HISTORY-+LA

__ History __ South Africa The history of South Africa is extremely complicated and it’s very bloody. It is about the different people’s migrations and their way to be an African citizen. We are going to give you some facts about the history, the colonizing, how the British treated the Africans and more about Apartheid.

__Prehistoric period __ Some of the oldest traces of archaeology in the world are discovered in South Africa. One of these discoveries is the monkey Australopithecus, who existed three million ye ars ago. There are traces of the Homo sapiens from 100.000 years BC. The San people or The Bush men are the oldest and now living tribe in South Africa. They lived back to 20.000 years BC, but it’s only few of them who are still living and they are living in Kalahari-desert. Later the Khoi people separated themselves from the San people, and moved to Cape where they nearly got eradicated by the Europeans.

__Colonizing__ The European started the occupation of South Africa in the middle of the 1600. These people were heirs of the indigenous, and now are known as the Khoikhoi and the San peoples. The European called them the Hottentots and the Bushmen, these names were condescending for these people. In 1652 the Dutch formed a supply station for ships that went between Europe and Cape of the good hope. This station formed Cape Town and later it became a colony. Later the Cape colony stretched itself longer and further east in the country. Dutch became the official language. After a while the African lost their residence and pastures because the European stole it from them. Against the San people the Dutch had a war of extermination and the Khoikhoi fell into slavery. In 1806 the Great Britain took over the Cape colony, the migration of European increased and South Africa became an important area for exportation, and they exported things like cotton wool, wool, wine, and meat. The British language and political institution became more and more prominent, and the slavery ended in 1838. Natal on the East coast became a British colony in 1942. To Natal came slaves from Indian and a new kingdom Zulu-state had some wars with the Britain’s, the first war the Zulu won so they thought they had won Natal back, but then Britain had revenge a year later and won. In the 1850 the Africans had majority in both republics, but did not have any sort of political privilege and remained repression servants, slavers and herdsmen on the European farms. From 1860-1880 they stumbled diamonds- and gold deposits. The Britain started a company “Cecil Rhodes’ British South Africa Company” and the diamonds monopoly “De Beers”. In 1899-1902 was it a war known as Boer war. More than 25.000 peoples died and 200.000 boers (a boer is a farmer) and African’s ended up in concentration camps under inhuman terms.

__Apartheid__ Many people think about Apartheid when they hear about South Africa. Apartheid was a race law that was made by the national party government in South Africa in 1948. The law said that the blacks were not allowed to vote, but the white people could, and they also had higher privileges than the blacks. Apartheid was discriminating and telling people that the black people were less worth then the white and European people. There were rules for everyt**h**ing, and the black people had to shop in another store then the white, they could not take the same busses and there was also a law for where they could live. Apartheid had many opponents and after a while the system led to boycott that lasted for many years. One of the most well known opponents is Nelson Mandela, and he lived 27 years of his life in prison on the Robben Island. He went to prison because he was black and he fought for freedom and equal rights for everybody. Nelson Mandela was released in 1990 and then he decided to work in politics for reconciliation and collaboration, and that contributed to lead the republic in to multi- ethnic democracy. In 1993 he got the Nobel peace prize for this work. 1994 was the year that apartheid was abolished and Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa, and it was also the first election were every citizen of South Africa could vote.

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