The Tumultuous History of South Africa

Nov 06, 2025 0

South Africa's history is a captivating narrative spanning millennia, marked by diverse cultures, colonial encounters, and a relentless struggle for equality. From the earliest hominid settlements to the dismantling of apartheid and the establishment of a democratic nation, South Africa's journey is a testament to human resilience and the pursuit of justice. Covering an area of 1,221,037 square kilometres (471,445 square miles), the country has a population of over 63 million people (the 6th largest in Africa).

Location of South Africa.

Ancient Roots and Early Civilizations

South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human-fossil sites in the world. Scientists researching the periods before written historical records were made have established that the territory of what is now referred to generically as South Africa was one of the important centers of human evolution. It was inhabited by Australopithecines since at least 2.5 million years ago. Modern human settlement occurred around 125,000 years ago in the Middle Stone Age, as shown by archaeological discoveries at Klasies River Caves.

The area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has been branded "the Cradle of Humankind". The sites include Sterkfontein, one of the richest sites for hominin fossils in the world, as well as Swartkrans, Gondolin Cave, Kromdraai, Cooper's Cave and Malapa. Professor Raymond Dart discovered the skull of a 2.51 million year old Taung Child in 1924, the first example of Australopithecus africanus ever found. The first human habitation is associated with a DNA group originating in a northwestern area of southern Africa and still prevalent in the indigenous Khoisan (Khoi and San).

Over a hundred thousand years ago people in what is now South Africa lived by hunting animals and gathering plants. They used stone tools. Then about 2,000 years ago people in the west learned to herd sheep and cattle. About 200 AD people mixed farming (growing crops as well as raising livestock) and iron tools were introduced into the east of South Africa.

The descendants of the Middle Paleolithic populations are thought to be the aboriginal San and Khoikhoi tribes. These are collectively known as the Khoisan, a modern European portmanteau of these two tribes' names. The San and Khoikhoi are essentially distinguished only by their respective occupations.

Starting in about 400 AD, these groups were then joined by the Bantu ethnic groups who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion. Settlements of Bantu-speaking peoples, who were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen, were present south of the Limpopo River (now the northern border with Botswana and Zimbabwe) by the 4th or 5th century AD. The earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province are believed to date from around 1050 AD.

The Kingdom of Mapungubwe, which was located near the northern border of present-day South Africa, at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers adjacent to present-day Zimbabwe and Botswana, was the first indigenous kingdom in southern Africa between AD 900 and 1300. Smiths created objects of iron, copper and gold both for local decorative use and for foreign trade. It developed into the largest kingdom in the sub-continent before it was abandoned because of climatic changes in the 14th century.

European Exploration and Colonization

European exploration of the African coast began in the late 14th century when Portugal sought an alternative route to the Silk Road to China. During this time, Portuguese explorers traveled down the west African Coast, detailing and mapping the coastline and in 1488 they rounded the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese mariner Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to explore the coastline of South Africa in 1488, while attempting to discover a trade route to the Far East via the southernmost cape of South Africa, which he named Cabo das Tormentas, meaning Cape of Storms.

In November 1497, a fleet of Portuguese ships under the command of the Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope. By 16 December, the fleet had passed the Great Fish River on the east coast of South Africa, where Dias had earlier turned back. Da Gama gave the name Natal to the coast he was passing, which in Portuguese means Christmas.

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However, it was not until 1652 that the Europeans founded a colony in South Africa. In 1652 the Dutch, led by Jan van Riebeeck founded a base where ships traveling to the Far East could be supplied. The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in Cape Town under the command of Jan van Riebeeck in April 1652. The VOC had settled at the Cape in order to supply their trading ships.

The establishment of the staging post by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652 soon brought the Khoikhoi into conflict with Dutch settlers over land ownership. Competition between Dutch and Khoikhoi pastoralists over grazing land led to livestock theft and conflict. The Khoikhoi were ultimately expelled from the peninsula by force, after a succession of wars.

From 1658 the Dutch imported slaves into South Africa. Van Riebeeck considered it impolitic to enslave the local Khoi and San aboriginals, so the VOC began to import large numbers of slaves, primarily from the Dutch colonies in Indonesia. Eventually, van Riebeeck and the VOC began to make indentured servants out of the Khoikhoi and the San. The descendants of unions between the Dutch settlers and the Khoi-San and Malay slaves became known officially as the Cape Coloureds and the Cape Malays, respectively.

Gradually the Dutch colony in South Africa expanded and in 1688 French Huguenots (Protestants) arrived fleeing religious persecution. The majority of burghers had Dutch ancestry and belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, but there were also some Germans, who often happened to be Lutherans.

In 1795 the British captured Cape Colony (South Africa). In 1787, shortly before the French Revolution, a faction within the politics of the Dutch Republic known as the Patriot Party attempted to overthrow the regime of stadtholder William V. The British then seized the Cape in 1795 to prevent it from falling into French hands. They handed it back to the Dutch in 1803 but took it again in 1806. In 1814 a treaty confirmed British ownership of Cape Colony.

