Compare And Contrast Jamestown And Dutch Colonization
INTRO
In May 1607, three ships sailed up from Chesapeake Bay in search for the first permanent English colony in North America. Although Jamestown colony was doomed from the beginning, it was not so much an outpost as an establishment of what was to become the United States. Forty-five years later, another three ships representing the Dutch Republic and its company, the East India Company, anchored in the Cape of Good Hope. Their purpose was to establish a refreshment station where ships could break the long voyage between the Netherlands and the company’s main settlement at Batavia in Java.
These two occurrences constituted the beginnings of two of the first white-dominated societies outside of Europe. Starting from the small settlements …show more content…
of the 1600s, the white settlers penetrated into the interior of North American and South Africa. By the end of the 19th century, they had successfully expropriated most of the land for their own use and set the pre-conditions on which a system of white supremacy would be built.
DEFINITION OF WHITE SUPREMACY
More so than the other societies that resulted from the European colonialism and expansion, South Africa and the United States serve as the long-term manifestations of a Herrenvolk society. George M. Fredrickson defines white supremacy as “the attitudes, ideologies, and policies associated with the rise of blatant forms of white or European dominance over nonwhite populations.” White supremacy implies more than racial prejudice and discrimination, which exists in most, if not all, societies; it suggests a systematic effort to make race or color a qualification for membership in a civil society through means of color bars, racial segregation, and the restriction citizenship rights. It. SOME THESIS STATEMENT HERE!
Something like – colonies founded on same ideological thought concerning inferior and superior groups but same white supremacist ideologies resulted in different outcomes: in apartheid for South Africa and segregation for the United States Ideological thought was same but historical conditions resulted in different outcomes for two countries. . . Similarities in kinds of white attitudes, ideologies, and policies that have emerged. However, did not emerge from same racial consciousness but rather grew from different set of historical circumstances. South Africa and the United States are not the same, therefore, we cannot state that the original mind-set of the colonists were similar. Trends were similar in general direction but different in rate of development, ideological expression, and institutional embodiment.
IDEAS THAT SUPPORTED INSTITUTIONS
Before the time of colonization of South Africa and the United States, certain preconceptions of “savagery” had infused 16th and 17th century Europe, establishing a mode of thinking that shaped the way the settlers approached and treated the natives they encountered. These beliefs were not racist, as the Enlightenment and Era of Scientific Racism had not yet occurred, but they gave birth to classications that divided the world into “Europeans” and racially distinct “Others.” For both South Africa and North America, Europeans found a justification for the construction of this “Other” first in religion and later, science.
A long struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean between Christian and Islamic civilizations in the first millenium gave rise to the beginnings of religious justifications for the division of people into inferior and superior groups. The Crusades were justified as an attempt to free the Holy Land from infidels, creating an attitude toward the “enemies of Christ” and “heathens” that would carry to the New World and to southern Africa six centuries later. The dichotomy of civil-savage had also been established. Civility was the natural state of mankind but after the flood of Noah, some branches of man had wandered into the wilderness and degenerated into an uncivil state. Civilized people were thus superior to savages.
COLONIZATION OF SOUTH AFRICA AND NORTH AMERICA
Early Dutch colonization had a different character than that of England’s.
In contrast to the latter’s long tradition of expansionism and territorialism, the Dutch Republic came into existence in the late 16th century, a loose federation of provinces that had escaped from Spanish domination. What drove the Dutch into overseas ventures was not the prospect of expanding their land holdings and claiming sovereignty in other lands, but the promise of lucrative trade that would allow the Dutch to hold onto their precarious autonomy. With England, trade with the natives was less important than the establishment of territorial claims. This required the subjugation of the natives which was justified by the superior civil-inferior savage belief. In comparison, Dutch economic policy did not require the large-scale conquest of territory; in fact, it may have mollified their claims to superiority so long as a commercial relationship was being …show more content…
upheld.
The Dutch who established the first outpost in the Cape of Good Hope initially viewed this activity as a form of commercial exploitation; this view resulted in a deviation in approach from England’s to the indigenous peoples. The Dutch engaged in smaller-scale settlements and relatively modest territorial ambitions. While American settlement represented an effort to plant English communities that would produce important commodities for the mother country but required massive labor, the colony at the Cape of Good Hope had no other purpose than to serve as a provision station for the ships of the Dutch East India Company. Where the English Crown claimed much of North America by the right of discovery, the Dutch had neither a basis for such claims in South Africa.
The early relationships with the indigenous peoples was to be one of trade.
