ABSTRACT
In the twentieth century only one major nation claimed the distinction of awarding political rights on the basis of race: the Republic of South Africa. The country's population was estimated at about 48.6 million in 2013, of which approximately 79 percent was of indigenous African ancestry, 9.6 percent European, 2.5 percent Asian, and 8.9 percent of mixed racial ancestry. Prior to the establishment of a Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652, a number of African peoples inhabited the territories that eventually became the Republic of South Africa. The constitution of the Union of South Africa, approved by 1910 by the legislatures of the four states and the British Parliament, limited the vote to white males except in the Cape, where certain economically prosperous non-white men retained the franchise. When the Union of South Africa was formed, mining and other developing industries, along with the professions, were dominated by whites of British ancestry.
