South Africa is inhabited by a broad range of cultures including Dutch, German and English white settlers, black Africans from many different tribes across the continent, "coloreds" (people of mixed descent) and Asian people (mainly people from India and Pakistan). White colonists were first attracted to the South African coast in the eighteenth century for its abundant resources. Since their arrival, the white minority population has sought to control the black majority population of the region.

When Fugard wrote his play Boesman and Lena in 1969, all major black African political organizations had been banned, and blacks in the country were segregated and assigned to Bantustans ("homelands"), restricted from travelling outside these areas (except to work for whites in very limited circumstances). The minority white population by this time controlled over eighty percent of the land, all the government, and the vast majority of natural resources, though...