History of South Africa

1.By 11 century Bantu speaking tribes had settled in the area
2. Dutch East Indian company established first settlement at the Cape of Good Hope 1652.
3. The settler developed a close-knit community with their own dialect (Afrikaans) and were Calvinist (was the Dutch Reformed Church, they broke off from the Dutch church)
4. Slaves were imported from other parts of Africa and Southeast Asia
5. 1779 the eastward expansion the Boers (means ‘head of cattle’ and were Dutch-Afrikaner farmers) was halted by Xhosa in the first Bantu War
6. British annexed the Cape in 1806 and abolished slavery in 1834, the Boers considered this intolerable
7. Pressure on the Bantu from the Boers and British caused political and social tensions , which resulted in the Zulu king, Shaka, in early 19th century. His policy of total war on neighboring tribes cause a lot of suffering and mass migration. The Zulu’s were eventually defeated. Tensions between Boers and British were tensed
8. 1867 Diamonds were discovered in Kimberly and gold in 1886 in Jo’burg. The Boer republics were flooded with British
9. The resulting tensions ended in Anglo-Boer War in 1899-1902
10. British won the war, they pursued a scorched-earth policy to combat the Boer guerrillas, and had the world’s first concentration camp where 26,000 Afrikaner woman and children died.
11. 1910 Union of South Africa was created which gave political control to only whites. This prompted resistance with non-whites and the government reacted by intensifying repression.
12. 1948 Afrikaner National Party won the election and excluded non whites from having any political or economic power and the security forces brutally enforced this laws
13. ANC (African National Congress) was created to oppose the racist legislation. Nelson Mandela was one of the leaders.
14. Apartheid system was entrenched even further in early 1970’s with the creation of the Black Homelands they were in theory ‘independent’ countries, all blacks within white-designated South Africa were deemed foreign guest-workers and had no political rights. Any black person without a residence pass could be ‘deported’ to a homeland
15. UN imposed economic and political sanctions and established new parliaments of whites, colored (mixed race), and Indians, but no blacks.
16. Reforms did nothing to east he sanctions and 1989 FW de Klerk dismantled apartheid and released Nelson Mandela
17. 1994 Nelson Mandela won the election and a new rainbow flag was raced.
South Africa