History of South Africa’s Apartied Essay

South Africa is a land of abundant natural resources with a mild climate, and lush fertile land. With natural resources like diamonds, gold, and platinum, it’s no wonder that the Dutch East India Company set up settlements on the Cape of Good Hope. These settlements established a trade port between South Africa and other countries. The 17th and 18th centuries, saw settlements popping up all over Africa. Settlers from France, England, Portugal, Belgium and Spain came, forcing the Africans from their lands and turning them into a labor force. By the 20th century the British had taken over most of the settlements in the northeast, east, west, and the center of South Africa and the French controlled most of the northwest. The Republic of South Africa has had a very turbulent 20th century. Although apartied officially started in 1948, South Africa’s history for racial domination began much earlier. The Land Act was put into place in 1913, restricting Black African citizens from buying land outside special areas or reserves. This act also allowed for black sharecroppers, living on â€Å"white land†, to be relocated to these reserves. Although the Act was not enforced often, it set the stage for the â€Å"Black Homelands†, which would come into play later. The National Party, a white pro-segregation party, was voted into power after WWII. They began preparing racial legislation, and in 1949, the Mixed Marriage Act became law, prohibiting whites and blacks from marrying. In 1950, the Immorality Act made it a crime for whites to have sexual relations with any other race. The Population Registration Act required all people living in South Africa to register their race. A child born from any union would immediately be registered with their race/ethnicity. Many other acts were introduced in the coming years. All were passed to seriously limit any economic, political, or educational opportunities for the black South Africans. These Apartied Acts actually resulted in the promotion of the Black Self-Government Act in 1958, and the Black Homeland Citizenship Act in 1971. The Self-Government Act established ten areas in South Africa called Homelands. These â€Å"Homelands† were divided based on the tribe formally living there. All tribe members were expected to return to this land, where they would live and be governed by their own self-government. With the 1971 Citizenship Act, tribes were no longer citizens of South Africa. Instead they would be citizens of their Homelands. RESISTANCE TO APARTIED One of the first political organizations that opposed apartied was Lumumba Yama Africa; they believed that African unity was the only way to fight the white government . This party started in the 19th century, encouraging many other parties to join them in this goal. The apartied was also influenced by outside powers, such as Gandhi. These organizations instituted revolts beginning in 1960, leaving 69 dead and 190 injured. Apartied did not receive international awareness when the laws were created in 1948. With the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and the troubles in Asia and the rest of the African continent, awareness was finally brought to light to the rest of the world. In November 1977, the United Nations also became involved, by imposing arms embargos December 1977saw other sanctions. Many countries brought more awareness by not allowing South African Airway to land in their country. The South African government, because they were experiencing great economic growth, chose to show indifference to any criticisms from other organizations or countries. Because the white South Africans were prospering economically, sanctions continued to be ignored. IT’S OVER Apartied finally came to an end in 1990. By 1991, all apartied laws were repealed. The sanctions by other countries and organizations were also repealed. Since then, the government has been working hard to improve economic growth by creating jobs and integrating the workforce. Even though racism still exists in South Africa; cooperation between races has improved significally. REFERENCES Apartied Timeline. (n. d. ). Apartied Timeline. Retrieved from http://cyberschoolbus. un. org/discrim/race_b_at_print. asp Apartied in South Africa. (n. d. ) In Wikipedia (Rep. ). (n. d. ). Retrieved from www-cs-studentsstanford. edu/~cale/cs201/apartied. hist. html White, G. W. , ;amp; Bradshaw, M. J. (2011). Essentials of world regional geography (2nd ed. ). New York: McGraw-Hill.