The Europeans called the natives Hottentots and entered into a cattle trade with them. Gradually, the Dutch increased their numbers and enlarged their land holdings, much to the Hottentots’ alarm. When the expansion of white farming began to encroach upon Hottentot land, tensions began to develop. The first Hottentot-Dutch war of 1659-60 was the outcome of this growing tension and was resolved by a treaty acknowledging white rights to occupancy of the territory. Although the Dutch were few in numbers, they were able to hold onto their claims because the Hottentots were comprised of small and unorganized tribes who competed with one another for dominance.
In 1806, the Cape fell to British possession. But the natives were not displaced or removed to make way for an expansion as the Native Americans had been in the American colonies through actions like the Indian Removal act of 1830. The main reason that they remained in possession of most of their original territory was that they were the predominant population group, one because of their ability to maintain their numbers and two, because of the white colonists’ failure to grow as rapidly as in the United
States.
In 1820, large-scale migrations of British citizens into Cape Town was funded by the government. In protest, many of the Boers, along with their African servants and a few 'coloured' offspring, left the Western Cape colony area in the Great Trek. The British took little heed of these efforts, because they were primarily concerned with the strategic position of Cape Town on the Indian trade route; the interior of South Africa had little value to them.
The situation changed when diamonds were discovered in Afrikaner territory in 1867. The British asserted control over the Eastern Cape; thus the Afrikaners trekked again, settling in the Orange Free State and Transvaal. However, in 1886, gold was found in the Orange Free State, and in 1890 gold was discovered in Transvaal.
In 1910, the South Africa Union Agreement incorporated the British colonies of Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State. By this agreement, South Africa was semi-independent, and had the status of dominion within the British empire. The British retained ultimate power, including the right to grant charters for mining operations.
Apartheid, which means "separateness" in Afrikaans, was instituted in 1948 as the official policy of the Union of South Africa. The National Party, led by Daniel Malan, had taken power and advanced rapidly into further segregation, the ultimate goal of apartheid was separation of the races: not only of whites from nonwhites, but also of nonwhites from each other, and, among the Africans (called Bantu in South Africa), of one group from another. In addition to the Africans, who constitute about 75% of the total population, those regarded as nonwhite include those people known in the country as Coloured and Asian populations.
Initial emphasis was on restoring the separation of races within the urban areas. A large segment of the Asian and Coloured populations was forced to relocate out of so-called white areas. African townships that had been overtaken by white urban sprawl were demolished and their occupants removed to new townships well beyond city limits. Between the passage of the Group Areas Acts of 1950 and 1986, about 1.5 million Africans were forcibly removed from cities to rural reservations.
Under the prime ministership of Hendrik Verwoerd apartheid developed into a policy known as “separate development,” whereby each of the nine African (Bantu) groups was to become a nation with its own homeland, or Bantustan. An area totaling about 14% of the country's land was set aside for these homelands, the remainder, including the major mineral areas and the cities, being reserved for the whites. The basic tenet of the separate development policy was to reserve within the confines of the African's designated homeland rights and freedoms, but that outside it blacks were to be treated as aliens.
In 1962 the South African government established the first of the Bantustans, the Transkei, as the homeland of the Xhosa people, and granted it limited self-government in 1963, later becoming “independent. Blacks would be able to vote in these homelands too; thus they would be unable, theoretically, to claim disenfranchisement. Meanwhile, no blacks were to be citizens of South Africa, and thus were not entitled to social services from the South African government.
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 banned interracial marriages. The Immorality Act of 1950 prohibited interracial sexual relations. The Population Registration Act of 1950 provided a census structure under which people would be counted and categorized under specific racial groupings. These acts laid the foundation for separating the different racial groups from another permanently.
However, since South Africa had already industrialized extensively, and still had natural resources yet to be extracted, black workers were still needed. Black labor was essential to the function of the South African economy. Thus the Group Area Act was created, which stated that blacks could be allowed in urban areas, even though they were not citizens of South Africa. They had to live in specified areas of the cities, and could only live there if they were employed. In many cases, this meant the creation of all-male dormitory facilities near the factories, while the women and children were sent to the homelands. In conjunction with the Group Area Act were the Pass Laws, which stipulated that since blacks were only allowed in designated areas, they had to carry passes to show they had a reason to be wherever they were.
