Apartheid in South Africa CRY FREEDOM 1987 Apartheid in South Africa

South Africa South Africa was the home of the Zulu, Xhosa, Khoi, San, and Sotho people. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle South Africa, setting up at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Slowly, the Dutch started moving inland to farm. They fought with the people there. They had difficulties with the Zulu in particular who were strong warriors.

Afrikaaners The white settlers in South Africa, Dutch (called Boers), French Protestants, & British, were farming and herding. They were pushing further into the lands held by the other tribes. The British claimed the territory as part of the British Empire. Fighting started between the British and the Dutch settlers. This was called the Boer Wars.

Afrikaaners A lot of the conflict was created when diamonds were discovered in Northern Cape off of the Orange River. Eureka Diamond 1867 24 carats

Afrikaaners The Boers first fought the tribes, the Khoi Khoi, the Xhosa, then the Zulu. The Boers used rifles and canon against the Zulu and moved them away from lands they had claimed. The Boers called themselves Afrikaners to distinguish themselves from their former Dutch roots and make their new identity as white Africans clear. After a protracted battle with the British, they claimed independence in 1931.

Mineral revolution A lot of the development of the social system, Apartheid began during the first diamond rush. Need for a fixed labor force led to the government, and the mining corporations creating schemes to keep workers on-site for lengthy periods of time. Corporate agents travelled around, offering young men contracts at prearranged wages and for predetermined amounts of time. They also made the men stay on site. They were afraid the men would steal diamonds if they left the mine compounds. They were strip searched at the end of every shift. Then they created compounds where the workers were detained and forced to live to fulfill their contracts and get their pay.

Apartheid There were four classes in Dutch South Africa White 9% Black 80% Colored Indian Everyone had an identification card which listed which of the 13 divisions of the races they belonged to- 2 white, 10 black No interracial marriage, sex, facilities, living spaces, were allowed.

Rebels A group called the South African Native National Congress was created as soon as apartheid began in practice in South Africa Leaders originally considered alliances with Communism but that made them targets for anti- communists and they split from that ideology. By the 40s and 50s they were following a similar path to Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Aparthied In response the South African government began widespread arrests and detention of rebels In 1963, the then Minister of Justice, B.J.Vorster, gave new meaning to ‘detention.’ On the 10th July, 1963, the most senior members of the African National Congress, The High Command, most of whom had been living “underground,” were caught at Lilliesleaf Farm in Rivonia. To accommodate the capture of these senior ANC members, the General Laws Amendment Act, Number 37 of 1963 was rushed through Parliament and applied retroactively to June 27th 1962, mainly but not exclusively so that the people arrested at Rivonia could be detained and held in solitary confinement. On the 6th October, 1963, these Rivonia Trialists were formally fingerprinted and charged. Nelson Mandela, who was already serving a five-year sentence on Robben Island, was brought back to join these senior members and all were eventually sentenced to life imprisonment and flown to Robben Island on the 13th June, 1964 to serve their sentences. It should be remembered that as political prisoners, a life sentence meant life, with no chance of parole.