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Like the Dutch before them, the British initially had little interest in the Cape Colony, other than as a strategically located port. As one of their first tasks they outlawed the use of the Dutch language in 1806 with the view of converting the European settlers to the British language and culture. The Cape Articles of Capitulation of 1806 allowed the colony to retain "all their rights and privileges which they have enjoyed hitherto", and this launched South Africa on a divergent course from the rest of the British Empire, allowing the continuance of Roman-Dutch law.

In 1812 the British founded Grahamstown and in 1820 4,000 Britons were granted land by the Great Fish River. British policy with regard to South Africa would vacillate with successive governments, but the overarching imperative throughout the 19th century was to protect the strategic trade route to India while incurring as little expense as possible within the colony.

Meanwhile, at first, the Europeans traded with the native people but they soon fell out. Early relations between the European settlers and the Xhosa, the first Bantu peoples they met when they ventured inward, were peaceful.

The rise of the Zulu Empire under Shaka forced other chiefdoms and clans to flee across a wide area of southern Africa. The Zulu people are part of the Nguni ethnic group and were originally a minor clan in what is today northern KwaZulu-Natal, founded ca. In 1818, Nguni tribes in Zululand created a militaristic kingdom between the Tugela River and Pongola River, under the driving force of Shaka kaSenzangakhona, son of the chief of the Zulu clan.

The 1820s saw a time of immense upheaval relating to the military expansion of the Zulu Kingdom, which replaced the original African clan system with kingdoms. Shaka built large armies, breaking from clan tradition by placing the armies under the control of his own officers rather than of hereditary chiefs. He then set out on a massive programme of expansion, killing or enslaving those who resisted in the territories he conquered.

In 1828 Shaka was killed by his half-brothers Dingaan and Umhlangana. The weaker and less-skilled Dingaan became king, relaxing military discipline while continuing the despotism. Dingaan also attempted to establish relations with the British traders on the Natal coast, but events had started to unfold that would see the demise of Zulu independence.

After 1806, a number of Dutch-speaking inhabitants of the Cape Colony trekked inland, first in small groups. Eventually, in the 1830s, large numbers of Boers migrated in what came to be known as the Great Trek. The Boers (Dutch settlers) in South Africa resented British rule. Among the initial reasons for their leaving the Cape colony were the English language rule. Religion was a very important aspect of the settlers culture and the bible and church services were in Dutch. Similarly, schools, justice and trade up to the arrival of the British, were all managed in the Dutch language.

When slavery was abolished in 1834 they were antagonized still more. Another reason for Dutch-speaking white farmers trekking away from the Cape was the abolition of slavery by the British government on Emancipation Day, 1 December 1838. The farmers complained they could not replace the labour of their slaves without losing an excessive amount of money. The farmers had invested large amounts of capital in slaves. Finally, the Boers began a mass migration away from the British called the Great Trek.

In 1838 the Boers fought and defeated the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River. Eventually, the Boers founded two republics away from the British, Orange Free State, and Transvaal. Independent sovereignty of the republic was formally recognised by Great Britain with the signing of the Sand River Convention on 17 January 1852. Natalia was a short-lived Boer republic established in 1839 by Boer Voortrekkers emigrating from the Cape Colony.

In the 1850s the British recognized the two Boer republics. However, the situation changed in 1867 when diamonds were found in the Northern Cape. In 1871 diamonds were also found at Kimberley. Meanwhile, in 1879, the British fought the Zulus in South Africa. Increasingly the British were keen to bring all of South Africa, including the Boer republics under their control. In 1884 Lesotho became a British protectorate. In 1894 the Kingdom of Swaziland became a protectorate.

Meanwhile, British settlers had moved into the Transvaal Republic. The Boers called them Uitlanders (foreigners). Cecil Rhodes was Prime Minister of British South Africa from 1890 to 1895 and in 1895 he plotted a rebellion by Uitlanders in the Transvaal, which would be supported by a force from South Africa led by Leander Starr Jameson. The aim was to overthrow the government of Paul Kruger, President of the Transvaal. However, the Jameson Raid of January 1896 was defeated by the Boers and Jameson himself was captured.

Finally in October 1899 war began in South Africa between the Boers and the British. At first, the Boers were successful but in 1900 more British troops arrived and the Boers were pushed back. The Boers then turned to guerrilla warfare. However, Kitchener, the British commander began herding Boer women and children into concentration camps where more than 20,000 of them died of disease. The Boers finally surrendered in 1902 and the British annexed the Boer republics.

Following the defeat of the Boers in the Second AngloâBoer War or South African War (1899â1902), the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire on 31 May 1910 in terms of the South Africa Act 1909, which amalgamated the four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Colony of Natal, Transvaal Colony, and Orange River Colony.

In 1910 a United South Africa was given a constitution. It became known as the Union of South Africa. The union was a dominion that included the former territories of the Cape, Transvaal and Natal colonies, as well as the Orange Free State republic. The Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage they controlled only 7% of the country.

