SOUTH AFRICA: FORGING A NATION : SOUTH AFRICA: A TALE OF SIX FAMILIES : When Cultures Collide: A History of South Africa

The southern tip of the African continent, a territory of high plateaus, rolling grasslands and the escarpment of the 10,000-foot Drakensberg Range, is a big land, but not big enough for all the peoples who have contended for its resources through the centuries. The San were the indigenous people, and early immigrants were the pastoral Khoikhoi and the Bantu-speakers from the north.

When Bartolomeu Dias, a Portuguese navigator, rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, paving the sea route from Europe to the riches of India, the Bantu-speakers were living in what is now Natal province. The first European settlers arrived in 1652, setting up a provisioning station for the Dutch East India company at the Cape and soon bringing in Malay and East African slaves.

From that point on, black cultures and white bumped against each other--and white against white and black against black. The collisions, usually violent, formed the political turf that produced the coming elections in South Africa.

BC: San (“Bushmen”) roam area now known as South Africa.

AD 100-800: Bantu-speaking farmers and herdsmen cross the Limpopo River into the southern end of the African continent. Khoikhoi (Hottentots) settle coastal areas.

1488: Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope. Europeans encounter African herdsmen for the first time.

1652: The Dutch East India Co. establishes a station in the Cape Peninsula. Cape settlement grows with the arrival of Dutch, German, and French Huguenot immigrants, later known collectively as “Afrikaners” (called “Boers” by the British), and their slaves.

1795-1814: The British capture the Cape Colony from the Dutch, lose it by treaty and then regain it in Congress of Vienna in 1814.

1811-77: British and Xhosa people fight frontier wars in Easter Cape; Xhosa defeated.

1816-28: Shaka creates Zulu kingdom.

1820-43:British immigrants arrive and settle in the eastern part of the Cape. Britain abolishes slavery throughout the empire. Afrikaner farmers reject British rule and make the “Great Trek” into the interior.

1838:rikaners defeat Zulus in Battle of Blood River.

1850-54: Britain recognizes South African Republic (Transvaal) and Orange Free State as independent Afrikaner states.

1860-1911: Indentured labor from India brought in by the British.

1879: Zulus defeat the British in Isandhlwana. British later crush Zulu military power at Ulundi and annex Zululand.

1886: Gold discovered in Witwatersrand.

1894: Natal Indian Congress (NIC) formed under Mohandas K. Gandhi.

1899-1902: Anglo-Boer War ends with Afrikaner defeat; Transvall and Orange Free State become self-governing crown colonies.

1910: Union of South African formed as self-governing British dominion. Parliament is limited to whites, Gen. Louis Botha, leader of Afrikaner-English coalition and supported by Gen. Jan C. Smuts, becomes first prime minister.

1912: South African Native National Congress, first national black political movement, is founded. Renamed African National Congress (ANC) in 1923.

1919: Smuts becomes prime minister. South African Native National Congress campaigns against pass laws; hundreds arrested.

1934: South Africa recognized as independent member of Commonwealth.

1943: ANC adopts bill of rights calling for non-racial franchise. Non-European Unity Movement is formed advocating non-collaboration with all segregated bodies.

1946: NIC and Transvaal Indian Congress (TIC) begin a two-year passive resistance campaign. Troops crush a strike by thousands of black mine workers demanding higher wages

1948: National Party, led by Daniel F. Malan, wins election; introduces “apartheid,” which codifies and expands racial segregation.

1949: Prohibition of marriage between blacks and whites extended to Coloreds and whites. ANC adopts Program of Action calling for nonviolent civil disobedience.

1950: Population Registration Act classifies all South Africans according to race. Group Areas Act segregates residential and business areas.

1952: ANC and allied groups begin nonviolent Defiance Campaign that lasts all year; about 8,500 protesters are jailed. Albert Lutuli is elected ANC president.

1955: Formation of Congress of South African Trade Unions links black and multiracial trade unions to ANC, which adopts Freedom Charter

1956: Albert Lutuli, Nelson Mandela and 154 others arrested on charges of treason.

1957: Blacks in Johannesburg stage bus boycott against fare increases. Parliament approves bill to bar blacks from white church services. Thousands demonstrate in Cape Town.

1960: Black and Colored representation in Parliament (by whites) is terminated. Police kill 67 black anti-pass law demonstrators at Sharpeville. The government bans black political organizations.

1961: South Africa leaves Commonwealth. Armed wing of the ANC launches sabotage campaign.

1964: Eight anti-apartheid leaders, including Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Govan Mbeki sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage.

1974: United Nations suspends credentials of South African delegation.

1976-77: At least 575 people die in confrontations with police in Soweto and other black townships after police fire on student protesters. U.N. Security Council imposes mandatory arms embargo on South Africa.

1976-81: South African grants “independence” to Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei homelands, but they are not recognized abroad.

1980: Prolonged boycott of schools by high school and university students begins.

1983: United Democratic Front (UDF) is formed as main anti-apartheid movement.

1984: New constitution allows Asians and Coloreds but not blacks to have limited participation in the central government.

1986: After prolonged black resistance to the regime, the government repeals pass laws and proclaims a state of emergency. It detains thousands and imposes censorship. U.S. Congress passes Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act.

1989: Frederik W. de Klerk succeeds Pieter W. Botha as president.

1990-91: Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners are freed. Ban on political groups is ended, and state of emergency is revoked. Government repeals apartheid laws, including 1913 and 1936 Land Acts, Group Areas Act, Population Registration Act and Separate Amenities Act. De Klerk and Mandela start negotiations on a new constitutional order.

1992: In a referendum, white South Africans endorse negotiating with blacks to end white minority rule. The ANC withdraws from constitutional talks, citing rising violence in black townships. It later returns to talks.

1993: Mandela and De Klerk announce all-race elections for April, 1994. Negotiators approve a majority-rule constitution that will provide “fundamental rights” to blacks after the elections. Mandela and De Klerk are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

EXPLORATION AND MIGRATION

* KHOIKHOI: Pastoral people move into the southern tip of the African continent as early as AD 100-200.

* SAILING FOR THE EAST INDIES: Vasco de Gama successfully rounds the Cape and heads for the riches of India in 1498.

* ROUNDING THE CAPE: Bartolomeu Dias rounds the Cape of Good Hope in 1488; reaches the Great Fish River.

* BANTU-SPEAKERS: Farmers and herdsmen settle what is now Natal, Transvall and the Orange Free State provinces before the first Europeans round the Cape of Good Hope.

BATTLE FOR THE INTERIOR

* THE ‘GREAT TREK’: Tired of losses they sustained during the frontier wars and of British rule in the colony, the Boers, or Afrikaners, head for the interior. As early as 1834, the Boers had sent out exploratory expeditions into the interior.

* DUTCH TRADING ROUTES: In 1652, the Dutch East India Co. establishes a provisioning station in Cape Town for its fleet of merchant ships sailing for India and Indonesia.

to bar blacks from white church services. Thousands demonstrate in Cape Town.

Sources: “The Last Years of Apartheid: Civil Liberties in South Africa,” by John Dugard, Nicholas Haysom, and Gilbert Marcus; “A History of South Africa,” by Leonard Thompson; Facts on File; The New Encyclopedia Britannica; “Pictorial History of South Africa” by Antony Preston; “Times Atlas of World History.”