South Africa: history to 1902

The original inhabitants of the Cape region were the Kung (formerly known as the Bushmen), a nomadic people, and the Khoikhoi (formerly known as the Hottentots), who were pastoralists.

Before the 17th century Bantu-speaking peoples were moving down from east and central Africa into the area that is now South Africa. These people belonged to four main groups: the Nguni, who include the Zulu, Swazi, Ndebele, and the many Transkei tribes (Xhosa, Pondo, Bhaca, Bomvana, and Mfengu); the Sotho, including the Basuto, Tswana, Lovedu, and Pedi; the Shangaan-Tsonga; and the Venda. These peoples were cultivators and pastoralists and all had strongly patrilineal political systems, with patriarchal chiefs and kings, who were regarded as near-divine.

The first European settlers In 1488 Bartolomeu Diaz, the Portuguese navigator, became the first European to round the Cape of Good Hope, and in 1497 the coast of Natal was sighted by Vasco da Gama.

In 1652 Jan van Riebeeck established the first staging post at the Cape for eastbound ships of the Dutch East India Company. This settlement developed into Cape Town, and as it grew the Kung fled into the interior. The Khoikhoi, deprived of their cattle, occupied menial positions in the settlement and interbred with the settlers, imported slaves and others, to become in time the ancestors of the present Cape Coloured population. At this stage, the Bantu-speaking peoples were still far to the north and east of Table Bay.

The Cape area was settled by Dutch and Flemish farmers, and in 1688 the small white settlement was increased by an influx of Huguenots from France. The descendants of these first European settlers became known as Boers, or Afrikaners.

It was not until 1770 that the Afrikaner stock farmers, the Voortrekkers, moving east, encountered the Xhosa at the Great Fish River. This was the beginning of the black-white struggle in South Africa, and there were continual battles and wars between the African tribes and the Voortrekkers, and, later, the British.

The arrival of the British In 1795, when the British first occupied the Cape, the total white population was only about 15,000. The British returned in 1806, and the Dutch possessions in South Africa were purchased by Britain in 1814 for £6 million. From this point British colonists began to arrive in the Cape, and in 1824 they also settled in Natal, on the coast near Durban.

British governors introduced liberal reforms in Cape Colony. These included the establishment of equality before the law irrespective of colour, an ordinance in 1828 that freed the Khoikhoi from working for unwanted masters, and the gradual emancipation of the slaves. The reforms, while accepted by many inhabitants of the Cape Peninsula, greatly incensed the stock farmers in the interior. But British insistence on anglicizing the colony and making English rather than Dutch the official language was deeply resented by all.

The Boer republics The Great Trek of 1834-38, when about 10,000 men, women, and children left Cape Colony in their covered ox-wagons, was an attempt to escape from British control and establish independent republics governed by the Afrikaners themselves. Led by men such as Piet Retief and Gert Maritz the Voortrekkers penetrated north of the River Vaal and east to Natal, establishing several small republics. Of these only the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (the Transvaal) survived. The Orange Free State was annexed by Britain in 1848.

By the Sand River Convention of 1852 and the Bloemfontein Convention of 1854 Britain withdrew all claim to exercise authority north of the Vaal and Orange rivers, and thus the Orange Free State became independent again. Natal, to which the Afrikaners had been forced to withdraw by the British, had become part of Cape Colony in 1844, and was granted self-government as a separate British colony in 1856.

Conflict with the Zulus There was another great power to be reckoned with in southern Africa at this time - that of the Zulus. In the 1820s the Zulus of Natal, under their chief Shaka, had been forged into a centralized military kingdom (see Mfecane). In 1828 Shaka was overthrown and murdered by Dingaan, who came into conflict with the Afrikaner settlers. In December 1838 he was defeated by them at the Battle of Blood River, a date that was subsequently celebrated by Afrikaners as ‘Dingaan's Day’.

This was not quite the end of Zulu power. In 1879, under their chief Cetewayo, they inflicted a great defeat on the British at Isandhlwana, but were defeated later that year at Ulundi, and Zululand was annexed by the British - although peace was not finally established until the first decade of the 20th century.

As far as the other black peoples of South Africa were concerned, some fled to Lesotho (formerly Basutoland) and Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) to found new settlements. By the end of the 19th century whites, whether British or Afrikaner, were in control south of the Limpopo River. Lesotho, Botswana (formerly Bechuanaland), and Swaziland were designated British protectorates and were never governed by South Africa. The last tribal revolt was that of the Bambata in Natal in 1906, but they were quickly crushed.

From that point the black African struggle was essentially a peaceful one, although it has had its martyrs through imprisonment, exile, and death.

The Anglo-Boer conflict The discovery of diamonds in Kimberley in 1870 and of gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 led to the eventual destruction of the independent Boer republics. Foreigners or ‘uitlanders’ flooded into the small republics, which themselves had neither the resources nor the inclination to develop the mines.

An attempt by the British in 1877-81 to annex the South African Republic (the Transvaal) was defeated in the first of the Anglo-Boer South African Wars at Majuba Hill in 1881.

Under Paul Kruger, elected president in 1883, the Transvaal tried jealously to maintain undiluted Boer or Afrikaner rule, and the uitlanders were largely denied the franchise. The resultant unrest within the Republic was fomented from outside by Cecil Rhodes, whose imperialist ambitions encompassed the desire to establish British rule from the Cape to Cairo. The unrest led to the politically dubious Jameson Raid of 1895, when Dr Leander Starr Jameson invaded the Transvaal and was forced to surrender to the Boers.

The German annexation of South West Africa (now Namibia) in 1884 and its other colonial interests in East Africa encouraged Kruger to seek support from that quarter. Such a development would have thwarted Rhodes's and the British government's ambitions in Africa, and was an underlying cause, of which the uitlander problem was the symptom, for the second South African War, which started in October 1899.

The Orange Free State threw in its lot with the Transvaal, and the Boers invaded Natal with initial successes against the British troops. When later defeated in the field they resorted to commando or guerrilla tactics which prolonged the war for three years. The British, in retaliation, introduced a scorched-earth policy, so that when the war ended in the Peace of Vereeniging in May 1902 most Boer homesteads and farms had been destroyed.

As a means of denying support to the Boer commandos the British rounded up Boer women and children and ‘concentrated’ them in camps (hence ‘concentration camps’), where 26,000 died from disease. This tragedy created immense bitterness among Afrikaners and contributed to the later Anglo-Afrikaner political struggle. British casualties were nearly 6,000 dead and 23,000 wounded. The Boers lost between 4,000 and 5,000 men, and 40,000 were taken prisoner.

For the history of South Africa in the 20th century, see South Africa.