THE COLONIAL ERA BEGINS
As the Cape settlement grew from a victualling station to a colony during the 17th century, so Khoikhoi resistance against colonists' efforts to seize ancestral land increased. The colonists, reinforced by slaves from the East, spread into the interior as farmers, by now speaking their own vernacular, Afrikaans, which had developed in the Cape from Dutch roots. Inevitably, a form of social segregation grew between colonists and the black people of the interior. In 1779, in the eastern Cape, competition for grazing lands led to the first of nine frontier wars between the whites and the Xhosa.

In 1795 the Cape was annexed by Britain, but eight years later it reverted to the Batavian Republic, the new name for the Netherlands under Napoleonic rule. In 1806 it was re-occupied by Britain, whose rule was similarly authoritarian. However, a new influx of British settlers in 1820 fought for political freedom by, among other things, campaigning for a free press. Concerned at the instability of the eastern Cape, the colonial government imported more settlers, which heightened Boer (Afrikaner) nationalism. Border turbulence continued with an attack across the Keiskamma River in 1834 by 12,000 Xhosa which was repulsed by British troops. By this time, Afrikaner settlers had ventured further east and set up camp at Port Natal, later renamed Durban. From 1838-1843 they governed their own republic of Natalia, but in 1843 Natal was proclaimed a British colony. In 1854, representative government on a non-racial franchise was established in the Cape Colony, followed by Natal in 1856.

CONFLICTS INTENSIFY
By the mid-1800s Afrikaners had been in the Cape for nearly 200 years. They despised British rule and were angry with the Khoikhoi’s charter of liberties and the abolition of slavery in 1834. In the same year a mass migration - the Great Trek - of Afrikaners into the northern interior began.

Both British settler and Afrikaner trekker ran into refugees from the Mfecane (crushing), a series of bloody tribal upheavals through which King Shaka forged separate kingdoms into one Zulu nation. The trekkers came into conflict with Shaka's successor, Dingane, at Blood River in 1838 while the British were to feel the might of the Zulu impis at Isandlwana in 1879, before crushing Cetshwayo at Ulundi later that year.

After pushing north across the Orange River and east across the Drakensberg into Natal, the trekkers were permitted by the British to establish two independent Boer Republics – the Orange Free State (the present Free State) and the Transvaal (now the four provinces of Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and North West).

FROM BACKWATER TO VALUABLE POSSESSION
The discoveries of diamonds in the Northern Cape in 1867 and gold on the Witwatersrand in 1886 changed the face of southern Africa forever. A colonial backwater suddenly became a coveted imperial possession as a flood of immigrants transformed a rural, pastoral land into a bustling, industrial, minerals-based economy. Johannesburg became the economic heartland and, over time, home to sizeable Jewish, German, Greek, Portuguese and Italian communities. Rapid urbanisation of blacks and whites and the migrant worker system had profound political consequences.

Tensions between British settlers (Uitlanders) and Transvaal authorities led to the first Anglo-Boer War in 1880. A humiliating defeat at Majuba in 1881 forced Britain to restore self-government to the Transvaal. A second Anglo-Boer War erupted in 1899 when Transvaal President Paul Kruger and Cape Colony High Commissioner Lord Milner failed to resolve differences on uitlander rights. A large British expeditionary force eventually overcame a protracted Boer commando-style campaign in 1902.

UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA FOUNDED
The Peace of Vereeniging was generous to the losers and in 1908 the four colonies – Cape, Natal, Orange Free State and Transvaal – met to lay the foundation of a new country. On May 31, 1910 the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, was born. The negotiations virtually excluded the majority black population and deprived them of more of their land. Black dissatisfaction led to the formation of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1912.

APARTHEID TIGHTENS ITS GRIP
Between Union and the end of WWII, South Africa grew into a modern, industrial nation, and began to give legal effect to the racial segregation always inherent in the society. Afrikaner nationalism found expression in the National Party (NP), which promised to protect the Afrikaner language, culture and heritage and to assert political and economic independence from Britain. Coming to power in 1948, the NP began to devise a more rigid system of territorial, social and political segregation, known as apartheid, which fuelled black resistance and international hostility in the post-war era.

When 69 blacks were killed at Sharpeville in 1960 while demonstrating against pass laws, world condemnation forced South Africa out of the Commonwealth and into becoming a republic in 1961.

OPPOSITION MOUNTS
After Sharpeville, the ANC formed an armed wing, Umkhonto weSizwe, and embarked on a campaign of limited sabotage that resulted in the arrest of Nelson Mandela and other leaders. In 1964 Mandela was sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island for treason. Robert Sobukwe’s more militant Pan Africanist Congress began a terror campaign that engendered even tougher measures by the State to put down black resistance.

Prime Ministers BJ Vorster and PW Botha instituted some reform measures while toughening internal security but the balance of power was beginning to alter. Worker opposition, sanctions and modern economic realities combined to make the apartheid system untenable. On June 16, 1976, Soweto schoolchildren revolted against the imposition of Afrikaans in black schools, igniting a campaign of resistance designed to make the townships - and the country - ungovernable. Successive states of emergency failed to stem the tide.

THE TIDE TURNS
By the 1980s African liberation had reached South Africa's borders as Angola, Mozambique and Zimbabwe achieved independence. By 1990 the Cold War was over, Namibia was independent and FW de Klerk had succeeded PW Botha. De Klerk soon unbanned the ANC, released Mandela and began formal talks over a new political dispensation. After lengthy negotiations involving a wide range of political parties, an interim constitution was accepted and in April 1994 South Africa went to the polls on a one-man, one-vote basis for the first time. The ANC won overwhelmingly and Nelson Mandela became the country's first black president on May 10, 1994.

A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY
Following the elections, international sanctions were lifted and South Africa reclaimed its place in international and regional organisations. President Mandela signed a final constitution into law on December 10, 1996.

In June 1999, the second democratic general elections returned the ANC comfortably to office. Nelson Mandela retired as President and handed over the reins of government to Thabo Mbeki on June 16. Mbeki led the ANC to another convincing electoral victory in 2004, in which the party gained a more than two-thirds majority in the national parliament.

A LEADER IN AFRICA
Under Mbeki's stewardship, South Africa has taken the lead in efforts to resolve long-standing conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and to encourage democracy and development on the African continent especially via Nepad (New Partnership for Africa's Development). The country’s essential message to the world is that notwithstanding racial differences, political harmony is attainable through negotiation and compromise.

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