history of South Africa

…of the Anglo-Zulu War in Southern Africa.

>Southern African war in which the Sotho (also Basuto or Basotho) people of Basutoland (present-day Lesotho) threw off the rule by the Cape Colony. It is one of the few examples in Southern African history of Black Africans’ winning a conflict with colonial powers in…

In South Africa itself the Mfecane caused immense suffering and devastated large areas as refugees scrambled to safety in mountain fastnesses or were killed, thus easing the way for white expansion into Natal and the Highveld. In the Cape Colony it greatly increased pressures on the…

…to the new Union of South Africa. Hence, the administrative capital remained at Mafeking (Mahikeng)—actually outside the protectorate’s borders in South Africa—from 1895 until 1964. Investment and administrative development within the territory were kept to a minimum. It declined into a mere appendage of South Africa, for which it provided…

… and Uganda, and the British South Africa Company operated in what are now Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia), Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia), and Malawi. Britain’s victory in the South African War (1899–1902) enabled it to annex the Transvaal and the Orange Free State in 1902 and to create the Union of…

…New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, Eire, and Newfoundland. Although there was no formal definition of dominion status, a pronouncement by the Imperial Conference of 1926 described Great Britain and the dominions as “autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another…

Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, and Newfoundland.

British-Boer relations in South Africa, always tense, were further worsened after the Jameson raid of December 1895, and, in October 1899, war began. The early stages of the struggle were favourable to the Boers, and it was not until spring 1900 that superior British equipment began to count.…

…in the crisis precipitated by South Africa’s apartheid policy. To a multiethnic association such as the Commonwealth, South Africa was not only an anomaly but a reproach. Yet a basic rule of the Commonwealth was that of nonintervention in the domestic affairs of members. The issue came to a head…

…organization, as did Ireland (1949), South Africa (1961), and Pakistan (1972), though both South Africa and Pakistan eventually rejoined (the former in 1994 and the latter in 1989).

…creation of the Union of South Africa (1910). In order to acquire cheap labor and to end competition from independent African agricultural producers, landowners and miners encouraged the adoption of policies that deprived the Indigenous population of its social and political rights and most of its land. Sotho farmers took…

…black majority-ruled countries near minority-ruled South Africa that wished to reduce their dependence on that country. Banda refused to sever formal diplomatic ties with the apartheid regime in South Africa, however—a decision that was not popular with the other leaders in the region.

…sign the Nkomati Accord with South Africa in 1984, under which each country agreed not to support the other country’s opposition movements, and thereby maintained an economic relationship with the white minority government battling the African National Congress. His charisma and personal style kept his government in power despite the…

…a mandated territory administered by South Africa. Fighting between the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) and South African forces persisted until 1990, when Namibia became independent.

In 1914–15 South African troops invaded and captured South West Africa as part of the World War I (1914–18) conquest of the German colonies in Africa. Except for diamond mines, most property—including Tsumeb—found its way back into German hands. The rising De Beers colossus bought Oranjemund and…

South Africa agreed to a transition to Namibian sovereignty over Walvis Bay, which was effected in 1994. It also agreed to a revised boundary along the Orange River, giving Namibia riparian rights; the earlier border had been placed on the north bank and thus left…

for Namibia from South Africa, carried out from the 1940s to the ’80s, represent perhaps the most enduring and concerted attempt by the organization to promote freedom for a former colony. In 1966 the General Assembly took action to end the League of Nations mandate for South West…

…Congress (ANC) against apartheid in South Africa, for instance, might serve Soviet strategic aims, but the Black rebellion against white rule was surely indigenous. White-supremacist governments in southern Africa might argue, correctly, that the standard of living and everyday security of Blacks were better in their countries than in most…

…an Indian firm in Natal, South Africa.

…occupied the region of central South Africa just north of the Orange River. In 1848 they were guaranteed some degree of autonomy by a treaty with the British governor of South Africa. Under the leadership of Adam Kok III, the Griqua sided with the British in a war against the…

>South Africa. He was the first African to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Peace (1960), in recognition of his nonviolent struggle against racial discrimination. The circumstances of his death in 1967, which the government inquest at the time claimed had occurred after he had…

…stations in what is now South Africa. His findings led to a condemnation of the colonists for their harsh treatment of the Khoekhoe. Subsequently appointed the first superintendent for the missions of the society, Philip devoted the rest of his life to promoting the cause of the Africans and the…

…and empire builder of British South Africa. He was prime minister of Cape Colony (1890–96) and organizer of the giant diamond-mining company De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. (1888). By his will he established the Rhodes scholarships at Oxford (1902).

…1919, Llandrindod Wells, Radnor, Wales) was a Southern African politician who was prime minister of Cape Colony at the outbreak of the South African War (1899–1902); he was the younger brother of author and political activist Olive Schreiner. A moderate politician, he tried to prevent the war and later was…

…rights to promote federation in South Africa. When calamity struck the British forces battling the Zulus in 1879, Wolseley was given command in South Africa. After restoring order in Zululand, he moved on to the Transvaal, where he discouraged rebellion among the Boers.

New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Later other nations acceded to the treaty.

Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the treaty was enacted on June 23, 1961.

…of agreements concerning relations between South Africa and Mozambique. The initial convention, concluded between Portugal and the Transvaal republic in 1875, provided for commercial relations between the parties and the building of a railroad between Lourenço Marques in Mozambique and the Transvaal. After the annexation of the Transvaal by Great…

…a tragic turning point in South African history. The abandoning of the interior by the British in the 1850s, they imply, created the conditions that led to the South African War (1899–1902) between the British and the Boers. Likewise, the retreat of British “civilizing” influences in the 1850s and the…