Efforts at uniting the whites of South African received a new breath of life after the Second Anglo Boer war and the signing of the Vereneging treaty.

The first real efforts were seen when a constitution assembly, the national convention was called to debate a constitution for a proposed union in 1908 _a

Why was the National Convention called?

The national convention was the body mandated to present, debate and pass a new union constitution.

Delegates to convention came from the four states of the cape, Natal, Transvaal and OFS

Only delegates from the cape represented both the Africans and Europeans.

Only delegates from the cape represented both the Africans and Europeans.

Racist Rhodesia sent observers but of course their impact was reflected into the convention out comes.

The convention took place at Durban in Natal in October 1908.

Delegates met to discuss details or the nature of the proposed union.

The convention had to sort out the inter territory railways and custom differences.

They met to prepare the removal of economic barriers to allow for closer economic cooperation.

It was to find an acceptable formula for, the union that was binding to both Boers and the British.

It was to debate the nature of Franchise .

It was to bar the possibility of the re-occurrence of Anglo Boer wars.

It was to discuss the issue of the National language.

The convention was to clear the political economic and social problems hindering the union?

Results Of The Convention

1. There was to be equality of the English and the Dutch languages

2. The British government was to head the new union

3. A new constitution was drafted for the union,

4. It led to the union of Boers and the British under one government .

5. The union was to be headed by governor general. ,

6. The governor general was to be appointed by the British.

7. It proposed one parliament and consisting of two chambers for the whites to be housed at the cape.

8. It took away the right to vote or the Africans interests were greatly ignored and their misery and suffering confirmed.

9. The four colonies came to be referred to as provinces of the union.

10. Ten ministers were to be appointed to help the governor general.

11. The franchise was limited to only Adult males..

12. The nonwhites were blocked from entering the parliament.

13. Provisions were made in future to include the British territories of Northern and southern Rhodesia, Botswana and Basutoland.

14. One Supreme Court for the union and the Judiciary based in Bloemfontein of Orange Free State were established.

15. The executive capital was established at Pretoria of Transvaal.

16. Botha became the first Prime Minister of the new union.

17. It laid the foundation for the apartheid policies and the mistreatment of Africans. . -

THE UNION MATERIALIZES

Introduction

The act of union was the constitution under which the four colonies of oranges free state and Transvaal under the Boers and Cape colony and Natal under the British came together to form the union of South Africa.

It was formed and started operating on the 31^st /05/1910 with Louis Botha and Smuts as the leaders.

What led to the South Africa act of union?

1. The Union was a federation of the Boers and the British settlers in South Africa.

2. It was signed by representatives of both Boers and British.

3. It was to end the long term hostility between the Boers and the British.

4. The British aimed at destroying Boer independence by putting the Boers under their firm control.

5. The British feared Boer alliance with the Germans and. Portuguese if they were to be left alone.

6. The Treaty of Vereniging of 1902 after the 2^nd Anglo-Boer war paved a way for the union.

7. It was to avoid unnecessary competition between the British and Boers for better political and economic exploitation of South Africa.

8. The attainment of Boer independence by 1908 assured the Boers equality in the new union.

9. There was fear that the Africans who were gaining nationalism at a faster speed would unite and throw the whites out of South Africa.

10. The need to lower administrative costs in the white areas by creating one administration.

11. There was the need for the Boers and the British who had fought at least on three bitter occasions to reconcile and forget the past.

12. The formation of the customs unions by 1903 led to closer cooperation between Boers and British which led to the political union.

13. The contribution made by personalities like Sir. George Grey, Lord Caernavon and Selbourne.

2. What were the terms of the act (what was decided upon)?

1. The union was to be headed by the Governor General as queens representative and was to be appointed by the British.

2. The Governor was to be assisted by the 10 ministries.

3. The Union parliament was to be the supreme authority over Transvaal, O.F.S, Natal and cape colony.

4. The union parliament was to have two houses. I.e. the house of assembly (Lower House) and the senate (the upper House).