HISTORY OF SEGREGATION
Racial segregation in its modern form started in the late 1800's. It was essentially a new system, a major discontinuity in the pattern of race relations, and tied to the emergence of industrialization and class and state formation. The emergence of segregation is not explained by racism or exploitation but by circumstances created by industralization and urbanization. But slavery existed in the United States for more than 200 years before the Civil War (1861-1865). After the war, the freed blacks suffered widespread discrimination, especially in the South.
Jim Crow Laws, first developed in a few Northern states in the early 1800's, were adopted by many Southern states in the late 1800's. These segregation laws required that whites and blacks use separate public facilities. Several Southern states adopted grandfather clauses and other Jim Crow laws that deprived blacks of their voting rights.
The rapid spread of segregation laws through the South was supported by a series of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States. The most influential case was Plessy vs. Fergueson in 1896. In that case, the court supported the constitutionality of a Louisiana law requiring separate but equal facilities for whites and blacks in railroad cars. De jure (by law) racial segregation in America was strengthened by this decision. For more than 50 years, many states used the "separate but equal" rule to segregate the races in public schools, and in the use of transportation, recreation, sleeping, and eating facilities.
The beginning of change.
The system of de jure segregation gradually began to crumble in the 1900's. During World War I (1914-1918), orders for military equipment created a great demand for labor. The demand led to mass black migration from the South to the manufacturing centers of the North. In 1910, about a tenth of all black Americans lived outside the South. Today, more than half live outside the South.
Starting in the 1930's, blacks have gained increasing prominence in national politics and a fairer hearing in federal courts. One high point was reached in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the Supreme Court ruled against de jure segregation in public schools. The court held that "in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." In 1969, the court ordered public school districts to desegregate "at once." Beginning in 1973, the court ordered school desegregation in certain Northern cities, where school boards had intentionally contributed to segregation by drawing school district lines and locating new schools so that students would be segregated. The Supreme Court often ordered the busing of pupils to ensure that most schools in a district would have a similar proportion of minority group students. Many white people in the North opposed these court decisions, and little desegregation took place. In the 1970's and 1980's, a large number of white people throughout the country opposed busing and other desegregation efforts, and many blacks feared that a new era of segregation and discrimination might develop.
In the 1960's, national attention shifted to de facto segregation--that is, segregation in fact. This type of separation has developed more by custom than by law. Although many laws that support de jure segregation were declared unconstitutional, de facto racial segregation increased during the mid-1900's.
In American cities, blacks were almost as segregated in housing in the 1980's as they were in the 1930's. Such segregation remains one of the most serious problems facing nonwhites. Many blacks suffer from a practice called steering, in which real-estate agents show blacks housing only in areas that already have many black residents. Laws prohibit such practices, but many victims find it hard and expensive to get compensation from courts.
But the economic and political situation has not improved basically for millions of unskilled, low-income blacks. In some ways, poor blacks are relatively worse off than they were in the 1930's. Their standard of living has improved but has not risen as fast as that of whites and middle-class blacks. Poor blacks have experienced increasing difficulty in improving their lives.
De facto segregation has been a basic cause of numerous race riots in American cities since the 1960's. The riots have represented, among other things, a mixture of desperation and defiance.
Antidiscrimination laws are a major tool for breaking down de facto segregation. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 provides protection against discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. However, many such laws have inadequate means of enforcement and include small penalties.
AFTER APARTHEID/AFTER REPEALMENT OF SEGREGATION LAWS
Despite public demonstrations, UN resolutions, and opposition from international religious societies, apartheid was applied with increased rigor in the 1960s. In 1961 South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations rather than yield to pressure over its racial policies, and in the same year the three South African denominations of the Dutch Reformed Church left the World Council of Churches rather than abandon apartheid. Although the policy of apartheid was continued under Prime Minister John Vorster, there was some relaxation of its pettier aspects, and this accelerated under his successor, P. W. Botha.
Probably the most forceful pressures, both internal and external, eroding the barriers of apartheid were economic. International sanctions severely affected the South African economy, raising the cost of necessities, cutting investment, even forcing many American corporations to disinvest, for example, or, under the Sullivan Rules, to employ without discrimination. In addition, the severe shortage of skilled labor led to lifting limits on African wages, and granting Africans the right to strike and organize unions. Unions, churches, and students organized protests throughout the 1970s and 80s. Moreover, political, economic, and military pressures were exerted by the independent countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
As a result of these pressures, many lesser apartheid laws—such as those banning interracial marriage and segregating facilities—were repealed or fell into disuse by 1990. In 1991 President de Klerk obtained the repeal of the remaining apartheid laws and called for the drafting of a new constitution. In 1993 a multiracial, multiparty transitional government was approved, and fully free elections were held in 1994, which gave majority representation to the African National Congress.
