest in South Africa for the war. On May 28, 1941, Smuts was appointed field marshal of the British Army, becoming the first South African to hold that rank. When the war ended, Smuts represented South Africa in San Francisco, in the drafting of the Charter of the United Nations in May 1945. Just as it had in 1919, Smuts urged delegates to create a powerful international body to preserve peace, but it was determined that, unlike the League of Nations, the United Nations have teeth. Smuts also signed the Paris Peace Treaty, resolving the peace in Europe, becoming the only signatory of both the treaty ending the First World War, which ended the Second.
Smuts then paid a high political price for his closeness to the British ruling class that had made him unpopular among most conservative Afrikaner nationalists, leading eventually to his political downfall in the 1948 election in general. Most English-speaking whites and a minority of liberal Afrikaners in South Africa remained loyal to him.



General elections and the slow evolution of democracy

Elections in South Africa and the South African general elections
From 1910 to 1948 the voting franchise was developed gradually from allowing "qualified" for the male population (with non-whites voting in the Cape Province and Natal) to the gradual disenfranchisement of all black South Africans, who were transferred to a separate electoral roll in 1936. All whites over 21 years, including women won the right to vote in 1930. After the National Party's rise to power in 1948, voter Black "was abolished. Cape mestizos were transferred to a role of independent voters, and subsequently deprived of their rights in full in 1970. Only whites were allowed vote in general elections from 1958 to 1994, when the vote was granted to all South Africans over 18 years. The general elections of 1994 was the first post-apartheid vote based on universal suffrage.
There have been three referendums in South Africa: 1960 referendum on becoming a republic, 1983 referendum on the implementation of the tri-cameral parliament, and 1992 referendum on becoming a multiracial democracy, all of which took place during the era of National Party control.


The era of apartheid


South African History (1948 to 1994)

South Africa under apartheid


Afrikaner nationalism
General Louis Botha headed the first government of the new Union, with General Jan Smuts as his deputy. His National Party of South Africa, later known as the Party of South Africa or SAP, followed by a general pro-British, white-unity. The Boers more radical separation of distance, under the leadership of General Barry Hertzog, forming the National Party (PN) in 1914. The NP championed Afrikaner interests, advocating for the independent development of the two groups of white and independence from Britain.
The new Union had no place for blacks, even though they constitute more than 75 percent of the population. The Act of Union were denied voting rights in the Transvaal and Orange Free State areas in Cape Province and blacks gained the vote if they found a property-title. Blacks were not granting the franchise, which comes immediately after the British war propaganda promoting freedom from "slavery Boer" as a blatant betrayal. Soon the Union passed a barrage of oppressive laws, making it illegal for black workers to strike, reserving skilled jobs for whites, blacks restriction of military service, and the institution of restrictive laws passed. In 1913 Parliament enacted the Native Land Act, setting aside eight percent of the land in South Africa for black occupation. The whites, who constituted only 20 percent of the population held 90 percent of the land. Black Africans were not allowed to buy or rent land or work as sharecroppers outside their designated area. Authorities evacuated thousands of squatters from the farms and forced to reservations increasingly overcrowded and poor, or in cities. Those who stayed went down to the situation of landless workers.
Black color and the opposition began to coalesce, and personalities like John Jabavu, Rubusana Walter and Abdurahman Abdullah laid the foundation for new non-tribal black political groups. Most significantly, a lawyer from Columbia University-educated, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, convened representatives of the various tribes of Africa to form a unified organization, national to represent the interests of blacks, and to ensure that there was a effective voice in the new Union. Thus originated the South African Native National Congress, known since 1923 as the African National Congress (ANC). Parallel to this, Mahatma Gandhi worked with indigenous people of Natal and Transvaal to fight the increasing encroachment on their rights.
The international recession that followed the First World War put pressure on the owners of mines, and tried to cut costs by hiring low-paid black workers, semi-skilled. white mine workers saw this as a threat and in 1922 rose in armed rebellion Rand, supported by the new South African Communist Party under the slogan "Workers of the world, unite and fight for a white South Africa." Smuts suppressed the increase of violence, but the failure led to a convergence of views between white Afrikaner nationalists and unionists speak English. The Communists saw the failure as having the result of a failure to mobilize black workers, and a new approach to recruitment.
In 1924 the National Park under Hertzog came to power in a coalition government with the Labour Party and the Afrikaner nationalism gained greater hold. Afrikaans, previously considered only a lower-class dialect of Dutch, replaced Dutch as an official language of the Union, and called brown gevaar (black peril) became the dominant theme of the 1929 election. In the mid 1930's, Hertzog joined the NP with the most moderate of SAP Jan Smuts to form the United Party, the coalition collapsed in the beginning of World War II when Smuts took over and, in the middle much controversy, led to South Africa in the war on the side of the Allies. However, the hopes of turning the tide of Afrikaner nationalism vanished when Daniel François Malan was a radical breaking of a movement, the Purified National Party, a central position in Afrikaner political life. The Afrikaner Broederbond, a secret Afrikaner brotherhood formed in 1918 to protect the Afrikaner culture, soon became an extremely influential force behind both the National Park and other organizations to promote the volk ("people", Afrikaners).
Due to the booming economy of war, black workers became increasingly important to the mining and industry, and the urban population has doubled almost black. Huge squatter camps grew up outside of Johannesburg, and (although to a lesser extent) outside the major cities. Despite the appalling conditions in the cities, blacks knew only poverty: wartime surveys found that 40 percent of white school children suffered from malnutrition.



