History of South Africa

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Part of a series on the
History of South Africa
Pre-colonial Middle Stone Age Late Stone Age Bantu expansion Kingdom of Mapungubwe Kingdom of Mutapa Kaditshwene
Dutch colonisation Dutch Cape Colony
Zulu Kingdom Shaka kaSenzangakhona Dingane kaSenzangakhona Mpande kaSenzangakhona Cetshwayo kaMpande Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo 1887 Annexation (British)
British colonisation Cape Colony Colony of Natal Transvaal Colony Orange River Colony
Boer Republics South African Republic Orange Free State Natalia Republic
Boer Wars First Boer War Jameson Raid Second Boer War
Union of South Africa World War I World War II
Apartheid Legislation South African Border War Angolan Civil War Bantustans Internal resistance Apartheid referendum
Post-apartheid Mandela presidency Mbeki presidency Motlanthe presidency Zuma presidency Ramaphosa presidency
Topic Economic history Inventions and discoveries LGBT history Military history Political history Religious history Slavery
Timeline
List of years in South Africa
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The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago.^[1][2] South Africa's first known inhabitants have been collectively referred to as the Khoisan, the Khoekhoe and the San. Starting in about 400 AD, these groups were then joined by the Bantu ethnic groups who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion. These Bantu groups were mainly limited to the area north of the Soutpansberg and the northeastern part of South Africa until the later Middle Iron Age (AD 1000-1300), after which they started migrating south into the interior of the country.

European exploration of the African coast began in the 13th century when Portugal sought an alternative route to the Silk Road to China. In the 14th and 15th century, Portuguese explorers traveled down the west African Coast, detailing and mapping the coastline and in 1488 they rounded the Cape of Good Hope.^[3] The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in Cape Town under the command of Jan van Riebeeck in April 1652,^[4] European workers who settled at the Cape became known as the Free Burghers and gradually established farms in the Dutch Cape Colony.^[5] Following the Invasion of the Cape Colony by the British in 1795 and 1806, mass migrations collectively known as the Great Trek occurred during which the Voortrekkers established several Boer Republics in the interior of South Africa.^[6] The discoveries of diamonds and gold in the nineteenth century had a profound effect on the fortunes of the region, propelling it onto the world stage and introducing a shift away from an exclusively agrarian-based economy towards industrialisation and the development of urban infrastructure. The discoveries also led to new conflicts culminating in open warfare between the Boer settlers and the British Empire, fought for control over the nascent mining industry.^{[citation needed]}

Following the defeat of the Boers in the Second Anglo–Boer War or South African War (1899–1902), the Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire on 31 May 1910 in terms of the South Africa Act 1909, which amalgamated the four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Colony of Natal, Transvaal Colony, and Orange River Colony. The country became a fully sovereign nation state within the British Empire in 1934 following enactment of the Status of the Union Act. The monarchy came to an end on 31 May 1961, replaced by a republic as the consequence of a 1960 referendum.

From 1948–1994, South African politics was dominated by Afrikaner nationalism. A comprehensive system of racial segregation and white minority rule known as apartheid was introduced from 1948.

On 2 February 1990, F.W. de Klerk, then president of South Africa and leader of the National Party, unbanned the African National Congress (ANC) and freed Nelson Mandela from life imprisonment on Robben Island. The CODESA talks negotiated the creation of a new non-racial democratic South Africa, for which de Klerk and Mandela were later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

These negotiations led to the creation of a democratic constitution for all South Africa. On 27 April 1994, after decades of ANC-led resistance to white minority rule and international opposition to apartheid, the ANC achieved a majority in the country's first democratic election. Since then, despite a continually decreasing electoral majority,^[7] the ANC has ruled South Africa. In 2024, the ANC lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since the transition to democracy.

High rates of crime, corruption, unemployment, low economic growth, an ongoing energy crisis, and poorly maintained infrastructure are some of the problems challenging contemporary South Africa.