EMERGENCE OF SLAVE SYSTEM
The labor demands of the settlements resulted in a decision to import nonwhite slaves in both South Africa and the colonial South. Indentured servitude was not meeting the labor demands of southern colonial plantations and was later replaced by African slavery as cotton was becoming a high-demand crop. In South Africa, slaves were imported from Southeast Asia and East Africa to meet the labor requirements of the company and its burghers.
The decisions that led to the emergence of slave societies were conditioned by the assumption that nonwhites were enslavable while Europeans were not.
The Curse on Ham was a popular justification for African-American slavery. It stated that all savage peoples descended from Ham, the son of Noah, and that their fate of lifelong slavery was a result of this inherited curse. But such views were in direct conflict with the Christian doctrine of the essential unity of humankind. How could enslavement be justified once slaves were converted to Christianity and no longer “heathen”? The explanation – Africans were a different kind of people, not descendents of Adam, but of another, separate, branch. In the southern colonies, a 1664 Maryland law requiredall “Negroes” to serve lifetime bondage. A 1682 Virgina act “made slaves of all those arriving whose parentage and native country are not Christian at the time of their first purchase . . . “ The criterion for slavery shifted from heathenism to racial origin to assuage those who expressed doubts about the compatibility of slavery and Christianity. The assimilation into white religion did not give Africans any claim to freedom; rather it would instill in them the doctrine that obedience to masters was a Christian duty.
In the Cape, there was no trend of thought stating that the tenets of Christianity forbade slavery. This can be explained by the fact that there was no major evangelical revival among the Dutch settlers. There was no clear policy established for the slaves that had converted to Christianity and the victims of the slave trade were treated as a form of merchandise, which meant that they had only such rights as the authorities of the colonies were willing to grant them.
The late 18th century brought on an age of democratic revolution in Europe and America. New Enlightenment philosphies offered visions of liberty, equality, and a breakaway from the old order. However, in America, all nonwhites were seen as aliens and exempt from the declarations of the Constitution. The colonists of the Cape of Good Hope also responded to the democratic influences and ideological trends of the 18th century but with less fervor than America. Having a much smaller population that was still dependent on European military and material, they were much less likely to develop expectations of an independent nationhood.
DIFFERENCES B/T SOUTH AFRICAN AND AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
The chronological sequences and specific circumstances associated with the achievement of independent white nationhood were very different. America’s formal independence from England was gained in 1783; a self-governing Union of South Africa did not emerge until 1910 and full independence from England was not achieved until South Africa declared itself a republic in 1961. But post-revolutionary America was not a consolidated nation. It took the Civil War in 1860 to establish the dominance of a central authority and lay the political foundations for a modern state-nation. In South Africa, a flurry of settler protests and insurrections against imperial authority – first against the Dutch and later, the British – was roughly similar to the American Revolution. But these movements were easily suppressed and did not produce the settler independence that America enjoyed.
Slave transfers, agrarian servitude, emancipation, and post-emancipation adjustments also part of South African story but some differences. Most obvious difference is the ratio of white settlers to the indigenous nonwhite population. A numerous and significant nonwhite group in South Africa has been the indigenous African majority while nonwhites are a relatively small minority in the United States. A second difference is the economic opportunities arising from the physical environment of each respective country. South Africa presented white settlers with only a few limited opportunities for the accumulation of wealth and the exploitation of resources. South Africa is naturally a poor country in terms of its agricultural potential: 86% of the land is arid or semi-arid. Lacking the cotton and corn crop explosion of the United States, South Africa’s white economy and population developed at a very slow rate during the first 200 years of settlement. The U.S., within 200 years, was undergoing an industrial revolution that would eventually make it the richest and most powerful country in the world. The rapid industrial development of South Africa since the late 19th century has been due to almost exclusively the exploitation of its rich mineral resources particularly gold. It is today the world’s largest supplier or gold. Third difference is the system of government.
Conclusion – tying main points together
History of frontier expansion at the expense of indigenous peoples in the Cape Colony bears resemblance to what occurred in the United States. Parallel rise of racial slavery in the colonial South and the Cape raised many of the same issues. Impact of industrialization on race relations and competition for industrial jobs. Growth of racial segregation or apartheid in the modern era
The lesson we can learn from these two case studies and the very recent successes of the black struggle for civil rights is that the call for freedom and equality cannot be denied forever.