Legalizing discrimination


South Africa under apartheid
Since 1948, successive National Party governments formalized and expanded the current system of racial discrimination and denial of human rights in the legal system of apartheid, which lasted until 1991. Although many important developments during this period, apartheid remained the central system around which most of the historical issues of this period revolved, including violent conflicts and militarization of South African society.
In mid 1980, the Joint Management Centres (JMC) that operate in at least 34 state designated "high risk" became the key element of a Management System for National Security. Police and military in control of the CMS were endowed with influence in decision-making at all levels, from the Council of Ministers by the local government. At the same time, the death squads of the police and the army carried out covert assassinations, sponsored by the state of dissidents and activists. In mid-1987, the Human Rights Commission knew of at least 140 political killings in the country, while about 200 people were killed by South African agents in neighboring states. The exact number of all victims are not known. rejected outright censorship journalists to report, filming or photographing such incidents, while the government continued its own program of covert disinformation always distorted accounts of extra-judicial killings. At the same time, vigilante groups sponsored by the State carried out violent attacks on communities and community leaders associated with resistance to apartheid. The attacks were later falsely attributed by the government with violence "black on black" or between factions within the communities. The Commission of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) later established a covert and informal network of ex or still serving military and police, often acting in conjunction with members of the extreme right, participated in actions that could interpreted as encouraging violence and leading to serious human rights violations, including random killings and destination.


extra-parliamentary activities



The pro-Nazi Ossewa Brandwag (OB) movement, which had committed to the defense of Afrikaner nationalism against parliamentarism, had almost half a million followers in South Africa in the 1940's. Its members included John Vorster who later became prime minister in the 1960's, and Hendrik van den Bergh, who later became chief of police intelligence. Both were interned in detention centers during World War II Nazi sympathies. OB out acts of sabotage and intimidation in retaliation against the country's alignment with the Allies against Hitler. Other pro-Nazi groups and anti-Semitic evolved as Boerenasie (Boer Nation). After the end of the war, the OB was absorbed by the National Party. When the National Party was elected to power in 1948, became thoroughly penetrated and covertly influenced by the extra-parliamentary Broederbond (brotherhood), a secret society with 12,000 members from the most powerful and influential strata of white society. An era of Nazi-like legislation followed, including the ban on movement of resistance against apartheid as a South African Communist Party and African National Congress.
Vorster, after his retirement as prime minister in 1978, was elected President of the State and engaged in a conspiracy to use secret funds to establish the newspaper The Citizen, the newspaper only English primary language was favorable to the government. covert disinformation projects were also established overseas in what became known as the scandal Muldergate. A commission of inquiry concluded in mid-1979 that Vorster "knew everything" about the misappropriation of tax money and illegal purposes was tolerated. He resigned in disgrace from the presidency.


