First Europeans
South Africa was first discovered by Jan van Riebeeck and the 90 men who landed with him in 1652 at the Cape of Good Hope, under instructions by the Dutch East India Company to build a fort and develop a vegetable garden for the benefit of ships on the Eastern trade route.
The Boer Wars
In the early 1700's independent farmers called trekboers began to push north and east. As a result of developments in Europe the British took the Cape over from the Dutch in 1795. Seven years later the colony was returned to the Dutch government, only to come under British rule again in 1806.
The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1884 in the interior encouraged economic growth and immigration, 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.
Also during this war, the British used controversial concentration camps and scorched earth tactics, forcing whole families into crowded tents and burning their houses. Crops were burnt and all livestock slaughtered to demoralise the resisting Boers.
Start of the ANC
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. Many blacks saw the British victory as the hoped-for opportunity to put all four colonies on an equal and just footing, but the treaty left their franchise rights to be decided by the white authorities.
The ex-Boer republics retained the whites-only franchise. The African National Congress (ANC) had come into being in January 1912, in Bloemfontein, in an act of unity joining an educated elite, the rural classes and tribal structures.
With the inspiration of the October Revolution in Russia, the post-war period was marked by strike action. In 1918, a million black mine workers went on strike for higher wages and 71 000 did the same in 1920 – the latter strike successfully extracting a wage increase.
Union Formations
Between those strikes, 1919 saw the formation of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of South Africa and the convening of the SA Indian Congress. In the same year Smuts became Prime Minister.
If official (white) South Africa was taking its place in the wider world as a result of the First World War, the ANC was beginning to see itself as part of the wider African efforts against colonialism in Africa.
The 1950s were to bring increasingly repressive laws against black South Africans and its obvious corollary – increasing resistance. Reaction was swift: the following year 156 leaders of the ANC and its allies were charged with high treason. The longest trial in South African history was to lead to the acquittal of all accused in 1961.
South African Republic
South Africa’s isolation increased in 1961 when, following a white referendum, South Africa became a republic and Verwoerd took it out of the Commonwealth. Umkhonto we Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation), emerged with acts of sabotage against government installations.
Originally formed by a group of individuals within the ANC, including Nelson Mandela, it was to become that organisation’s armed wing.
A new stage of international pressure began when the United Nations General Assembly called on its members to institute economic sanctions against South Africa.
Mandela, in the meanwhile, had travelled through Africa making contact with numerous leaders. Going underground on his return, he was arrested in Natal in August 1962 and received a three-year sentence for incitement.
In July 1963 a police raid on the Rivonia farm Lilliesleaf, led to the arrest of several of Mandela’s senior ANC colleagues, including Walter Sisulu.
They were charged with sabotage, Mandela being brought from prison to stand trial with them. All were sentenced in 1964 to life imprisonment and taken to Robben Island.
Restrictions Are Lifted
PW Botha, who became Prime Minister in 1978 after Vorster’s retirement, tried to co-opt the coloured and Indian population in the early 1980s with a new constitution establishing a Tricameral Parliament, with separate houses for these groups.
Among the other organisations in the spotlight at this time were the trade union body Cosatu and Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s Inkatha, the latter involved in bloody conflict with pro-ANC factions. What followed was the horrendous years of Apartheid.
In February 1990, De Klerk lifted restrictions on 33 opposition groups, including the ANC, the PAC and the Communist Party, at the opening of Parliament. On February 11, Mandela, who had maintained a tough negotiating stance on the issue, was released after 27 years in prison.
South Africa’s first democratic election was held at the end of April 1994, with victory going to the ANC in an alliance with the Communist Party and Cosatu and the end of Apartheid dawned.
Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President on May 10 with FW de Klerk and the ANC’s Thabo Mbeki as Deputy Presidents. In the second democratic elections in June 1999, the ANC marginally increased its majority and Thabo Mbeki became President.
So, in 1652 - one hundred and fifty years after Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape - a former ship’s surgeon sailed into Table Bay. His name...
Whilst in prison Nelson Mandela had to overcome internal problems before he could proceed comfortably with his negotiations with the Aparthe...