The origin of the Cape Colony

The Cape of Good Hope, at the southern tip of Africa, was always going to be an important place for a European nation that was interested in establishing colonies anywhere further east. Before the Suez Canal opened in 1869, the Cape had to be rounded by any ship bound in that direction. Seeing that several countries besides Britain, most notably the Netherlands, France and Portugal, had imperial ambitions to the east of the Cape, it is hardly surprising that competition for control of the Cape was fierce.

The Portuguese were the first to use the Cape as a repair and refreshment station on the way to India, in the mid-16^th century, but it was the Dutch who established a permanent colony there in 1652, under the auspices of the Dutch East India Company.

The hinterland of the Cape itself is notable for its suitability for European settlement, having a temperate climate that supports both arable and pastoral farming, and is mercifully free of the banes of much of tropical Africa, namely the tsetse fly and the mosquito. However, the Dutch did little at first to develop their colony, their main interests lying elsewhere. Hence the small Dutch community was not augmented by new arrivals, and for 150 years the population only increased by natural means. Whereas there were probably a million settlers of British origin in North America by 1760, the Dutch population of the Cape was only 5,000.

The Cape Colony came into British hands in 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars, when the Netherlands had become part of France’s continental empire. It was not in Britain’s interest for the French to have control of such a strategically important place on the route to India. The British recognised that this was essentially a Dutch colony and fully expected to return it to Dutch hands at the end of hostilities. Indeed, in 1803 this was just what they did, when it looked as though the Netherlands would be free of French domination. However, the situation changed again in 1806, so the Cape Colony was recaptured. After that, especially after the 1815 Treaty of Vienna decided how Europe was to look in the post-Napoleonic era, it seemed expedient to keep control of the Cape.

The Dutch settlers, who became known as Afrikaners, had far more interest in developing the hinterland of the Cape than did the British. They were essentially farmers, and during the years of British ownership of the Cape they had moved eastward along the coast, where they came increasingly into conflict with native Africans. The Xhosa wars lasted, on and off, for much of the 19^th century, with the Africans gradually losing out and having their lands in the eastern Cape appropriated by the Europeans.

The Afrikaners’ attitude towards the Africans reflected their religious belief that the black-skinned races were condemned by God to be subservient to the white-skinned ones, this being rooted in the legend that the descendants of Ham (son of Noah) were black and were cursed by God for Ham’s disrespect towards his father. This Afrikaner mindset was to percolate down through the generations to culminate in the Apartheid system that bedevilled South Africa until late in the 20^th century.

Having not been particularly interested in colonizing the Cape, as long as the French did not do so, the British began to encourage settlement there from around 1820. About 5,000 settlers, whose passage was paid for by the British Government, arrived and established themselves as farmers in the eastern part of the Cape Colony, with a view to countering the Dutch influence and, if possible, protecting the Africans who were being threatened with oppression and slavery. The British farmers started by attempting to grow grain, but later found that sheep farming was easier and more profitable.

However, many of the British settlers had no background in farming and preferred to settle in towns and cities where they could practice their crafts and skills. The division between urban Brits and rural Afrikaners soon became clear. This strengthened the position of the British governor, and English became the official language of the Colony. The Afrikaners, on their remote farms, had no great problem with this at first.

For some years the Cape Colony carried on as three fairly distinct communities, with a prosperous and flourishing community around the port of Cape Town to the west, occupied almost entirely by the British, a farming community to the east and along the coast, peopled by a mixture of Brits and Afrikaners, and the interior, where the more adventurous Afrikaners were developing greater tracts of land. These pioneers were independent-minded people who tended to mistrust governments of any kind, be they British or Dutch.

It was the efforts of the British to curtail the Afrikaners’ oppression of the Africans that led to trouble. Not having the same religious attitudes as the Afrikaners, the British governors, encouraged by missionaries who had travelled widely throughout the colony, administered justice according to British principles, which meant that British, Afrikaners and Africans were to be treated as equals in legal terms. This was established by law in 1828, which the Afrikaners simply could not understand; to them, the British were acting contrary to the laws of God. Justice was served against a number of Afrikaners, including the death sentence being passed on those found guilty of the murder of Africans.

