History of South Africa
For centuries, South Africa's history was plagued by racial conflicts.
Dutch settlers in Cape Town established control over the southern tip
of South Africa about 300 years ago by driving out the Khoikhoi (also
known as Hottentots) and San (Bushmen), two peaceful tribes of
lower Africa. The Dutch settlers continued to enlarge their territory, which led to clashes with the settled Xhosa tribe in the late 1700s. More complications we
added in the 1800s, when the British Empire was given control of the colony by the Treaty of Vienna. To escape British control, white Afrikaners (mainly descendants of the first Dutch settlers) migrated northward in what is called the Great Trek, coming into contact with the Zulu tribes, who were coming from the east. A series of wars broke out, ending in the defeat of the Zulus at Blood River. In 1878, the British also fought the Zulus and defeated them the following year. With the Zulus out of the way, the British and the Afrikaners were free to have a go at each other in the South African War, which lasted from 1899 until 1902 and ended with the defeat of the Afrikaners. Eight years later, the British and Boer lands were united to form the present-day South Africa. Beginning about the turn of the 20th century, more and more legislation was passed restricting the rights of nonwhites. The laws of apartheid – or separation of races –reached their peak under the Afrikaner National Party, which came to power in 1948. Blacks responded by forming the Communist-backed African National Congress (ANC),which was dedicated to ending apartheid.Continued violence,diplomatic isolation and economic boycotts forced the white government to make some concessions in the 1980s, but the apartheid laws were not scrapped until 1991, when blacks were allowed to vote in the country's first democratic elections. Nelson Mandela was thenelected president on a platform of addressing South Africa's huge disparity of wealth.Progress continues under his successor, but those goals remain some way off.
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