ABSTRACT
In 1872, the Cape Colony was granted self-government (only white males could vote for the representative legislature set up in 1853). However, in the late 1890s, British colonial expansion into the interior was driven by their desire to control not only land area (in the era of African colonization by the various European powers) but also the mineral wealth (discovery of diamonds in 1860s and large deposits of gold in the 1870s). e British colonial expansion in southern Africa led to them ghting two wars with the independent Afrikaner (Boer) republics. Aer the defeat of the latter in the so-called Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1901), the British annexed these two republics. But the Afrikaners regained political control of them, and in 1910, the Union of South Africa came into being, consisting of the four British colonies, which became the four provinces of Cape, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal covering the area of present-day South Africa. is political union was dominated by the white Afrikaner grouping and excluded all black indigenous African people (blacks were barred from becoming members of parliament). is exclusion led to the establishment on January 8, 1912 of the African National Congress, which in later years led the liberation struggle culminating in their assumption of political power in April 1994, when the rst ever democratic elections were held in South Africa. However, prior to 1994, the Afrikaner political party, the National Party, particularly aer 1948 when they took power, instituted the legislated racially discriminatory and exclusionary (of black African people) policy of Apartheid. As part of this policy, the National Party established so-called Tribal Homelands or nominally “independent” Bantustans (the former were the Kwa-Zulu, Lebowa, QwaQwa, KwaNdebele, KaNgwane, and Gazankulu areas; the latter were Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei states). is policy had driven much of the social, cultural, economic, and political development of South Africa until its dismantling post-1994.
