The Real Hisotry of Apartheid

The History of Apartheid in South Africa

Contrary to what other articles on your site aver, Apartheid (although the name itself was not coined until 1948) was actually started by the fortune-seekers who descended on the Big Hole in Kimberley in their search for diamonds. Although there were many nationalities represented there, you could say that the British were the ones who really started this interesting, and much discussed, system.

Before the discovery of diamonds in what is now Kimberley, most European races had little or no interest in South Africa at all, other than the fact that The Cape offered a prime opportunity as a victualling station for those involved in the spice trade. Even after the initial discovery of diamonds, the British government had no wish to further colonise what it considered to be a useless piece of land south of the Equator.

However, some five years after the initial discovery of these gems in Griqualand West, a situation developed which necessitated some form of strong intervention in order to prevent what was considered in Whitehall to be a looming problem. The inhabitants of South Africa, both black and white, had hitherto been an entirely agrarian race of people, living a simple life off the land and, generally, minding their own business. Yes, they were backward by European standards – they had no indoor plumbing, had produced no writers or painters worthy of mention, and the black nations were, apart from their nomadic farming existence, too concerned with fighting each other for land and its use – and Europe was really not interested in this rather barren and unexciting part of the world.

However, once it appeared that Kimberley was more than just another South Sea Bubble and was indeed here to stay, decisions had to be made – and most of these were at the behest of Cecil John Rhodes who, apart from being involved in Cape politics, had serious interests in the diamond mines from which Kimberley sprang. The news of the discovery of considerable amounts of alluvial diamonds, apart from attracting diggers from as far away as Australia and America, also became noticed by the local black tribes, who had one indispensible item that they could sell: their labour. With this in mind, they converged on Kimberley in considerable numbers and, in the beginning, actually owned certain claims in what is now known as The Big Hole.

However, where there is money in large amounts to be made, you can be certain that crime will soon follow. It seems to be an immutable fact of life that if you have something, someone will try to take it away from you by fair means or foul! It was not long, therefore, before IDB (illicit diamond buying) became almost as profitable as the production of diamonds themselves. It is believed by many that personalities such as the Barnato Brothers, and others who went on to become rich and famous, also derived quite a large portion of their early income from this source; but, the principal players in the IDB game were the blacks, who would employ whatever means they could in order to make a quick killing.

Because of this, black labourers were firstly made subject to unseemly and unpleasant body-searches as they left the mine each day in order to make sure that they were not leaving with more than that with which they arrived! Within a very short period of time it was decided by the major players in the Kimberley mine that the only way to protect themselves against the illegal removal of gems was to restrict the African labourers to their own compounds and to severely limit their freedom. It was at all events a matter of considerable importance that the value of diamonds be controlled, and the free-for-all system which had hitherto existed in Kimberley had urgently to be manipulated. This was actually the beginning of Apartheid. It had nothing to do with politics, human rights, or the suppression of the masses, but was simply instituted in order to protect the price of the product, which, without this protection, would have slumped considerably on world markets.

The same scenario took place on a larger scale on the Rand. Kruger and his government were not interested in prospecting for gold, but, being almost bankrupt, the Transvaal (as it was then known) needed every bit of revenue it could lay its hands on, and so taxes were levied on the mines, and these were paid without demur by the Randlords, as they believed that the placation of the Transvaal government would allow them to continue their efforts unmolested. Even then, Britain was particularly reticent about any kind of interference or colonisation of the area.

By 1895 an interesting phenomenon had occurred in both places: segregation of a sometimes purely voluntary and personal nature. Both towns had, by now, considerable populations of both black and white, but each population lived in its own area, and, apart from the occasional drunken revelry, it was destined to remain so. When the Transvaal was finally annexed by the British, it was their wish that no form of racial segregation should be enforced or made law, and they went to some lengths to ensure that this should not happen. However, those at the ‘coal face’ had other ideas, and so, this was really the beginning of Apartheid, or separation of the races.

Whilst the British standpoint changed little in the ensuing years, in true British fashion they sought to rid themselves of what they considered to be a tedious burden and so passed the Act of Union in 1910. This allowed South Africa to become pretty much autonomous; England was not unduly concerned about the black vote, or black freedom; it had other more pressing concerns to deal with, and for some years a more or less free society was allowed free reign in South Africa.

However, in 1948 the Nationalists came to power and, despite an earlier attempt which failed after a few weeks, they steadily began to entrench separatism, or Apartheid as they called it, and by the time that Hendrik Verwoerd took over, Apartheid had grown to be what was later considered a blight on this continent. Verwoerd (who strangely enough was Dutch, not Afrikaans) had his own ideas of how things should work and, this said, he was only slightly to the left of Adolph Hitler. It was his idea of Separate Development, and his translation of the biblical role of the races, his idea of white superiority, which inevitably led to the excesses of later rulers.

The rest, as they say, is history, and need not be re-hashed. One can only be thankful, as a resident of this country, that personalities such as Mandela and De Klerk finally came together, saw the wood for the trees, and established the democracy that we now have. It’s taken a long time!