5. The members of the senate were to serve for 10 years while the assembly members for five years,

6. Voting or Franchise was limited to only adult male Europeans and non-Europeans were excluded from the parliament.

7. A white missionary was however to be nominated to represent the interests of the Africans.

8. Very rich or wealthy African were allowed a very limited degree of political freedom only in the cape and Natal.

9. The British were given some responsibilities over Basuto land, Rhodesia and Bachuanaland.

10. The four colonies stopped being called so instead they were to called provinces of the union.

11. Each province was to have a council for health and education .

12. Each province was to be governed by an administrated appointed by the union government.

13. The parliamentary head quarters were established at Cape Town.

14. Pretoria became the executive capital.

15. Orange River colony was renamed Orange Free State and its capital Bloemfonte;in became the Judicial Capital.

16. English and the Dutch were to be official Languages.

17. It was agreed that there should be complete equality between the English and the Dutch races.

What Problems Did The Union Solve?

1. South Africa was completely given to the white who dominated it almost throughout the 20^th century.

2. The much-awaited union of all the whites in South Africa was 'fl ? established.

3. The Boers who had all along struggled for autonomy finally achieved it since they gained more in the union.

4. The Union however placed a British citizen as the governor general implying that the British were still in control.

5. The Boers citizens were given liberty to exercise all that they

6. The Europeans economic control in South Africa was confirmed.

7. The irritating long standing Boer- British conflicts came to an end as these two agreed to live in peace.

8. The Africans were left enslaved to Europeans in South Africa.

9. The Union left the most critical problems unsolved Africans were made foreigners in their own land.

10. It solved the problem of land ownership as Africans almost completely lost out.

11. It prepared the ground for the practice of apartheid since Africans were not allowed to participate freely in the Union.

12. It boosted the economy of South Africa by creating a 6 million people market.

3. How did it affect the people of Africa?

1. It promoted the position of the whites in South Africa at the expense of the Africans.

2. Africans were relegated to an inferior position in relation to the whites.

3. The union constitution promoted racist policies in its acts.

4. The 1911 the mines and workers act restricted the Africans to lowly labour.

5. The land act led to the formation of very poor reserves for the Africans.

6. Africans were not allowed to reside outside their reserves except when working for whites.

7. It resulted into the creation of the apartheid policy with all it's bitter consequences. '

8. The whites gained the rich or fertile land that formerly belonged to Africans.

9. The Africans lost the British protection over their human and civil rights.

10. The Africans totally lost any hope of acquiring independence in the near future.

11. The British and the Boers dominated the social, political and .economic aspect of south Africa.

12. The economic cooperation and progress among the four white territories were strengthened.

13. The economy of South Africa was boosted by the new market of 6 million people and the abolition of restrictions across the four provinces

14. It led to increase of African nationalism for example 1912, a Zulu elite led the Africans to form A.N.C.

15. It led to growth of shanty towns and slums which Africans were forced to live in.

16. It led to the enactment of other racist policies e.g the Group areas act

17. Africans became poor, under developed and backward leading to poor standards of living.

18. South African resources especially the minerals were fully exploited.

19. The Union became a burden for the neighbours since the whites later raided their neighbours for political reasons.

20. Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana suffered economic blockade from smith Africa.

21. It led to the establishment of the most powerful country i.e. South Africa on the African Continent.

History of South Africa in the apartheid era

Five representatives of the South African Native National Congress traveling to England in 1914 to protest against the 1913 Land Act.

Afrikaner nationalism

General Louis Botha headed the first government of the new Union, with General Jan Smuts as his deputy. Their South African National Party, later known as the South African Party or SAP, followed a generally pro-British, white-unity line. The more radical Boers split away under the leadership of General Barry Hertzog, forming the National Party (NP) in 1914. The NP championed Afrikaner interests, advocating separate development for the two white groups and independence from Britain.

