South Africa apartheid

When the national party came to power in 1948, South Africa were already categorised into 4 racial groups. White,Black,Indian and Coloureds. It is difficult to describe South African people without using the racial categories that become so entrenched. 

Black- The original inhabitants of South Africa were the San or Bushmen people.The zulu became the largest African kingdom despite Britain conquering the Zulu kingdom.By the time of 1951,the Africans numbered 8.5million The two most dominant groups of white people were the Afrikaners and those of British decent. Afrikaners numbered 1.6 million in the 1951 consensus. The British ( 1milion) arrived in 1806 after the discovery of minerals Coloured and Indians were descendants of the San and were slaves brought from South East Asia from the Dutch. The numbered roughly 1.1 million people in the 1951 consensus. 

Segregation and discrimination. Racial discrimination existed in South Africa before 1948. Britain did not require whites to share power with black people despite the fact that whites were a minority of the population. MPs were mostly, with the exception of a few Indians. The 1948 was therefore almost entirely decided by the minority white population. (21%)

Urbanisation and industrialisation. :Gold was discovered in Transvaal in 1886. Johannesburg quickly grew up to provide services to the mines. The mines needed workers and the city grew from nothing in 1886 to around 100,000 in 1900. By 1948, he population was approaching a million people.The gold mines were the motor of the South African industrial economy but gradually industry diversified from gold to producing textiles.During WW2, it was difficult to import goods from Britain so SA industry expanded to supply home market.Poor whites had the vote and the nationalists appealed to their sense of insecurity Townships. Governments prior to 1948 had been keen to maintain cities predominately white. This led to the established of shack settlements. The biggest of these was Soweto where most residents were poor. South Africa had long been primarily a rural country with majority of people living in small towns. Whites owned over 80% if the land and most of it as farms held as private property. Black people were in the majority on most farms where they worked as wage labourers. White owners and black staff lived together but in a strict hierarchy. White were able to maintain racial authority. Outside of white-owned farms, black people also lived on reserves. Christian was the main religion in these reserves and they had schools and churches. They wore traditional dress and women worked too. Reserves produced about 50% of their food. 

Afrikaner culture and politics.

• Between 1899 and 1902, Britain fought the Anglo-Boer war to take control of the region. After union in 1910, politicians such as Smuts attempted to unify the white population within the British Empire even though some Afrikaners were resentful to this
• Smuts was opposed by Hertzog who founded the Afrikaner National party and won the 1924 election and secured gains for Afrikaners (e.g Dutch as a national language and teaching bilingualism in the national civil service)
• The Great depression so undermined that in 1934, Hertzog joined wth Smuts to form a United party. 
• Malan split from Hertzog to re-fund the National party. 
• In 1948 the Afrikaner vote had become significant. It was the culmination of rising Afrikaner sense of themselves as a people (or volk) with their own language religion and culture

The growth of Afrikaner nationalism 

• The idea of Afrikaners as a 'volk' with a distinct identity gained increasingly political currency after 1939. A society of carefully chosen Afrikaner white men, called the Brodedebond provided ideological direction in favour of a Christian, nationalist, Republican outlook. They initiated an economic movement to promote Afrikaner business
• Religious institutions were also at the heart of nationalism. Many Afrikaners professed a deeply held Christianity which supported the idea of an autonomous volk.They believed that white people & black people had different roles in Gods plan
• Many Afrikaner nationalists adamantly opposed the decision to go to war in 1939. In part, this reflected their unease about fighting for the British Empire.An anti-war movement as launched by Afrikaners and critics compared them to nazis. By 1948, the Afrikaner influence within society was sufficient to provide a base to contest the election 

• An early priority for the national party was to stay in political party. In 1949, 6 members of parliament were added for whites in Namibia where nationalists had support. 
• The nationalists were determined that Coloured people should become a separate racial category with their own institutions and spaces. This was urgent because they still had a vote in the central parliamentary elections &they voted overwhelmingly for the UP
• The nationalists attempted to remove the coloured vote by passing the separate representation of voters act in 1951. However, the judge accepted that the act wa invalid without a two-thirds majority. The nationalists had shown that they were prepared to act ruthlessly for power
• In 1953, the national party increased its vote from little more than 400,000 to nearly  600,000 and narrowly outpolled the United Party.  
• Apartheid laws

• Prior to 1948, education for Africans was for the most part racially segregated. A relatively small number of black South Africans attended elite school. Only 24% of black South Africans were recorded as literate in the 1951 census 
• The Bantu Education Act of 1953 was therefore passed in order to extend education to African children but also to segregate the content of education. 
• The government was also concerned about the number of children joining urban gangs rather than attending school. Fear of these tsotsis was on of the major drivers behind the expansion of education
• The Bantu education had been criticised even though it increased educational opportunities at all levels. The need for African workers iin factories was rapid and some degree of literacy and numercy was seen as valuable in building an efficient workforce. 

• The ANC's new militancy found particular focus in the Defiance campaign. Their strategy was for groups of volunteers to break racially restrictions. Mandela was appointed volunteer in chief together with Yusuf Chalia of the Indian Congress
• The defiance campaign was influenced by the ideas of non-violent civil disobedience promoted by the Indian nationalist Gandhi
• Official reports recorded seven African death and 18 seriously injured.
• The outcome of  the Defiance Campaign was important for the ANC. Its claimed membership shot up from 4,000 to 100,000 people and for the first time it seemed to be attracting a mass following.

• In 1955 the Congress Alliance wrote a charter listing their core political beliefs. This became known as the Congress of the People campaign and thousands across South Africa submitted thier suggestions on issues
• The result, known as the Freedom charter, was revealed in Soweto The Charter gave a cear summary of the priniples of the Congress movement. In its tone, it echoes the language of frredom movements in other parts of the world. It called for a fully democratic outh Africa with a fairer dstribution of land and wealth.
• The freedom charter commited the movement to a non-racial South Africa and laid an important foundation for future political mobilisation.