SA Chapter 1

• Terms related to Apartheid

  • Apartheid - apartness/ separateness - segregation
• Codification and extension of existing discriminatory laws under the British
• Union was formed

  1910
• The British had not demanded equality for black South Africans, hoped that the liberal traditions of the Cape would filter through
• Grand apartheid

  Overall strategy of keeping races separated as much as possible
• Petty apartheid

  Day-to-day restrictions e.g. separate facilities
• No precise blueprint for the implementation of apartheid
• Racial categories

  • Africans - migrated to SA about 2000 yrs earlier, different African groups, Zulu most dominant African language
  • White South Africans - Descended from the Dutch and English, English tended to be wealthier professionals
  • Coloured - descendants of original San and Khoikhoi, spoke Afrikaans, had grown into a merchant and administrative class
  • Indians (Asians) - imported as indentured labourers, English speakers
• Segregation pre-1948: Af disenfranchised in 1936, 1948 election decided by 21% population, townships, forced to carry passes in the cities (but no central system until 1952)
• Urbanisation and industrialisation: tension between desire for white space and the need for black labour, discovery of gold in Witwatersrand region, discovery of diamonds in Kimberley, Orange Free State, diversification of industry in 1920s and 30s, Af workers living in urban areas, increasing employment opportunities for Af during WW2
• Rural: 80% land owned by white South Africans, Af wage labourers and tenant farmers, reserve land for Af, Natives Land Act 1913 reserved 7% of SA for Af, Natives Trust and Land Act 1936 reserved 13.6% of SA for Af
• Afrikaner culture


  • Characterised by hard work, stern puritanical Christianity, rejection of pleasures of the flesh, extreme racism, laager mentality, Anglo-Boer War legacy, growth of an imagined shared culture and history, victory in Battle of Blood River over Zulus 1838
• Relationship with Britain

  Resentment of SA support of Britain in WW1/WW2 and of English speakers' dominance in the economy
• White justification for segregation: ignorance and fears for their own safety if Africans were given political or economic rights, belief that segregation from whites was in the Africans' best interests
• National Party's victory in 1948: Impact of WW2, Afrikaner nationalism
• Broederbond was set up

  1918
• Calvinist Dutch Reformed Church established schools and cultural activities to increase pride
• Ossewabrandwag claimed 250,000 members by 1939
• Stormjaers built the Voortrekker muniment in 1938, celebrating the centenary of the Battle of Blood River
• National Party’s campaign

  1. Offered a package appealing to a broad alliance of Afrikaner interests by promising what they wanted

  2. Played on fears of sexual relations across the colour line

  3. Promised to deal with the ‘poor white problem’ by giving them state employment

  4. Played down the republican issue

  5. Organised at local levels to win support
• Albert Hertzog’s mineworkers’ union was effective in local organisation in the Transvaal


  During the election, the NP won 6 seats in the gold-mining areas of Witwatersrand where Hertzog’s miners had played a key role in organising the campaign
• Fear of the United Party’s moderation of racial policies

  • Distrusted the UP and believed it was planning a more moderate racial policy
  • Smuts made a speech in 1942 known as the retreat from segregation, suggesting segregation had been a failure and caused African poverty and high infant mortality
  • In 1946, the UP had set up a commission to investigate the possibility of introducing an NHS and recommended a non-discriminatory healthcare system
  • Smuts was seen as out of touch with SA politics and the campaign lacked lustre and seemed empty of new ideas
• International Context

  • More determined to defend their views, representing western, Christian, anti-communist values
  • End of WW2, desire to stamp out fascism, UN created and Smuts role in that, empires dismantled, India granted independence 1947
  • First international discussion on SA initiated by India in 1946 because concerned about the treatment of Indians
  • Support in USA, continuation of Jim Crow laws
• Electoral system

  • NP could take advantage of its significant support among rural voters despite its failure to gain an overall majority
  • NP won 79 seats to the UP’s 71
  • NP 38% vote, UP 49%
  • UP stacked up votes in urban spaces
• Implementation of Apartheid following the NP’s victory
• International response to the NP victory was muted because many European countries still had empires in which indigenous people were subservient
• NP maintained their support and achieved apartheid by various strategies

  1. Making the state more dominated by Afrikaners

  2. Replacing English-speaking civil servants with Afrikaners

  3. Expecting all senior NP politicians and government officials to have close ties with the Broderbond

  4. Giving Afrikaners posts in key organisations

  5. Creating new political constituencies

  6. Disenfranchising coloured voters

  7. Tying many Afrikaners to the National Party because they relied on it for their livelihoods
• Strengthening NP power

  • 1949: 6 MPS for South West Africa – support NP
  • 1951 Separate Representation of Voters Act – remove the remaining coloured vote in SA
  • 1953 election NP had gained 600,000 votes – support of majority of Afrikaners
  • Government enlarged the Senate from 48 to 89 members (Senate Act 1955) to ensure the NP would have the required majority to pass the law
  • Coloured voters were disenfranchised in February 1956
• By 1960, NP had over a 50 seat majority
• Department of Native Affairs administered apartheid
• Homelands: Verwoerd believed Africans saw themselves as tribal, based in rural communities
• 1951 Bantu Authorities Act ensured appointment of traditional tribal leaders in the homelands
• 1959 Bantu Self-Government Act envisaged creation of 8 (later 10) separate, independent and self-governing homelands for the different African groups
• Bantu Self-Government Act envisaged creation of 8 (later 10) separate, independent and self-governing homelands for different African groups


  1959
• Internal decolonisation was the lynchpin of grand apartheid
• Concerns about inter-racial sex and marriage

  1949 Mixed Marriages Act, 1950 Immorality Act banned marriage and sex by whites across the colour line
• Couples were expected to separate and could be imprisoned if they didn’t
• 1950 Population Registration Act assigned all people in SA to one of four racial categories to determine their rights
• Many were assigned to the wrong categories, leading to court cases for re-classification
• Some Africans tried to get themselves reclassified as coloured