The Colonization of South Africa

Dutch colonists were an early group of outsiders to settle in South Africa. Calling themselves Afrikaners, they established Cape Town colony in 1652 and set up a rigid social and political hierarchy that gave them complete control of the government and the power to force most Africans into slavery. When the British seized control of the colony in 1795, they continued the system of racial segregation set up by the Afrikaners, appropriating land from South Africans and encouraging large groups of immigrants from Europe and Britain to settle there. Although Britain outlawed slavery in 1830, the South African government continued to enforce racial segregation. In 1910, the white minority institutionalized policies that disenfranchised Africans and legalized racial discrimination and segregation. A few years later, British troops forced hundreds of thousands of Africans off of their land, which was confiscated by the government; these displaced people were moved...