
1600’s colonization by the Dutch. Establishing the East
India Co. in 1652.

Dutch farmers settle lands (Boers)

Britain takeover the colony in the early 1800’s.


By the 1900’s diamonds were discovered in South
Africa, as well as, gold.
Prospectors mainly from Britain arrive and expand
settlements pushing out native African tribes (Tswana,
Zulu and Swazi)


“Diggers” as the British prospectors were
called established shantytowns within these
new territories.





Military conflict between British and Boer forces.
Often called “The white man’s war” all of South Africa was
involved in some way or another.
British torched Boer villages placed Boer women and children,
along with black African miners in concentration camps.
This was not a popular war amongst the British. British pro-Boers
had undermined the moral complacency of the victors.
Even though the British were successful in winning the war, they
gave generous peace terms to the Boers, including lands and the
ability to govern those lands.

A white-run state. After the Boer War. The
mood within Afrikanerdom after the return of
self-government, was one of conciliation:




1st between the Boers and the King (whose subjects
agreed to become subjugated)
2nd between the Boers (republican Afrikaners) and
Cape (British)
3rd between the hensoppers (quitters) and the
Bittereinders (die-hards) in the Boer War.


Louis Botha—South African soldier and statesman
In 1884 he help found the New Republic in Vryheid district
(KwaZulu-Natal)


1897 enters the South African legislature

Botha joined the Boer army, becoming commander in chief in 1900

He help end the conflict with Britain in 1902

Elected premier of the Transvaal in 1907

1909 help establish the Union (now Republic) of South Africa

Headed the South African government from 1910-1919.

At the outbreak of WWI, in 1914, Botha committed South Africa to
the Allied cause

This move aroused violent opposition


He defeated the ensuing insurrection in Feb.
1915


Launched the successful takeover of German
South-West Africa (now Namibia)



Architect of white
supremacy
1948 won election: he
enacted the doctrines of
Apartheid or racial
separation
Resigned in 1954

BANTUSTANS (black homeland or Bantus)


Majority black population of the territories in
South Africa


Policy of racial segregation.


Apartheid means “separateness” in Afrikaans
language.



Introduced in 1948
Becomes the governing political
policy until the early 1990’s.
Apartheid laws classified people into
3 major racial groups
 White
 Bantu
 Colored—mixed descent

Later a 4th class: Asians, Indians and Pakistanis.


The laws determined where members of each group
could live, what jobs they could hold, and what type of
education they could receive.


Laws prohibited most social contact between races,
authorized segregated public facilities, and denied and
representation of nonwhites in the national
government.


People who openly opposed apartheid were
considered communists.
VORSTER

Prime minister (1966-78) and president (197879) of South Africa


Son of an Afrikaner sheep farmer, was trained
as a lawyer


Founder of an anti-British extremist group
opposed to participation in WWII (interned
1942-1944)





Made minister of justice in1961
Sharpeville Shooting (1960) Black dissidents
are killed.
Vorster in charge and imposed drastic
detention and security measures on black
dissidents
He further tightened security and continued
the apartheid policy, but did open dialogue
with black African states
1978 as a result of a government scandal and
cover-up he retired a year later.
BOTHA



Born Paul Roux.
1966 succeeded Vorster as National Party
leader and prime minister in 1978
1970’s and 1980’s was deeply involved in South
Africa’s attempt to hold on to Namibia in
defiance of the United Nations and a guerrilla
insurgency.

1983 he pushed through a reform bill that
extended representation in Parliament to
“Coloureds” and Indians but not blacks.