In May 1607, three ships sailed up from Chesapeake Bay in search for the first permanent English colony in North America. Although Jamestown colony was doomed from the beginning, it was not so much an outpost as an establishment of what was to become the United States. Forty-five years later, another three ships representing the Dutch Republic and its company, the East India Company, anchored in the Cape of Good Hope. Their purpose was to establish a refreshment station where ships could break the long voyage between the Netherlands and the company’s main settlement at Batavia in Java.
These two occurrences constituted the beginnings of two of the first white-dominated societies outside of Europe. Starting from the small settlements …show more content…
of the 1600s, the white settlers penetrated into the interior of North American and South Africa. By the end of the 19th century, they had successfully expropriated most of the land for their own use and set the pre-conditions on which a system of white supremacy would be built.
DEFINITION OF WHITE SUPREMACY
More so than the other societies that resulted from the European colonialism and expansion, South Africa and the United States serve as the long-term manifestations of a Herrenvolk society. George M. Fredrickson defines white supremacy as “the attitudes, ideologies, and policies associated with the rise of blatant forms of white or European dominance over nonwhite populations.” White supremacy implies more than racial prejudice and discrimination, which exists in most, if not all, societies; it suggests a systematic effort to make race or color a qualification for membership in a civil society through means of color bars, racial segregation, and the restriction citizenship rights. It. SOME THESIS STATEMENT HERE!
Something like – colonies founded on same ideological thought concerning inferior and superior groups but same white supremacist ideologies resulted in different outcomes: in apartheid for South Africa and segregation for the United States Ideological thought was same but historical conditions resulted in different outcomes for two countries. . . Similarities in kinds of white attitudes, ideologies, and policies that have emerged. However, did not emerge from same racial consciousness but rather grew from different set of historical circumstances. South Africa and the United States are not the same, therefore, we cannot state that the original mind-set of the colonists were similar. Trends were similar in general direction but different in rate of development, ideological expression, and institutional embodiment.
IDEAS THAT SUPPORTED INSTITUTIONS
Before the time of colonization of South Africa and the United States, certain preconceptions of “savagery” had infused 16th and 17th century Europe, establishing a mode of thinking that shaped the way the settlers approached and treated the natives they encountered. These beliefs were not racist, as the Enlightenment and Era of Scientific Racism had not yet occurred, but they gave birth to classications that divided the world into “Europeans” and racially distinct “Others.” For both South Africa and North America, Europeans found a justification for the construction of this “Other” first in religion and later, science.
A long struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean between Christian and Islamic civilizations in the first millenium gave rise to the beginnings of religious justifications for the division of people into inferior and superior groups. The Crusades were justified as an attempt to free the Holy Land from infidels, creating an attitude toward the “enemies of Christ” and “heathens” that would carry to the New World and to southern Africa six centuries later. The dichotomy of civil-savage had also been established. Civility was the natural state of mankind but after the flood of Noah, some branches of man had wandered into the wilderness and degenerated into an uncivil state. Civilized people were thus superior to savages.
COLONIZATION OF SOUTH AFRICA AND NORTH AMERICA
Early Dutch colonization had a different character than that of England’s.
In contrast to the latter’s long tradition of expansionism and territorialism, the Dutch Republic came into existence in the late 16th century, a loose federation of provinces that had escaped from Spanish domination. What drove the Dutch into overseas ventures was not the prospect of expanding their land holdings and claiming sovereignty in other lands, but the promise of lucrative trade that would allow the Dutch to hold onto their precarious autonomy. With England, trade with the natives was less important than the establishment of territorial claims. This required the subjugation of the natives which was justified by the superior civil-inferior savage belief. In comparison, Dutch economic policy did not require the large-scale conquest of territory; in fact, it may have mollified their claims to superiority so long as a commercial relationship was being …show more content…
upheld.
The Dutch who established the first outpost in the Cape of Good Hope initially viewed this activity as a form of commercial exploitation; this view resulted in a deviation in approach from England’s to the indigenous peoples. The Dutch engaged in smaller-scale settlements and relatively modest territorial ambitions. While American settlement represented an effort to plant English communities that would produce important commodities for the mother country but required massive labor, the colony at the Cape of Good Hope had no other purpose than to serve as a provision station for the ships of the Dutch East India Company. Where the English Crown claimed much of North America by the right of discovery, the Dutch had neither a basis for such claims in South Africa.
The early relationships with the indigenous peoples was to be one of trade.
