The origins of apartheid 1.1

Goal of apartheid

Reinforce white minority dominance

Calvinist beliefs that led to apartheid

God created races separate and whites were destine to control Africa

Residential segregation

Curfews, couldn’t enter “white areas”

Legal residential segregation

Black only township of Ndabeni (located far from the city center)

Randlords

Very wealthy, English speaking, usually white

Afrikaners support of apartheid

Relied on cheap labour, Calvinist ideals

The act of union/South African act

In part restricted voting to whites

Mines and works act of 1911

Reserved all semi-skilled mining jobs for whites

Natives land act of 1913

Prohibited Africans from owning or renting land anywhere outside certain parcels of territory that would be designated as native reserves

Led to overcrowding and impoverishment

The native (urban area) act

Cities only for whites, any Africans in the city needed to carry passes

Conciliation acts

Whites could be in trade unions but blacks couldn’t (therefor couldn’t negotiate for better wages)

Wage act of 1925

Permitted gov. to instruct private firms to grant preference to white workers in hiring

The native trust and land act

Expanded native reserves to 13%

→ never actually happened

Native laws amendment act

Stricter enforcement of pass laws

African mine workers’ union

Organized a strike of 100,000 gold miners

Led to fagan commission and sauer commission

Fagan commission

Concluded that urbanization as a result of WW2 was irreversible

Sauer commission

Concluded that the survival of the white race depended on preservation of exclusively white identity

Dutch East India company

Settled in South Africa as a stop on the way to Indonesia → Boers

2 states that the Boers founded

Orange free state, transvaal

Coloureds

Generally descendants of interracial offsprings of Dutch settlers and slaves

Afrikaner

Also referenced as Boers — the British settlers who originally lived in the Cape of Good Hope and ultimately migrated north

Battle of blood river

Victory of the Boers — intensified the idea that god destined white superiority

Transvaal

Province of the Boers, was rich in gold and uranium

Bloemfontein/sand river conventions

Boers north of the Vaal river were given independence at the sand river convention, established the South African republic after bloemfonrein convention

Gold/witwatersrand 1886

The discovery of gold in South Africa prompted the immigration of thousands to the area and cemented the need for cheap black labour

South African war 1899-1902

War between the two Boer republics and the British over controle of the area

South African party (SAP)

Laid the foundations for apartheid -- stood for the mutual interests of south africans of British descent and the Boers supported WW1

JMB Herztog

Was the prime minister from 1924 to 1939, south Africa first mentality, enacted policies to further legal discrimination

Representation of natives act 1936

Disenfranchised the small number of black elites

Broederbond

An exclusively Afrikaner calvinist and male secret society dedicated to the advancement of the Afrikaner people

Black peril

The fear of colonial settlers that black men are attracted to white women

Red peril

Fear of communism

Four basic principles of apartheid

• franchise so restricted that only power was for whites

• Space of country was divided by race

• Supply of black labour placed under state control

• All individuals in South Africa put into specific racial groups