From the start, black people were very much second-class citizens in South Africa. Most lived in tribal reserves and laws of 1913 and 1936 prevented them from owning land outside certain areas. Most blacks were not allowed to vote. The country became a fully sovereign nation state within the British Empire in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act.

In 1912 black South Africans founded the South African National Congress (later the ANC) but at first, they achieved little. In 1914 South Africa joined the First World War against Germany. That year there was a rebellion by the Boers, which was crushed. In 1918 Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch settlers) founded a secret organisation called the Broederbond (brotherhood).

In 1939 South Africa joined the Second World War against Germany. However, some Afrikaners opposed this decision.

Year	Event
1488	Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias sails around the southern tip of Africa.
1652	The Dutch East India Company establishes the Dutch Cape Colony.
1816	Shaka Zulu forms the Zulu Kingdom.
1833	Slavery is abolished by the British.
1880	The First Boer War begins between the Boers and the British.
1886	Gold is discovered and the Witwatersrand Gold Rush occurs.
1889	The Second Boer War occurs.
1910	The Union of South Africa is formed from the four colonies including Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Transvaal Colony, and the Orange Colony.
1948	The government policy of apartheid is adopted.
1961	South Africa is declared a republic.
1994	Apartheid is fully repealed.

How did South African Apartheid happen, and how did it finally end? - Thula Simpson

The Apartheid Era

From 1948â1994, South African politics was dominated by Afrikaner nationalism. In 1948 the National Party came to power in South Africa. The party introduced a strict policy of apartheid (separateness). Whites and blacks were already segregated to a large degree. New laws made segregation much stricter.

Taking Canada's Indian Act as a framework, the nationalist government classified all peoples into three races (Whites, Blacks, Indians and Coloured people (people of mixed race)) and developed rights and limitations for each. The white minority (less than 20%) controlled the vastly larger black majority. The legally institutionalised segregation became known as apartheid.

However, in 1955 organisations representing black people, white people, coloureds, and Indians formed the Congress Alliance. In 1955 they adopted the Freedom Charter. Yet divisions soon occurred. In 1958 some black South Africans broke away from the ANC and they formed the Pan Africanist Congress or PAC. They were led by Robert Sobukwe.

In 1960 both the ANC and the PAC planned demonstrations against the pass laws, which restricted the movements of black people. On 21 March 1960, Sobukwe led thousands of people in a demonstration. In Sharpeville, the police fired at them killing 69. The government banned the ANC and the PAC.

Meanwhile, in 1961 South Africa left the Commonwealth and became a republic. On 31 May 1961, the country became a republic following a referendum (only open to white voters) which narrowly passed; Elizabeth II lost the title Queen of South Africa, and the last Governor-General, Charles Robberts Swart, became state president.

In 1966 Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was assassinated but otherwise, South Africa was quiet until 1976, although naturally, black resentment continued to simmer below the surface. In 1962 - Nelson Mandela was arrested and jailed. He will remain in jail for 27 years. Rioting began in Soweto on 16 June 1976. The riots spread and they continued into 1977.

Apartheid became increasingly controversial, and several countries began to boycott business with the South African government because of its racial policies. The security forces cracked down on internal dissent, and violence became widespread, with anti-apartheid organisations such as the African National Congress (ANC), the Azanian People's Organisation, and the Pan-Africanist Congress carrying out guerrilla warfare and urban sabotage.

Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk.

The End of Apartheid and a New South Africa

In 1978 P W Botha became prime minister. He was determined to continue apartheid and in 1983 he introduced a new constitution with a tricameral parliament, with houses for whites, coloreds, and Indians (with no representation for blacks). However, the new constitution pleased nobody. Meanwhile, other countries were increasingly imposing economic sanctions on South Africa and inside the country resistance to apartheid grew.

In 1989 Botha was forced from office. He was replaced by Willem de Klerk who in 1990 pledged to end apartheid. He also released Nelson Mandela. De Klerk introduced a new constitution with rights for all. On 2 February 1990, F. W. de Klerk, then president of South Africa and leader of the National Party, unbanned the African National Congress (ANC) and freed Nelson Mandela from life imprisonment on Robben Island. A negotiation process followed. With approval from the white electorate in a 1992 referendum, the government continued negotiations to end apartheid.

The first democratic elections were held in April 1994 and in May 1994 Nelson Mandela was elected president. On 27 April 1994, after decades of ANC-led resistance to white minority rule and international opposition to apartheid, the ANC achieved a majority in the country's first democratic election. He retired in 1999.

Since then, despite a continually decreasing electoral majority, the ANC has ruled South Africa. In post-apartheid ANC-governed South Africa, unemployment skyrocketed to over 30% and income inequality increased. The government struggled to achieve the monetary and fiscal discipline to ensure both redistribution of wealth and economic growth.

In the early 21st century the economy of South Africa grew but recently it has slowed. South Africa suffers from high unemployment. The country also suffers from widespread poverty. However, tourism in South Africa is an important industry. South Africa is also rich in minerals.