Regional destabilization

Between 1980 and 1990, the assault on apartheid South Africa against the anti-apartheid forces in neighboring areas of the southern African region as a result of 1.5 million deaths. Another 1.5 million people fled their countries, and 6.1 million were internally displaced. The cost of economic destabilization in the region amounted to 40 percent of regional GDP in 1988 alone. The "frontline" state in Angola was the most affected. On May 4, 1978, 200 South African paratroopers massacred 800 refugees in the southern Angolan city of Cassinga, described by the South African government as a "terrorist base." Direct damage to the war in Angola roads, railways and buildings between 1980 and 1988 amounted to more than $ 17 billion. The loss of agricultural production amounted to another $ 1 billion. The battle of Cuito 1988 in southern Angola between the Cuban forces from Angola and supported by an invasion force in South Africa was a turning point in South African aggression against Angola. South Africa had lost air superiority and technological edge, largely due to an international arms embargo against the country.


Dismantling of apartheid


With increased local and international opposition to apartheid in the early 1980, including armed struggle, the widespread social unrest, economic and cultural sanctions by the international community, and the pressure of anti-apartheid movement in the whole world, State President FW de Klerk announced the lifting of the ban on the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress and the release of Nelson Mandela on 2 February 1990, which marked the beginning of a transition to democracy. In the referendum held on March 17, 1992, a 68% white electorate voted in favor of dismantling apartheid through negotiations.
After years of negotiations under the auspices of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), a draft constitution appeared on July 26, 1993, which contains concessions to all sides: a federal system of regional legislatures, the equal voting rights regardless of race, and a bicameral legislature. The neo-Nazi Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) - "Afrikaner Resistance Movement" - tried unsuccessfully to derail the negotiations through various acts of public violence and intimidation. From April 26-29, 1994, the population of South Africa voted in the first universal suffrage elections. The African National Congress won the elections to rule for the first time, leaving the National Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party behind him and the parties like the Democratic Party and the Pan Africanist Congress took up their seats as part of the parliamentary opposition the first truly multiracial parliament. Nelson Mandela was elected president on May 9, 1994 and formed "according to the provisional constitution of 1993 - a national unity government, formed by the ANC, NP and the Inkatha. On May 10, Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa in Pretoria, and Thabo Mbeki and FW de Klerk as his vice-presidents.
After considerable discussion, the following presentations and advocacy groups, individuals and ordinary citizens, Parliament enacted a new Constitution and Bill of Rights in 1996.
In early 2002 a military coup planned by a white supremacist movement known as the Boeremag (Boer Force) was frustrated by South African police. Two dozen conspirators including senior army officers were arrested and South Africa dismantled the extremist organization. The effectiveness of the police in thwarting the coup planned to strengthen the public perception that the democratic order is irreversible.


Truth and Reconciliation Commission


South Africa's history since 1994
After the promulgation of the Constitution focus was on the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established in 1995 under the dictates of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to expose the crimes committed during the apartheid era. The Commission heard many stories of brutality and injustice everywhere and offer some catharsis to people and communities shattered by their past experiences. It operates by allowing victims to tell their stories and to allow authors to confess his guilt, with the amnesty offered to those who made a full confession. Those who chose not to appear before the commission to face criminal prosecution if the authorities could prove his guilt. The offer of forgiveness that are the centerpiece of the committee was informed by political decisions rather than by principles of justice. Was essentially the result of compromise and the price of ensuring a peaceful transition, and in particular the cooperation of the apartheid security services. But while some soldiers, police and ordinary citizens confessed their crimes, few of whom he had given the order or command of the police showed up. State President PW Botha himself, in particular, refused to appear before the Commission. It was difficult to gather evidence against these alleged high-level criminals. While 7,060 people arrived before the amnesty committee of the TRC, the provision of meaningful information, the authors of many of those who reported not making full disclosure of crimes in cases that rely on the researchers had no knowledge of crimes other than those for which amnesty was specifically sought. This limited the TRC's ability to determine the full extent of human rights violations during the apartheid era. No successful prosecutions followed a senior author identified as such by the TRC, but had refused to seek amnesty.

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