The Europeans called the natives Hottentots and entered into a cattle trade with them. Gradually, the Dutch increased their numbers and enlarged their land holdings, much to the Hottentots’ alarm. When the expansion of white farming began to encroach upon Hottentot land, tensions began to develop. The first Hottentot-Dutch war of 1659-60 was the outcome of this growing tension and was resolved by a treaty acknowledging white rights to occupancy of the territory. Although the Dutch were few in numbers, they were able to hold onto their claims because the Hottentots were comprised of small and unorganized tribes who competed with one another for dominance.
In 1806, the Cape fell to British possession. But the natives were not displaced or removed to make way for an expansion as the Native Americans had been in the American colonies through actions like the Indian Removal act of 1830. The main reason that they remained in possession of most of their original territory was that they were the predominant population group, one because of their ability to maintain their numbers and two, because of the white colonists’ failure to grow as rapidly as in the United
States.
In 1820, large-scale migrations of British citizens into Cape Town was funded by the government. In protest, many of the Boers, along with their African servants and a few 'coloured' offspring, left the Western Cape colony area in the Great Trek. The British took little heed of these efforts, because they were primarily concerned with the strategic position of Cape Town on the Indian trade route; the interior of South Africa had little value to them.
The situation changed when diamonds were discovered in Afrikaner territory in 1867. The British asserted control over the Eastern Cape; thus the Afrikaners trekked again, settling in the Orange Free State and Transvaal. However, in 1886, gold was found in the Orange Free State, and in 1890 gold was discovered in Transvaal.
In 1910, the South Africa Union Agreement incorporated the British colonies of Cape, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State. By this agreement, South Africa was semi-independent, and had the status of dominion within the British empire. The British retained ultimate power, including the right to grant charters for mining operations.
Apartheid, which means "separateness" in Afrikaans, was instituted in 1948 as the official policy of the Union of South Africa. The National Party, led by Daniel Malan, had taken power and advanced rapidly into further segregation, the ultimate goal of apartheid was separation of the races: not only of whites from nonwhites, but also of nonwhites from each other, and, among the Africans (called Bantu in South Africa), of one group from another. In addition to the Africans, who constitute about 75% of the total population, those regarded as nonwhite include those people known in the country as Coloured and Asian populations.
Initial emphasis was on restoring the separation of races within the urban areas. A large segment of the Asian and Coloured populations was forced to relocate out of so-called white areas. African townships that had been overtaken by white urban sprawl were demolished and their occupants removed to new townships well beyond city limits. Between the passage of the Group Areas Acts of 1950 and 1986, about 1.5 million Africans were forcibly removed from cities to rural reservations.
Under the prime ministership of Hendrik Verwoerd apartheid developed into a policy known as “separate development,” whereby each of the nine African (Bantu) groups was to become a nation with its own homeland, or Bantustan. An area totaling about 14% of the country's land was set aside for these homelands, the remainder, including the major mineral areas and the cities, being reserved for the whites. The basic tenet of the separate development policy was to reserve within the confines of the African's designated homeland rights and freedoms, but that outside it blacks were to be treated as aliens.
In 1962 the South African government established the first of the Bantustans, the Transkei, as the homeland of the Xhosa people, and granted it limited self-government in 1963, later becoming “independent. Blacks would be able to vote in these homelands too; thus they would be unable, theoretically, to claim disenfranchisement. Meanwhile, no blacks were to be citizens of South Africa, and thus were not entitled to social services from the South African government.
The Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act of 1949 banned interracial marriages. The Immorality Act of 1950 prohibited interracial sexual relations. The Population Registration Act of 1950 provided a census structure under which people would be counted and categorized under specific racial groupings. These acts laid the foundation for separating the different racial groups from another permanently.
However, since South Africa had already industrialized extensively, and still had natural resources yet to be extracted, black workers were still needed. Black labor was essential to the function of the South African economy. Thus the Group Area Act was created, which stated that blacks could be allowed in urban areas, even though they were not citizens of South Africa. They had to live in specified areas of the cities, and could only live there if they were employed. In many cases, this meant the creation of all-male dormitory facilities near the factories, while the women and children were sent to the homelands. In conjunction with the Group Area Act were the Pass Laws, which stipulated that since blacks were only allowed in designated areas, they had to carry passes to show they had a reason to be wherever they were.
HISTORY OF SEGREGATION
Racial segregation in its modern form started in the late 1800's. It was essentially a new system, a major discontinuity in the pattern of race relations, and tied to the emergence of industrialization and class and state formation. The emergence of segregation is not explained by racism or exploitation but by circumstances created by industralization and urbanization. But slavery existed in the United States for more than 200 years before the Civil War (1861-1865). After the war, the freed blacks suffered widespread discrimination, especially in the South.