In time, many Afrikaners found it impossible to live under British rule, and thousands of them made the “Great Trek” to the north and east in the 1830s and 1840s to set up their own Afrikaner provinces of the Transvaal, Orange Free State and Natal. The Cape Colony, now the Cape Province, therefore lost many of its Afrikaans-speaking population, which accounts for the high proportion of English-speakers who live there to this day.

© John Welford

Apartheid in South Africa

The year 1950 marked a step backwards in the path to global racial equality. On 27^th April the government of South Africa passed the Group Areas Act into law, thus institutionalising the policy of Apartheid that was advocated by the National Party that had formed the government since 1948.

What is meant by Apartheid?

Apartheid is an Afrikaans word that can be translated as “separate-hood”, by which was meant that the different races that constituted the population of South Africa would be forced to integrate as little as possible. The whites who ran the National Party preferred the term “separate development”, but there was little intention that any race other than the white one would do much developing.

Instituting Apartheid

Under the direction of Prime Minister Daniel Malan, the three racial groups of Whites, Blacks and Coloureds (meaning people of mixed race) would be forced to live in separate areas, with neighbourhoods reserved for each racial group. As might be imagined, this soon meant that the rich whites would have the best houses and facilities, with the blacks and coloureds consigned to sub-standard housing on the margins of the cities.

A second act, the Separate Amenities Act, was passed in 1953 to make the division even more pronounced. This required all sorts of services to be reserved for the sole use of whites, including shops, transport, beaches, and even park benches. Again, the minority white population was always accorded the best facilities with the majority blacks always being made aware of their inferior status.

Another Act, the 1956 Separate Representation of Voters Act, virtually disenfranchised all non-whites and ensured that their only purpose in society was to work as servants of white people and as the manual workforce in the farms and factories owned by their white masters.

The struggle for freedom

The opposition to Apartheid took a long time to bear fruit in South Africa. The protest movements of black activists were met with savage repression, most notably at Sharpeville on 21^st March 1960 when 69 people, including women and children, were killed by armed police officers.

Underground opposition movements were founded, including the African National Congress and the Black Consciousness Movement, but activists were regularly arrested and imprisoned. However, prisoners such as Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo made plans for how they would eventually defeat Apartheid and form a government that had room for all the racial groups in South Africa.

Support for the cause grew rapidly during the 1960s and 70s in western countries, with the National Party coming under increasing scrutiny and various sanctions being imposed on South Africa.

Particularly noteworthy were bans on South African sports teams from international competition unless they were racially integrated. The country was not allowed to compete at the Olympic Games from 1964 to 1988, for example, but some international sporting bodies were ambivalent and more accepting of South African participation during the Apartheid era.

One event that drew close attention to Apartheid in sport was the “D’Oliveira affair” of 1968. Basil D’Oliveira (1931-2011) was a mixed-race cricketer who was born in South Africa but emigrated to the United Kingdom and became a British citizen in 1964. He was selected to play for the England tour to South Africa in 1968-9 despite it being made known by the South Africans (led by Prime Minister John Vorster) that he would not be welcome. The affair escalated into a worldwide boycott of South African cricket that lasted until 1991.

The end of Apartheid

Worldwide pressure, coupled with largely peaceful internal demonstrations, eventually persuaded white South Africans that Apartheid could not be maintained and that majority rule would have to be conceded.

Credit for the peaceful transfer of power is due to two men in particular, namely President F W de Klerk and the leader of the African National Congress, Nelson Mandela. De Klerk realised that Apartheid was a thing of the past, and that it could not be justified morally or in any other way.

The move that caught the world’s attention as marking the beginning of the end of Apartheid was the release from prison in 1990 of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in captivity. He was immediately recognised as the leader of the black community and he was clearly the person most suited to conduct the negotiations that culminated in the 1994 election of a new government. More than 20 million black South Africans cast their votes, which swept Mandela into power as the country’s first black President.

The stain of Apartheid has therefore been lifted from South Africa which, although it still has many problems to solve, has now been restored to the world community of nations.

© John Welford