Became President in 1984
1989 suffered a stroke and was forced to resign
as President
De Klerk

President from (1989-1994)


His reforms lead to the end of Apartheid



1990 ended the ban on the African National
Congress (ANC). A largely black South
African nationalist group





Ordered the release of ANC leader Nelson
Mandela-who has been in prison since 1962
Repealed the last of the laws that formed the
legal basis of apartheid in 1992
1993 Jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
with Nelson Mandela
1997 stepped down as leader of the National
Party and retired from politics
Nelson Mandela succeeded him as president

Founded in 1912 as a nonviolent organization
that worked to promote the interest of black
Africans


Most members were of middle-class
backgrounds


Stressed constitutional change through the use
of delegations, petitions, and peaceful protest
MANDELA
FREEMAN

1940 Alfred B. Xuma became ANC president
and began to recruit younger, more outspoken
men---Nelson Mandela


By the mid-1940 he becomes one of the ANC
leaders


1948 Apartheid is instated: ANC actively
opposes and by 1955 issues its Freedom
Charter which states that

“South Africa belongs to all who live in it,
black and white”


South Africans who believed that it belonged
only to black Africans form a rival party, the
Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) in 1959

The PAC organize a mass demonstration that
led to the massacre of black protesters in
Sharpsville in March of 1960 (69 blacks were
killed)


The governments response is to ban all black
political organizations (ANC) (PAC)

After Sharpsville the ANC abandons its
nonviolent ways. Mandela is in charge of the
ANC’s military wing


1962 Mandela is sentence to live in prison

Next 30 years the ANC operate underground


1976 a revolt in Soweto, just outside
Johannesburg, led to a reawakening of black
African politics and renewed assault on
apartheid


1990 the ban was lifted on the ANC

1990 Mandela is released from prison (27 years)


1993 ANC and the government agree to a plan
that would form a transitional government to
rule for five years



April 27-30,1994, millions of South Africans of
all races participated in the country’s first
democratic elections

May 2, 1994 Nelson Mandela becomes
president of South Africa


He establishes a multiracial government


1997 Mandela steps down—due to age



1999 Thabo Mbeki becomes 2nd black President
and ANC member.
Desmond Tutu
Anglican Archbishop
Opposed Apartheid
Called for a worldwide
boycott of South Africa
All nations
followed
Reagan broke—
Congress
overrode
Reagan
Won Nobel Peace Prize
in 1984
Winnie Mandela




Wife of Nelson who advocated militant
resistant to apartheid
1958 married Nelson Mandela
Imprisoned for her work in the ANC from
1969-1970
In 1988 was implicated, when members of the
Mandela United Football Club (who served as
her bodyguards) beat four young black men,
one of whom died in the Mandela home




1991 was convicted of kidnapping and assault
in relation to the incident and sentenced to six
years in prison
1992 new evidence surfaced, regarding these
charges, as well as others, she resigned her
position as head of the ANC’s National
Executive Committee.
1993 successfully appealed the charges, but her
kidnapping charges remained—court waived
her prison term and ordered her to pay a fine

Despite all of this she was elected to the
president of the ANC’s Women’s League


1992 separated from her husband


1994 was appointed by her husband, as deputy
minister of arts, culture, science, and
technology

1995 resigned her post due to ongoing conflicts
with the administrations



1996 was divorced from Nelson.
BIKO

Medical School in 1966—this is where he
decides to be proactive in the liberation of
black people


1968 organizes the South African Students’
Organization (SASO)


Also founded or help found:



National Association of Youth Organizations
(NAYO)
Black Worker’s Project (BWP)
 Left Medical School in1972-was expelled

 1973 was restricted to King Williams Town.

 1975 set-up the Zimele Trust Fund – assist political
prisoners and their families

 August 18, 1977 was arrested in a police road block and
detained under the Terrorism Act
 He died in detention. Government
claims it was a hunger strike that
killed him.
 at the inquests of a number of detainees who died
under suspicious circumstances magistrates
declined to examine the interrogation methods used
and attributed death to natural causes, suicides or
prison accidents. At the inquest into Biko's death no
government official was prepared to condemn the
treatment meted out to Biko. The circumstances of
his death were said to be inconclusive and death
was attributed to a prison accident. Yet, evidence
led during the 15-day inquest into Biko's death
revealed otherwise. During his detention in a Port
Elizabeth police cell
 He had been chained to a grill at night and
left to lie in urine-soaked blankets. He had
been stripped naked and kept in leg-irons
for 48 hours in his cell. A blow in a scuffle
with security police led to him suffering
brain damage by the time he was driven
naked and manacled in the back of a
police van to Pretoria, where, on 12
September 1977, he died. BECOMES A
MARTYR