Apartheid Laws and Apartheid Introduction

Prohibiton Marriages Act

The Prohibition Marriages Act prohibited marriage or a sexual relationship between white people and people of another racial group. It was to protect the White political and social dominance by preventing a handful of people from blurring the lines between the White Society and everyone else in South America.

Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act- The Impact

It affected all the African society as it outlawed marriages between people of European heritage and non-heritage.

The Population Registration Act (1950)

Required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered following their racial characteristics, as part of the system of apartheid.

Impact of the Population Registration Act

Were that it led to the implementation of many discriminatory laws based on race. → implementation of the Group Areas Act, which made it impossible for whites and non-whites to live together in the same areas.

Group Areas Act

It states that the government could designate certain geographic areas for the use of a single race. Though the law itself did not create specific group areas, the designation of such areas came much later.

Impact of Group Areas Act

This impacted people in South Africa as it placed individuals into one of the basic categories: Colored, Indian, White, or Black, creating social order

The Suppression Communism Act

It was the legislation of the national governemnt in apartheid South Africa which formally banned the Communist Party of South Africa. It gave the power to the governemnt to ban publications that promoted it.

Impact of the Suppression Communism Act

Was worded in such a way that anyone who opposed government policy → a communist. Since the Act explicitly declared that communism sought to encourage racial disharmony, it was frequently used to legally gag critics of racial segregation and apartheid.

Immortality Act

It amended the 1927 act to forbid unmarried sexual intercourse between Europeans and non-Europeans.

Impact of the Immortality Act

Tens of thousands of Southern Africans were arrested for contravening the Immorality Act that prohibited extramarital heterosex between whites and blacks. 

Laws: Racial Segration- Forcing Africaners to Fend for themselves

The Bantu Authorities Act, The Native Amendment Act, The Abolition of Passes Act, Bantu Education Act, the Criminal Law Amendment Act

Africaners- Segregation and Discrimination in Education and Government Affairs

The Reservation of Seperate Amenities Act, Seperate Representation of Voters Act, State-aid Instituitions Act, Job Reservations Act, The Extension of Universities Act

Taking over of Southern Africa

• Strategic Base for Trade: They needed a colony near Asia to facilitate trade with Asian countries.

•  Rest and Supply Station: Southern Africa served as a crucial stop for Dutch trading vessels traveling between Europe and Asia.

  • Established their first settlement at Cape Town

Impact of the Arrival of the Dutch

• Brought their culture to South Africa → religion, architecture, cuisine and language

• Dutch claimed the land for farming → causing displacement for the Khoikhoi and San

• Displacement → wars

• Mixture of conflict and displacements

Cause and Impact of Great Trek: Causes

• The Dutch trekkers wanted more ranching land, trading opportunities, and more control over the labor of native Africans. 

• Increased amount of tension

• Main cause → disagreements between Western (Britain) settlers and African settlers → these disagreements caused most African farmers and families to move away → establish their own colonies

Cause and Impact of Great Trek: Impact

• the Afrikaners remained politically divided for many years.

• Increase of cultural and economic isolation in the Boers

• Increased conflict between boers and other indigenous tribes

Discovery of Gold and Diamond → Impact

• Diamonds were discovered around the year of 1870

• In 1902 the largest Gold mine was discovered located in Witwatersrand

• “Black” South Africans going to mine under harsh conditions and restricted rights

• Many indigenous communities were forcibly removed from their lands to make way for mining operations.

• “Black” South Africans going to mine under harsh conditions and restricted rights

• Many indigenous communities were forcibly removed from their lands to make way for mining operations. → “White Africans”

Causes of Boer War

• Main aim was to unite the British South African territories with the Boer republics of Orange Free State and the South African republic 

• The Boers wanted to keep their independence

Impact of the Boer War

• A combined casualty of 100,000 is estimated with 26,000 non-military civilian lives taken

• The British would take over the Boer trade and income along with its diamond mines

Effort to Control the Population 1950

• exclude people of colour from living in the most developed areas, which were restricted to Whites

• Group Area Act: the government could designate certain geographic areas for use by a single race