1. Roots of Apartheid in South Africa
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2. APART
HEID
Apartheid (pronounced apart-hate, and meaning “apartness” in Afrikaans) was the system used by the South African government to exploit and dominate the country’s black population. Apartheid started to become the legal and official form of government in South Africa after the 1948 election, which was won by the pro-apartheid Nationalist Party. The goal of apartheid was to keep whites and blacks apart from one another~ as well as to allow whites to control South Africa’s wealth. To achieve this, the all-white government passed numerous laws that took away the rights of blacks.
For example,
only South Africans of European descent could vote or hold public office, people of
different races could not marry or have intimate relationships, and blacks could not enter
Apartheid (pronounced apart-hate, and meaning “apartness” in Afrikaans) was the system used by the South African government to exploit and dominate the country’s black population. Apartheid started to become the legal and official form of government in South Africa after the 1948 election, which was won by the pro-apartheid Nationalist Party. The goal of apartheid was to keep whites and blacks apart from one another~ as well as to allow whites to control South Africa’s wealth. To achieve this, the all-white government passed numerous laws that took away the rights of blacks. For example, only South Africans of European descent could vote or hold public office, people of different races could not marry or have intimate relationships, and blacks could not enter areas or facilities designated as “white only,” such as trains, restaurants, beaches, and
entire neighborhoods. Other important aspects of apartheid included denial of political
rights to blacks, control of black labor in reserves (where they were forced to live), and
protection of economic privileges for skilled, semiskilled, and unskilled whites.
The government of South Africa enforced apartheid by creating a brutally violent police
state. Blacks were frequently jailed for political acts without being charged with crimes,
and the national security force, with impunity, sometimes killed blacks for resisting
apartheid. But the apartheid system was only the legalization of laws, traditions,
attitudes, and crimes that had been practiced by whites against blacks since the
seventeenth century.

3. Early South African History
In this slide we see a nineteenth-century illustration of a traditional village of Zulus, a
Bantu group in southern Africa. On the left is the enclosure into which the cattle are
driven at night to protect them from attacks by leopards and hyenas; in the foreground to
the right stand several reed storehouses for grain. Near the storehouses are two young
men, one of whom is playing a musical instrument.
Early South African history contributed to the development of apartheid for several
reasons. First, in early South Africa, African groups did not necessarily identify
themselves by race or ethnicity. Some defined themselves by geographical location or
political allegiance. It was white Europeans who often imposed and solidified race
identifications on these groups. Second, black Africans lived in southern Africa centuries
before Europeans arrived. This history contradicts Afrikaner arguments—central to their
theory of apartheid—that South Africa belonged to whites because they were there first

4. The Dutch Cape Colony Dutch Cape Colony
In this slide we see a modem romanticized painting of the estate of Willem Adriaan van
der Stel, a wealthy landowner and governor of the Cape Colony. The painting shows the
governor and his aids surrounded by African slaves working on the land.
The establishment of the Dutch Cape Colony contributed to the development of apartheid
for several reasons. First, the Dutch East India Company’s primary goal was to make
money, not to govern a colony. As a result, Dutch leaders made decisions about the lives
of Africans based solely on how much profit could be made in the short run. Second, the
Dutch allowed a settler class to establish a distinct culture and an economy dependent on
slave labor. Third, from the beginning of the colony, outnumbered whites ordered blacks
to carry identification cards. These were a precursor to the passbooks that the apartheid
government used to control blacks’ movements 300 years later.

5. The British Cape Colony and the Great Trek
British Cape Colony and Great Trek
In this slide we see a celebration of the second British occupation of Cape Town in 1814.
The Cape was conquered by the British in 1806 and formally and permanently ceded to
Great Britain in 1814.
The establishment of the British Cape Colony and the Great Trek contributed to the
development of apartheid for several reasons. Though the British had outlawed slavery,
the Afrikaners maintained a racially segregated society. The great migration of
Afrikaners to the interior of southern Africa led to their invasion of the land of large
African kingdoms and smaller communities. The tribulations of the Great Trek, however,
made Afrikaners feel entitled to this land. The conflicts over land that arose increased the
Afrikaner cultural belief that they were a persecuted people struggling to survive.

6. The African Wars The African Wars
In this slide we see a drawing of Afrikaners meeting with Zulu chiefs, including Shaka,
the Zulu king, in 1824.
The African Wars contributed to the development of apartheid for several reasons. The
Afrikaner defeat of the Zulus, the most powerful southern African empire, marked the
beginning of the Afrikaner and British conquest of Bantu-speaking African peoples.
Gradually dispossessed of much of their land, Africans found it increasingly more difficult to farm or raise livestock. In this way, similar to apartheid, large numbers of black people lived separately from whites but worked for them for low wages

7. The Mining of Gold and Diamonds
In this slide we see black workers in the Crown Mine in Johannesburg, South Africa,
one of the greatest gold-bearing regions in the world. Though most of the mining labor
was performed by blacks, most of the wealth went to whites.
The mining of gold and diamonds contributed to the development of apartheid for
several reasons. First, as the mining industry led to the growth of cities, the policy of
segregating whites and blacks in the countryside was applied to urban settings. New
institutions—separate living areas and bathrooms—were created to keep blacks and
whites segregated but close enough to work in the same location. Second, the British
forced blacks in the countryside to leave mineral-rich areas and move to “reserves,~~
which were later called “homelands” under apartheid. This policy closely resembled
apartheid in that cheap labor forces were segregated and controlled in both urban and
rural areas. As whites became more dependent on black labor, they instituted the use of
passbooks to control the black population.

8. The Union of South Africa
In this slide we see black workers in the Crown Mine in Johannesburg, South Africa,
one of the greatest gold-bearing regions in the world. Though most of the mining labor
was performed by blacks, most of the wealth went to whites.
The mining of gold and diamonds contributed to the development of apartheid for
several reasons. First, as the mining industry led to the growth of cities, the policy of
segregating whites and blacks in the countryside was applied to urban settings. New
institutions—separate living areas and bathrooms—were created to keep blacks and
whites segregated but close enough to work in the same location. Second, the British
forced blacks in the countryside to leave mineral-rich areas and move to “reserves,~~
which were later called “homelands” under apartheid. This policy closely resembled
apartheid in that cheap labor forces were segregated and controlled in both urban and
rural areas. As whites became more dependent on black labor, they instituted the use of
passbooks to control the black population. majority of the population. Second, similarly to the British, Afrikaners made it
impossible for black South Africans to earn a living except by working for whites in low-
paying jobs. Third, when the National Party won the election of 1948 (defeating the pro-
British leadership of the first 38 years) Afrikaner control over South Africa—and the
establishment of apartheid—was finally complete.

9. Conditions Under Apartheid
In this slide we see a black worker in 1988 pushing a cart laden with garbage past a
beach reserved for whites under South Africa’s apartheid laws. Although many “whites
only” signs at beaches had been taken down by 1988, segregation was still enforced at
this beach at Strand near Cape Town.