Page 49 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - South Africa

INTRODUCING SOUTH AFRIC A  47

THE HISTORY

OF SOUTH AFRICA

The ancient footprints discovered at the bay and then further inland as Dutch
Langebaan, casts of which are now in “burghers” sought new land. Isolated
the South African Museum in Cape Town, clashes with indigenous groups escalated
were made 117,000 years ago. They are into the bitter frontier wars of the 18th
the world’s oldest traces of anatomically and 19th centuries, a situation fur ther
modern man, Homo sapiens sapiens. Other aggravated by the arrival of the 1820
early hominid remains found at the British settlers. Although outnumbered,
Sterk fontein caves in Gauteng and at Taung the settlers’ muskets, cannons and horses
near Bloemfontein belong to the group were an advantage that led to a prevailing
known as Australopithecus africanus. sense of white supremacy, with both
African and European civilizations colonial and republican governments
drifted towards a cultural collision when denying people of colour their rights.
the Dutch East India Company set up a Ironically, it was the exploitation of
refreshment station in Table Bay. The year black labour in the mines of Kimberley
was 1652, and the colonizers had come and Johannesburg that ignited the
not just to visit, but to stay. On the whole, spark of African nationalism, while the
the Dutch sought to establish amicable segregation and, later, apartheid laws
relationships with the local Khoi, but of the mid-20th century focused world
the inability to understand one another attention and pressure on South Africa.
doomed many attempts, and the pattern The release of Nelson Mandela in 1990
of relations over the subsequent centuries was the beginning of a transformation
was set. Rivalry over water and grazing that set the country on a new course:
soon turned into open hostility, first around the road to democracy.

This surprisingly accurate map was produced in 1570 by Abraham Ortelius from Antwerp
Ancient San paintings adorn many rock walls like this one in the Cederberg, Western Cape

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