What was life like in South Africa in 1948? Flashcards
What were the four racial categorisations of SA when the NP came to power in 1948?
Whites, Africans, coloured people, Indians
Who were the original inhabitants of SA?
Who then migrated there roughly 2,000 years ago?
What did some of the original inhabitants do, what did they become known as?
What happened to Africans in the area after this?
The San/Bushmen people (hunters/gathers)
African Farming people
Some San adopted livestock practices, Khoikhoi
They formed larger, more powerful chiefdoms- many of the San were displaced/absorbed into these units
Before the British conquered them, 1878-1885, which was the largest African kingdom?
Name 6 other, less spoken, centralised states in the area
Despite sharing many social features, what became an issue for those trying to create a common African identity during the 20th century?
In the 1951 census, how many Africans were there?
The Zulu
Sotho, Pedi, Tswana, Xhosa, Mpondo, Thembu
The languages could be as far apart as French and Spanish
8.5 million
In the 1951 census, how many Afrikaners were there?
What percentage of whites did this makeup?
When did they settle in SA?
In what ways were they still divided in the 19th century?
1.6 million
60%
17th and 18th centuries
Politically between those in the British Cape and those in two separate Boer republics
In what year did the Cape become a part of the British Empire?
In the 1951 census, how many British descendants were there?
What was different with them compared to other racial groups?
Name two other minorities that settled when the cape became a part of the empire
1806
1 million
Tended to be wealthier, more highly educated, dominated business and other professions
Irish, Jewish
In the 1951 census, how many Coloureds were there?
What percentage of the population was this?
Who were they?
Where were they largely based?
What did they largely speak?
1.1 million 9% descendants of the San and Khoikhoi and slaves The Western Cape Afrikaans
Which states were known as Boer republics, why were they created?
What year did Afrikaans replace Dutch as the official language?
Where were the Indians in SA imported from, to, why?
Along with Indian traders, what percentage of the population did they form?
Where were they based, what language did they largely speak?
Transvaal and Orange free state, Afrikaner emigrants were unhappy with British rule at the Cape
1925
South India, Natal- to work on sugar plantations
3%
Natal and Transvaal, English
When Britain handed SA self-government in 1910, what did Britain not require?
Where could Africans and coloureds be MPs?
When did white women get the vote?
When were Africans completely disenfranchised?
What percentage of the population decided the 1948 vote?
Where were Africans in cities forced to live before 1948?
What was this policy called?
Whites to share power with the black majority the old cape colony 1930 1936 21% Townships Segregation
When was gold discovered in the Witwatersrand?
Roughly how many people did the city of Johannesburg grow by from 1886 to 1900?
By 1948 what was the population approaching?
Who were some of the mineworkers, where did they live?
What did African numbers begin to do?
1886 100,000 1 million African Migrants, Male-only compounds Outstrip the white population
Towards the second half of the 20th century, what did the gold centred industry begin to diversify into?
What was ISCOR?
What did it largely generate electricity from?
How did the SA industry deal with WW2?
How many whites served in the armed forces?
How did this affect blacks?
producing textiles, clothing, food, chemicals and machinery
The state iron and steel industry
coal
Expanded, importing became difficult
180,000
Major job competition in cities when they returned from the war
What was the “poor white problem”?
Who were the “poor whites”?
A concern from the government and churches that whites should be kept as a separate group and should not have to do the kind of manual labour that was “black peoples work”
Afrikaners that hadn’t been able to make a living on the land
How did Townships come about?
Where was the largest township, what was it called?
The mass influx of black migrants to cities resulted in shack settlements. Townships were hastily created to house black migrants
20km south-west of Johannesburg, Soweto (southwestern townships)
By 1948 what percentage of land did Whites own?
Who were in the majority on farms, what did they work as?
What was baakskap?
Name three jobs that black South African farmers did
What was South Africa’s staple crop (which blacks also harvested)?
What would black farmworkers do in Natal?
What would black farmworkers do in the Western Cape?
What was the most valuable farm product, where was it exported to?
80%
Blacks, labourers and tenants
(bosshood) - the ability of the whites to maintain authority in the rural areas
Looked after the livestock, herded the ox which ploughed the land, weeded the fields
Maize
cut cane on sugar plantations
pick grapes from vineyards
Wool from Merino sheep, British textile industries
In which two places would African rural communities live?
What had become the dominant religion within SA?
Why were many of the most successful educational establishments in rural areas?
What forced the African people into the cash economy, what did this lead to, in what way did this affect clothing for example?
Name three of the jobs that women did in the reserves
What did the men often do?
On average (large variations between homesteads), what percentage of African reserve food was produced there, in 1948?
What two key things did African reserves lack and, where did vital income come from?
on white-owned farms or on reserves
Christianity
Missionaries started schools there
taxation, growing consumer tastes, Many wore modern clothes and even traditional dress was made from imported textiles
Collected water from streams, collected firewood, domestic/agricultural labour
Become migrant workers in the cities
50%
local industry, employment opportunities, migrant workers
Between which years did Britain fight the Anglo-Boer war against the two SA republics?
After Union in 1910, what did some politicians, such as Jan Smuts, attempt to do?
What did many Afrikaners feel about this?
Who opposed Smuts and in what year did they create their exclusively Afrikaner party?
What year did Smut’s opposition win the election?
Name three of the major gains for the Afrikaners that he achieved
Why did he and Smuts have to join together, what year was this, what was the new party name?
Who split from Hertzog and what did he re-found?
How did this affect Afrikaners?
1899 and 1902
unify the white population within the British empire
resentful about the lingering imperial presence and English speaking SA’s in supporting Britain
J.B.M Hertzog, 1913
1924
bilingualism in the national civil service, Afrikaans rather than Dutch as the national language (alongside English), the compulsory teaching of both languages in white schools
The great depression undermined him, 1934, United Party
D.F. Malan, the National Party
They were deeply divided between the two political directions
