The Boer Wars
The Second Boer War, only seventeen years after the First Boer War, started in 1899. It, once again, took place between South African Boers and British troops. Boers, being republic farmers.Most historians prefer to call the 2nd one the South African War . The first war was in response to the British annexation of South Africa in 1877. Between 1835 and 1845 around 15,000 Dutch people moved from British Cape Colony to the interior of South Africa. They then divided into the Transvaals and Orange Free State. After the Transvaal Boers took up armed resistance in 1880 and war started. The British eventually were driven back by Boer Commandant Frans Joubert. A second war started brewing when the Transvaals found gold, then the British started to consider them an economical threat. South Africa started to unite, angering British high commander, Sir Alfred Milner and colonial secretary, Sir Joseph Chamberlain. The war truly broke out after an ultimatum proposed by the Boers was rejected. The ultimatum asked the British to back away from their borders. The Transvaal and Orange Free State took up arms against the British. The British started a "scorched earth" campaign by destroying, livestock, villages and crops. Black people and Boers were put into concentration camps by the British in 1900. The British then decided to expand their army by persuading Black men to join, adding 30,000 soldiers. The war was won by the British in 1902.
Afrikaans
Afrikaner is the term for Dutch-South Africans and the dialect of 17th Century Dutch that they speak is called Afrikaans. Afrikaans, as a language, is also referred to as "Cape Dutch" or, more derogatorily, "kitchen Dutch". Afrikaners are descended from the settlers who landed on the Cape of Good Hope during their period of administration (1652-1795) by the Dutch East India Trading Company. Many of the children born to these Dutchmen were the children of enslaved women. Some are descended from the French Huguenot fugitives who arrived in South Africa in 1688. Afrikaans speakers who began farming on the cape were called Boers. Boers are sometimes considered a different race and culture than Afrikaners. Afrikaners make up about 5% of the modern South African population.
Benefits for the Dutch
When the Dutch East India Trading Company discovered South Africa, they decided to permanently settle there. Not as a colony, but a s a base camp where ships could rest. A small number of Dutch were later released from their contract with the company and were allowed to farm, with these farms they would stock the Company ships that stopped there. This greatly benefitted the company, saving lives and preventing scurvy. These farmers-known as free burghers would continue to expand their farms further and further north and east, into Khoikhoi territory. The Trading Company also supplied a large number of enslaved people form other countries to the Cape, this resulted in them having children with the farmers there, with more workers the labor increased, as did the expansion. Eventually, they clashed with the Khoikhoi resulting in the Khoikhoi either becoming enslaved or killed, with few escaping either fate. Overall, the Dutch gained a steady supply of fruit, vegetables, meat and slave labor.
Apartheid
Apartheid (literally, "separation") is the term referring to a period of South African history that segregated blacks and whites, and had blacks being treated poorly , with next to no civil rights. Pro-segregation sentiment was already very common before Apartheid. The earliest record of law enforced segregation was the 1913 Land Act, passed three years after South Africa declared its independence. It forced black South Africans to live on reserves and didn't allow them to be sharecroppers. With the Great Depression and WW2, the government was facing problems with its economy and decided that strengthening its policies of racial segregation would help. In 1948 the Afrikaner National Party was elected into office, their goal was to separate South Africa's White minority from the non-white majority, as well as to separate non-whites from each other and to divide black South Africans into tribes to decrease their political power. Two years later, marriage between whites and non-whites was made illegal. Also made illegal was any sexual relations between whites and blacks. People were divided into four (at first three, Asian was added later) Bantu (black Africans), Coloured (mixed race), Asian (meaning Indian and Pakistani) and white. However, easily one of the most brutally unjust aspects of apartheid were the Land Acts. A staggering 80% of the land in South Africa was set aside for the white minority.Many black South Africans were removed from areas designated as "white" and were forced to live in slums. Included with the land Land Acts came "pass laws" which required non-whites to carry documents authorizing their presence in restricted areas. Public facilities such as water fountains and bathrooms were segregated as well. Things got worse in 1958, when Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd was elected as Prime Minister and created "separate development". The Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959 created 10 Bantu homelands known as Bantustans. This separated black Africans so that they wouldn't unionize against Apartheid. Apartheid was a true horror show that damaged many peoples' lives.
End of Apartheid
Apartheid was ended completely by 1994, but it was a long journey to that point. In 1952, a mass meeting was held where people attending burned their passbooks. 150 people were arrested and charged with treason at that meeting. A group called the Congress of the People adopted a freedom charter in 1955, stating that "South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black or white." Two violent police responses to nonviolent protest also helped spur the anti-Apartheid movement. One happened in 1960, in Sharpesville when police opened fire on members of the PAC (Pan-African Congress) for showing up at a police station without a pass. Because of Sharpesville, many people against apartheid decided that military means were the only way to get what they wanted. Both the African National Congress and the Pan-African Congress established military wings (which never posed a serious military threat to the state). By 1961, most anti- Apartheid leaders were in prison or executed. The imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, who founded Umkhonto we Sizwe ("Spear of the Nation"), the military wing of the ANC, was in prison from 1963 to 1990. This helped draw international attention to the cause. The other peaceful protest met with force was in 1976 , when thousands of black children in Soweto demonstrated against the Afrikaans language requirement for black African students, the police met them with tear gas and bullets. That year, the UN Security Council voted to impose an embargo on the sale of arms to South Africa, the UN having denounced apartheid 3 years prior. This was especially troubling for South Africa because they were going through an economic recession at the time. In 1985 the UK and US imposed economic sanctions on South Africa. In 1989 F.W. de Klerk was elected and repealed the laws that stood as the basis for Apartheid. A new constitution was put into effect in 1994.