Jim Crow Laws, first developed in a few Northern states in the early 1800's, were adopted by many Southern states in the late 1800's. These segregation laws required that whites and blacks use separate public facilities. Several Southern states adopted grandfather clauses and other Jim Crow laws that deprived blacks of their voting rights.
The rapid spread of segregation laws through the South was supported by a series of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States. The most influential case was Plessy vs. Fergueson in 1896. In that case, the court supported the constitutionality of a Louisiana law requiring separate but equal facilities for whites and blacks in railroad cars. De jure (by law) racial segregation in America was strengthened by this decision. For more than 50 years, many states used the "separate but equal" rule to segregate the races in public schools, and in the use of transportation, recreation, sleeping, and eating facilities.
The beginning of change.
The system of de jure segregation gradually began to crumble in the 1900's. During World War I (1914-1918), orders for military equipment created a great demand for labor. The demand led to mass black migration from the South to the manufacturing centers of the North. In 1910, about a tenth of all black Americans lived outside the South. Today, more than half live outside the South.
Starting in the 1930's, blacks have gained increasing prominence in national politics and a fairer hearing in federal courts. One high point was reached in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the Supreme Court ruled against de jure segregation in public schools. The court held that "in the field of public education the doctrine of "separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." In 1969, the court ordered public school districts to desegregate "at once." Beginning in 1973, the court ordered school desegregation in certain Northern cities, where school boards had intentionally contributed to segregation by drawing school district lines and locating new schools so that students would be segregated. The Supreme Court often ordered the busing of pupils to ensure that most schools in a district would have a similar proportion of minority group students. Many white people in the North opposed these court decisions, and little desegregation took place. In the 1970's and 1980's, a large number of white people throughout the country opposed busing and other desegregation efforts, and many blacks feared that a new era of segregation and discrimination might develop.
In the 1960's, national attention shifted to de facto segregation--that is, segregation in fact. This type of separation has developed more by custom than by law. Although many laws that support de jure segregation were declared unconstitutional, de facto racial segregation increased during the mid-1900's.
In American cities, blacks were almost as segregated in housing in the 1980's as they were in the 1930's. Such segregation remains one of the most serious problems facing nonwhites. Many blacks suffer from a practice called steering, in which real-estate agents show blacks housing only in areas that already have many black residents. Laws prohibit such practices, but many victims find it hard and expensive to get compensation from courts.
But the economic and political situation has not improved basically for millions of unskilled, low-income blacks. In some ways, poor blacks are relatively worse off than they were in the 1930's. Their standard of living has improved but has not risen as fast as that of whites and middle-class blacks. Poor blacks have experienced increasing difficulty in improving their lives.
De facto segregation has been a basic cause of numerous race riots in American cities since the 1960's. The riots have represented, among other things, a mixture of desperation and defiance.
Antidiscrimination laws are a major tool for breaking down de facto segregation. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 provides protection against discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. However, many such laws have inadequate means of enforcement and include small penalties.
AFTER APARTHEID/AFTER REPEALMENT OF SEGREGATION LAWS
Despite public demonstrations, UN resolutions, and opposition from international religious societies, apartheid was applied with increased rigor in the 1960s. In 1961 South Africa withdrew from the Commonwealth of Nations rather than yield to pressure over its racial policies, and in the same year the three South African denominations of the Dutch Reformed Church left the World Council of Churches rather than abandon apartheid. Although the policy of apartheid was continued under Prime Minister John Vorster, there was some relaxation of its pettier aspects, and this accelerated under his successor, P. W. Botha.
Probably the most forceful pressures, both internal and external, eroding the barriers of apartheid were economic. International sanctions severely affected the South African economy, raising the cost of necessities, cutting investment, even forcing many American corporations to disinvest, for example, or, under the Sullivan Rules, to employ without discrimination. In addition, the severe shortage of skilled labor led to lifting limits on African wages, and granting Africans the right to strike and organize unions. Unions, churches, and students organized protests throughout the 1970s and 80s. Moreover, political, economic, and military pressures were exerted by the independent countries of sub-Saharan Africa.
As a result of these pressures, many lesser apartheid laws—such as those banning interracial marriage and segregating facilities—were repealed or fell into disuse by 1990. In 1991 President de Klerk obtained the repeal of the remaining apartheid laws and called for the drafting of a new constitution. In 1993 a multiracial, multiparty transitional government was approved, and fully free elections were held in 1994, which gave majority representation to the African National Congress.
