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The Dutch East India Company landed the first European settlers on the Cape of Good Hope
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Though apartheid officially began in 1948, Africa's history of racial domination and oppression began as early as the mid-17th century when the Dutch East India Company set up a provisioning station on the Cape.
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Boers, also called Afrikaners, tried to establish an independent republic from the colony created in 1652
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Britain took permanent possession of the colony at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, bringing in 5,000 settlers.
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The colony established by the Dutch East Indian Company in 1652 numbered about 15,000.
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Anglicization of government and the freeing of slaves drove about 12,000 Afrikaners to make the “great trek” north and east into African tribal territory, where they established the republics of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State.
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The discovery of diamonds and gold brought an influx of “outlanders” into the republics and spurred Cape Colony prime minister Cecil Rhodes to plot annexation.
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the inevitable war with the Boers broke out
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The Boers were defeated
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the Union of South Africa, composed of four provinces, the two former republics, and the old Cape and Natal colonies.
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Black voters were removed from the voter rolls
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Jan Christiaan Smuts brought the nation into World War II on the Allied side against Nationalist opposition, and South Africa became a charter member of the United Nations, but he still refused to sign the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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The Group Areas Acts forced about 1.5 million Africans to move from cities to rural townships
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70 black protesters were killed during a peaceful demonstration in Sharpesville.
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South Africa declared itself a republic and severed its ties with the Commonwealth.
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an uprising in the black township of Soweto spread to other black townships and left 600 dead
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Apartheid's grip on South Africa began to give way when F. W. de Klerk replaced P. W. Botha as president
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a multiracial forum led by de Klerk and Mandela began working on a new constitution.
