In the beginning
South Africa contains
some of the oldest archaeological sites in Africa with extensive fossil
remains discovered at Sterkfontein, Kromdraai and Makapansgat
caves suggesting that various australopithecines existed in South Africa as
far back as three million years ago. These were succeeded by various
species of Homo, including Homo habilis, Homo
erectus and modern man - Homo sapiens.
Settlements of Bantu
speaking peoples from the North, who were iron-using agriculturists and
herdsmen, are believed to have arrived south of the Limpopo River by the
fourth or fifth century AD displacing and absorbing the earlier
hunter-gatherer KhoiSan speaking people of
Sothern Africa. The earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province
are believed to date from around 1050.
Arrival of the Europeans
The recorded history of
South Africa begins in 1487 with the arrival of the Portuguese and Bartolomeu Dias becoming the first European to reach
the southernmost tip of Africa. On returning to Lisbon and carrying news of
his discovery, which he called Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms) due to the stormy conditions
he had encountered in the region, his royal sponsor, John II of Portugal,
chose a different name, Cabo da
Boa Esperança or Cape of Good Hope, for it
promised a sea route to the riches of India then being sought by Portugal.
Later, the great Portuguese poet Camões
immortalized Dias' voyage in the epic poem The Lusiads,
specifically via the mythological character, Adamastor,
which symbolizes the forces of nature the Portuguese navigators had to
overcome during the circumnavigation of the cape.
Along with the accounts
of the early navigators, the accounts of shipwreck survivors provide the
earliest written history 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 and
eighteenth centuries, this 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 and livestock
interests.
To ease Cape labour shortages, the Dutch imported slaves from
Indonesia, Madagascar, and India. 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. Many of the
descendants of these slaves, who often married with Dutch settlers, were
later classified together with the remnants of the Khoisan
as Cape Coloureds. Further intermingling within
the Cape Coloured population itself, as well as
with Xhosa and other South African people, now means that the Cape Coloureds now constitute roughly 50% of the population
in the Western Cape Province.
Colonisation
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 and India. It was returned to the Dutch in 1803, but
soon afterwards the Dutch East India Company declared bankruptcy, and 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 and consolidating it by
encouraging British settlement. Due to the pressure of abolitionist
societies in Britain, the British parliament first stopped its global slave
trade in 1807, then abolished slavery in all its
colonies in 1833.
Wars
of independence
The discovery of diamonds
in 1867 and gold in 1884 encouraged economic growth and immigration to
South Africa, 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.
The Boers resisted
fiercely, but the British eventually overwhelmed the Boer forces, using
their superior numbers, improved tactics and external supply chains. The
British used controversial concentration camps and scorched earth tactics,
forcing whole families into crowded tents and burning their houses. On the
31st May 1902 the Treaty of Vereeniging specified full British
sovereignty over the South African republics, and the British government
agreed to assume the £3 000 000 war debt owed by
the Afrikaner governments. One of the main conditions of the treaty ending
the war was that "Blacks" would not be allowed to vote, except in
the Cape Colony.
A Union is created
On May 31st
1910, exactly eight years after the end of the Second Boer War and after
four years of negotiations, the Union of South Africa was created from the
Cape and Natal colonies, as well as the republics of Orange Free State and
Transvaal. The newly-created Union of South Africa was a dominion. The
Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by
'blacks', at that stage to a mere 7% of the country, although this amount
was eventually increased marginally. In 1934, the South African Party and
National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between
Afrikaners and 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.
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Progressive Initiative. The
Progressive Initiative rejects all forms of discrimination, embraces
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