EMERGENCE OF SLAVE SYSTEM
The labor demands of the settlements resulted in a decision to import nonwhite slaves in both South Africa and the colonial South. Indentured servitude was not meeting the labor demands of southern colonial plantations and was later replaced by African slavery as cotton was becoming a high-demand crop. In South Africa, slaves were imported from Southeast Asia and East Africa to meet the labor requirements of the company and its burghers.
The decisions that led to the emergence of slave societies were conditioned by the assumption that nonwhites were enslavable while Europeans were not.
The Curse on Ham was a popular justification for African-American slavery. It stated that all savage peoples descended from Ham, the son of Noah, and that their fate of lifelong slavery was a result of this inherited curse. But such views were in direct conflict with the Christian doctrine of the essential unity of humankind. How could enslavement be justified once slaves were converted to Christianity and no longer “heathen”? The explanation – Africans were a different kind of people, not descendents of Adam, but of another, separate, branch. In the southern colonies, a 1664 Maryland law requiredall “Negroes” to serve lifetime bondage. A 1682 Virgina act “made slaves of all those arriving whose parentage and native country are not Christian at the time of their first purchase . . . “ The criterion for slavery shifted from heathenism to racial origin to assuage those who expressed doubts about the compatibility of slavery and Christianity. The assimilation into white religion did not give Africans any claim to freedom; rather it would instill in them the doctrine that obedience to masters was a Christian duty.
In the Cape, there was no trend of thought stating that the tenets of Christianity forbade slavery. This can be explained by the fact that there was no major evangelical revival among the Dutch settlers. There was no clear policy established for the slaves that had converted to Christianity and the victims of the slave trade were treated as a form of merchandise, which meant that they had only such rights as the authorities of the colonies were willing to grant them.
The late 18th century brought on an age of democratic revolution in Europe and America. New Enlightenment philosphies offered visions of liberty, equality, and a breakaway from the old order. However, in America, all nonwhites were seen as aliens and exempt from the declarations of the Constitution. The colonists of the Cape of Good Hope also responded to the democratic influences and ideological trends of the 18th century but with less fervor than America. Having a much smaller population that was still dependent on European military and material, they were much less likely to develop expectations of an independent nationhood.
DIFFERENCES B/T SOUTH AFRICAN AND AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
The chronological sequences and specific circumstances associated with the achievement of independent white nationhood were very different. America’s formal independence from England was gained in 1783; a self-governing Union of South Africa did not emerge until 1910 and full independence from England was not achieved until South Africa declared itself a republic in 1961. But post-revolutionary America was not a consolidated nation. It took the Civil War in 1860 to establish the dominance of a central authority and lay the political foundations for a modern state-nation. In South Africa, a flurry of settler protests and insurrections against imperial authority – first against the Dutch and later, the British – was roughly similar to the American Revolution. But these movements were easily suppressed and did not produce the settler independence that America enjoyed.
Slave transfers, agrarian servitude, emancipation, and post-emancipation adjustments also part of South African story but some differences. Most obvious difference is the ratio of white settlers to the indigenous nonwhite population. A numerous and significant nonwhite group in South Africa has been the indigenous African majority while nonwhites are a relatively small minority in the United States. A second difference is the economic opportunities arising from the physical environment of each respective country. South Africa presented white settlers with only a few limited opportunities for the accumulation of wealth and the exploitation of resources. South Africa is naturally a poor country in terms of its agricultural potential: 86% of the land is arid or semi-arid. Lacking the cotton and corn crop explosion of the United States, South Africa’s white economy and population developed at a very slow rate during the first 200 years of settlement. The U.S., within 200 years, was undergoing an industrial revolution that would eventually make it the richest and most powerful country in the world. The rapid industrial development of South Africa since the late 19th century has been due to almost exclusively the exploitation of its rich mineral resources particularly gold. It is today the world’s largest supplier or gold. Third difference is the system of government.
Conclusion – tying main points together
History of frontier expansion at the expense of indigenous peoples in the Cape Colony bears resemblance to what occurred in the United States. Parallel rise of racial slavery in the colonial South and the Cape raised many of the same issues. Impact of industrialization on race relations and competition for industrial jobs. Growth of racial segregation or apartheid in the modern era
The lesson we can learn from these two case studies and the very recent successes of the black struggle for civil rights is that the call for freedom and equality cannot be denied forever.