INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

The region known today as South Africa was originally occupied by the Khoikhoi and the San, African peoples together known as the Khoisan.  Many different African tribes (speaking various African languages) later migrated into the region from East and Central Africa. 

COLONIZATION & THE SLAVE TRADE

Colonization began in South Africa in the late 16th century, when the Dutch East India Company set up a post in Cape Town, initally to provide for European trading ships passing by the area.  European settlers were given farms around Cape Town by colonial authorities, imported slaves from other parts of Africa and eventually Asia, gradually took possession of land and livestock belonging to indigenous peoples, and imposed on local culture, particularly by way of their commercial and religious practices. 

In the late 17th century, the British took over the Cape Town colony, spreading their culture of evangelism and a missionary spirit that believed in a need to "civilize" the indigenous peoples. Mostly due to the influence of humanitarian, John Philip, the British implemented Ordinance 50 (1828) suggesting equal civil rights to the African and Asian people (together referred to as the "people of colour"), and abolished slavery into a wage-labour economy.  However, the ordinance was largely met with White resistance and "coloured" people were still treated with discrimination, because of their wages and their race.  Meanwhile, the Dutch began migrating to other parts of the region where they eventually formed new colonies of their own. 

At the end of the 18th century, the discovery of diamonds and gold contributed to a war between the two competing groups of White colonists,  the British and the Dutch (known as Boers or Afrikaners), called the Anglo-Boer War. The victorious British government combined all the colonies to build a White nation (4 colonies, including the Cape Colony, had been formed by that time and 2 had been been under Dutch control before the war), defined the region as an independent dominion called the Union of South Africa (1910) and began to take measures to secure their White power.  They enacted the Natives' Land Act (1913) that allocated a majority of the country's land to its minority White race.  The Native Urban Areas Act (1923) introduced the pass laws that controlled movements of Blacks and kept them in jobs that served Whites.  Around the 1930's, the British government created restrictions on the ability of Blacks to vote in elections and forced communities to segregate Whites and Blacks.  Public transport, toilets and spaces like beaches became for "Blacks only" or "Whites only." 

THE APARTHIED ERA:  INSTITUTIONALIZED RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

The formation of the Union of South Africa by the British inspired Afrikaner (Dutch) nationalism and the creation of the Afrikaner's National Party.  South Africa's British got involved in the first World War and Afrikaner opposition to this involvement gained the Afrikaner's National Party significant support so that, combined with their promise of securing white domination through their apartheid (or "separate development") policies, they eventually took over parliament.  Winning the nearly whites-only election, the National Party officially launched the "apartheid" regime (1948) that institutionalized racial discrimination.

Some of apartheid's atrocious policies included:  the Population Registration Act (1950) that assigned racial categories of White, Black or Coloured ("coloured" meant being of mixed descent but included Indians and Asians); the Pass Books (1952) that were basically a racial passport including a photo, fingerprints, and information about where the pass-holder was allowed to go; the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and the Immorality Act (1950) prohibiting inter-racial marriage and sex respectively;   the roll-out of Bantu education (keeping Black education levels low to restrict Blacks to the unskilled labour force that supported the White economy); tight control over media (including the banning of the film Black Beauty simply because of what its title implied) and the refusal of television altogether; denying Blacks the right to vote or even protest against the government and its laws without facing harsh and cruel punishment, ie. Nelson Mandela's life in prison;  and the creation of 'homelands.'

Where the word 'homeland' may conjure up for many images of one's place of origin (or solace), with a sense of personal and cultural roots, the term has a different meaning in South Africa.  The homelands, also known as bantustans, (like the First Nations reserves in Canada) were rural areas where Black tribes, categorized as Xhosa, Zulu, etc, based on an estimate of place of origin, were forced to live and self-govern.  The apartheid government considered the homelands as separate nations (although no other countries in the world recognized them as such), refusing the Blacks to share in their national identity as South Africans and instead considering them foreigners who were only to enter the White nation as it served the Whites, and who could be deported. The Black people could reside legally in urban areas, provided they had "section 10 rights," sort of like immigration rights (you had to have a job, an employer who would vouch for you, accommodation, etc). 

Those with section 10 rights settled in the townships (areas of formal housing reserved for non-whites, created at the edge of urban areas by the government). Blacks could be evicted from more developed urban areas reserved for Whites, to the townships.  Children born in the townships were automatically allowed to be there.  Blacks couldn't stay overnight in the White areas (unless as domestic servants) and white people were not allowed into the townships.  In most parts of the country, except in Cape Town, townships were separated from White areas by kilometers of no man's land, with only one access road, and road blocks regularly set up to check cars going in. 

It is in these townships where the xenophobic violence of May 2008 took place and from which thousands of African immigrants and refugees fled their homes in fear.

-         THE RAINBOW NATION

Black resistance movements developed, particularly the African National Congress (1912), and through the leadership of such people as Nelson Mandela, created a historical document known as the Freedom Charter that listed a set of basic rights and freedoms that became the guiding force of what the Blacks, and their allies, were fighting for.  Years of struggle, starting with peaceful protests, then later violence, bloodshed and the country being offiicially in and out of a 'state of emergency' ensued, but eventually, with a combination of mass mobilisation and international solidarity, the apartheid government was dismantled and the first free election enabled Blacks to vote.  Nelson Mandela became the first Black President of the democratic Republic of South Africa, today referred to as "the new South Africa" or the "Rainbow Nation" with the most advanced constitution in the world.

IMMIGRANTS & REFUGEES

The freedom of South Africa, along with its growing industrialization and economy, has seen many people from all over the world migrating into South Africa.  This includes both immigrants and refugees from across the African continent, with South Africa ranking amongst the countries with the greatest numbers of asylum seekers in the world.