Apartheid

A. EUROPEAN COLONIZATION
The Dutch settled in South Africa in the mid-17th century. A hundred and fifty years later cape town became a british colony. The English, the Boers (the descendants of the Dutch) and the local populations started to struggle. The English controlled the area of Cape town. In 1899 a terrible war broke out between Boers and English for the possession of the deposits of gold and diamonds. The english won.


B. THE ROOTS OF APARTHEID
At the beginning of the 20th century the majority of South Africa's population was made up of blacks and coloured people. The whites were a small minority but they ruled the country, descriminating blacks in all aspects of life. This brutal but legal system was called apartheid. (a system of government based on black people segregation) It started in 1948.


C. APARTHEID IN ACTION 
Whites and Blacks had separate schools,hospitals, buses and beaches; they couldn't marry between them. Blacks had to live in districts called townships where sanitary conditions were terrible while the Whites had good living standards. The united nations condèmned  apartheid and adopted international sanctions against South Africa.


D. POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA
In the 1980s the Blacks started to protest violently against apartheid. Their leader was Nelson Mandela a black man who stayed in prison for 27 years. In the 1990s apartheid ended and in 1994 Nelson Mandela became the first Black president of South Africa now called "The Rainbow Country)