ABSTRACT
Apartheid (Afrikaner word meaning separateness) is the term for the legal and political system of racial segregation which whites imposed on blacks in South Africa from the late 1940s until 1991. Segregation began soon after the first whites landed at what is now Cape Town in 1652, and was easy to maintain in an agrarian economy. South Africa’s industrial revolution, sparked by the discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886), created an ever-increasing need for black labor. As blacks were absorbed into the economy, increasingly in urban areas, white governments sought barriers to political and social integration.
