Southern Africa History, and modern culture

Early peoples  Fossils of the first humans were found in Southern Africa  First people to live in Southern Africa were the San

Bantu Migration  Bantu – refers to a group of about 500 related languages  Arrived in Southern Africa around 300 AD  One of these groups, known as the Shona, established Great Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe  400 years, Great Zimbabwe was center of huge trading empire  For unknown reasons, city was abandoned in the 1400s

Madagascar  Population all the result of migration  800 AD, Malagasy people from Southeast Asian islands sailed to Madagascar  Mixed with people from mainland making ancestry evenly split between Indonesia and East Africa

Boers  Dutch colonists  Aided in expansion by disease  Began to call themselves Afrikaners or Boers  1806 Great Britain seized Cape of Good Hope

Shaka  Forged Zulu empire in 1800s  Reorganized, rearmed, and retrained Zulu army  Zulus resisted British rule until early 1900s

Cecil Rhodes  Moved from England to South Africa in 1870  Bought gold and diamond mines and started De Beers company  By 1891, De Beers produced 90 percent of the world’s diamonds

Apartheid  South Africa society segregated into blacks, whites, and South African coloured  Protests began in 1970s and 1980s – ended apartheid  Mandela elected President in 1994

Populations  Johannesburg  Built near gold mines, is now largest and most important city in South Africa  Much of Botswana and Namibia is desert

Culture  Predominately Christian  Hundreds of local languages, English, French, and German widely used  Life expectancy low because of HIV epidemic – but is on the rise

Economics  Subsistence and commercial farming  Zimbabwe crisis  Mining