History of South Africa

[5] Following the Invasion of the Cape Colony by the British in 1795 and 1806, mass migrations collectively known as the Great Trek occurred during which the Voortrekkers established several Boer Republics in the interior of South Africa.

[6] The discoveries of diamonds and gold in the nineteenth century had a profound effect on the fortunes of the region, propelling it onto the world stage and introducing a shift away from an exclusively agrarian-based economy towards industrialisation and the development of urban infrastructure.

High rates of crime, corruption, unemployment, low economic growth, an ongoing energy crisis, and poorly maintained infrastructure are some of the problems challenging contemporary South Africa.

The conventional view is that availability of livestock was one reason why, in the mid-17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a staging post where the port city of Cape Town is today situated.

The kingdom controlled trade through the east African ports to Arabia, India and China, and throughout southern Africa, making it wealthy through the exchange of gold and ivory for imports such as Chinese porcelain and Persian glass beads.

The VOC, one of the major European trading houses sailing the spice route to the East, had no intention of colonizing the area, instead wanting only to establish a secure base camp where passing ships could be serviced and restock on supplies.

Van Riebeeck considered it impolitic to enslave the local Khoi and San aboriginals, so the VOC began to import large numbers of slaves, primarily from the Dutch colonies in Indonesia.

British policy with regard to South Africa would vacillate with successive governments, but the overarching imperative throughout the 19th century was to protect the strategic trade route to India while incurring as little expense as possible within the colony.

A local trader Dick King and his servant Ndongeni, who later became folk heroes, were able to escape the blockade and ride to Grahamstown, a distance of 600 km (372.82 miles) in 14 days to raise British reinforcements.

[72] In 1825, a faction of the Griqua people was induced by Dr John Philip, superintendent of the London Missionary Society in Southern Africa, to relocate to a place called Philippolis, a mission station for the San, several hundred miles southeast of Griqualand.

They moved about 500 miles eastward, over the Quathlamba (today known as the Drakensberg mountain range), settling ultimately in an area officially designated as "Nomansland", which the Griquas renamed Griqualand East.

As European settlers started establishing permanent farms after trekking across the country in search of prime agricultural land, they encountered resistance from the local Bantu people who had originally migrated southwards from central Africa hundreds of years earlier.

Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa.

[103] The wealth derived from Kimberley diamond mining, having effectively tripled the customs revenue of the Cape Colony from 1871 to 1875, also doubled its population, and allowed it to expand its boundaries and railways to the north.

[105][106] It has been suggested in some academic circles that the wealth produced at Kimberley was a significant factor influencing the Scramble for Africa, in which European powers had by 1902 competed with each other in drawing arbitrary boundaries across almost the entire continent and dividing it among themselves.

[121] In 1895, a column of mercenaries in the employ of Cecil John Rhodes' Rhodesian-based Charter Company and led by Captain Leander Starr Jameson had entered the ZAR with the intention of sparking an uprising on the Witwatersrand and installing a British administration there.

During the years immediately following the Anglo–Boer wars, Britain set about unifying the four colonies including the former Boer republics into a single self-governed country called the Union of South Africa.

[145] A number of South African fighter pilots served with distinction in the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain, including Group Captain Adolph "Sailor" Malan who led 74 Squadron and established a record of personally destroying 27 enemy aircraft.

[155] On 11 March 1994, several hundred AWB members formed part of an armed right-wing force that invaded the nominally independent "homeland" territory of Bophuthatswana, in a failed attempt to prop up its unpopular, conservative leader Chief Lucas Mangope.

Pro-apartheid South Africans attempted to justify the Bantustan policy by citing the British government's 1947 partition of India, which they claimed was a similar situation that did not arouse international condemnation.

[168] Strict censorship disallowed journalists from reporting, filming or photographing such incidents, while the government ran its own covert disinformation programme that provided distorted accounts of the extrajudicial killings.

[171] The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) would later establish that a covert, informal network of former or still serving army and police operatives, frequently acting in conjunction with extreme right-wing elements, was involved in actions that could be construed as fomenting violence and which resulted in gross human rights violations, including random and targeted killings.

[184][185][186] Between 1975 and 1988, the SADF continued to stage massive conventional raids into Angola and Zambia to eliminate PLAN's forward operating bases across the border from Namibia as well as provide support for UNITA.

Colonel Jan Breytenbach, the South African parachute battalion commander, claimed it was "recognised in Western military circles as the most successful airborne assault since World War II.

[190][191] The Angolan army, in resisting what it perceived as a South African invasion, was supported by a combination of Cuban forces and PLAN and ANC guerrillas, all armed with weapons supplied by the Soviet Union.

[200] The armed wing of the ANC, Umkhonto weSizwe (abbreviation MK, meaning Spear of the Nation) claimed moral legitimacy for the resort to violence on the grounds of necessary defence and just war.

[206] Hundreds of students and others who fled to neighbouring countries, especially Botswana, to avoid arrest after the Soweto uprising of 16 June 1976, provided a fertile recruiting ground for the military wings of both the ANC and PAC.

[215] As the culmination of mounting local and international opposition to apartheid in the 1980s, including the armed struggle, widespread civil unrest, economic and cultural sanctions by the international community, and pressure from the anti-apartheid movement around the world, State President F. W. de Klerk announced the lifting of the ban on the African National Congress, the Pan Africanist Congress and the South African Communist Party, as well as the release of political prisoner Nelson Mandela on 2 February 1990, after twenty-seven years in prison.

[232] Widespread dissatisfaction with the slow pace of socio-economic transformation, government incompetence and maladministration, and other public grievances in the post-apartheid era, precipitated many violent protest demonstrations.

[239] These also involved corruption related financial difficulties at some state owned enterprises such as Eskom and South African Airways that had a notable negative economic impact on the country's finances.