The new Union had no place for Blacks, despite their constituting over 75 percent of the population. The Act of Union denied them voting-rights in the Transvaal and Orange Free State areas, and in Cape Province Blacks gained the vote only if they met a property-ownership qualification. Blacks saw the failure to grant the franchise, coming on the heels of British wartime propaganda promoting freedom from "Boer slavery", as a blatant betrayal. Before long the Union passed a barrage of oppressive legislation, making it illegal for black workers to strike, reserving skilled jobs for whites, barring blacks from military service, and instituting restrictive pass laws. In 1913 parliament enacted the Natives Land Act, setting aside eight percent of South Africa's land for black occupancy. Whites, who made up only 20 percent of the population, held 90 percent of the land. Black Africans could not buy or rent land or even work as sharecroppers outside their designated area. The authorities evicted thousands of squatters from farms and forced them into increasingly overcrowded and impoverished reserves, or into the cities. Those who remained sank to the status of landless labourers.

The original architects of apartheid gathered around a map of a planned township.

Black and Coloured opposition began to coalesce, and leading figures such as John Jabavu, Walter Rubusana and Abdullah Abdurahman laid the foundations for new non-tribal black political groups. Most significantly, a Columbia University-educated attorney, Pixley ka Isaka Seme, called together representatives of the various African tribes to form a unified, national organisation to represent the interests of blacks, and to ensure that they had an effective voice in the new Union. Thus there originated the South African Native National Congress, known from 1923 as the African National CongressMahatma Gandhi worked with the Indian populations of Natal and the Transvaal to fight against the ever-increasing encroachment on their rights. (ANC). Parallel to this,

The international recession which followed World War I put pressures on mine-owners, and they sought to reduce costs by recruiting lower-paid, black, semi-skilled workers. White mine-workers saw this as a threat and in 1922 rose in the armed Rand Rebellion, supported by the new Communist Party of South Africa under the slogan "Workers of the World, unite and fight for a white South Africa". Smuts suppressed the rising violently, but the failure led to a convergence of views between Afrikaner nationalists and white English-speaking trade-unionists. The Communists saw the failure as having resulted from a lack of mobilisation by black workers, and re-oriented their recruitment.

In 1924 the NP, under Hertzog, came to power in a coalition government with the Labour Party, and Afrikaner nationalism gained greater hold. Afrikaans, previously regarded only as a low-class dialect of Dutch, replaced Dutch as an official language of the Union, and the so-called swart gevaar (black threat) became the dominant issue of the 1929 election. In the mid-1930s, Hertzog joined the NP with the more moderate SAP of Jan Smuts to form the United Party; this coalition fell apart at the start World War II when Smuts took the reins and, amid much controversy, led South Africa into war on the side of the Allies. However, any hopes of turning the tide of Afrikaner nationalism faded when Daniel François Malan led a radical break-away movement, the Purified National Party, to the central position in Afrikaner political life. The Afrikaner Broederbond, a secret Afrikaner brotherhood formed in 1918 to protect Afrikaner culture, soon became an extraordinarily influential force behind both the NP and other organisations designed to promote the volk ("people", the Afrikaners).

Due to the booming wartime economy, black labour became increasingly important to the mining and manufacturing industries, and the black urban population nearly doubled. Enormous squatter camps grew up on the outskirts of Johannesburg and (though to a lesser extent) outside the other major cities. Despite the appalling conditions in the townships, not only blacks knew poverty: wartime surveys found that 40 percent of white schoolchildren suffered from malnutrition.

Legalised discrimination

From 1948 successive National Party administrations formalised and extended the existing system of segregation and denial of rights into the legal system of apartheid, which lasted until the 1990s. Although many important events occurred during this period, apartheid remained the central system around which most of the historical issues of this period revolved.

Dismantling

The young Nelson Mandela, later to become the first Black African President of South Africa, 1994-1999.

With increasing opposition to apartheid in the final decades of the 20th century - including an armed struggle, economic and cultural sanctions by the international community, pressure from the anti-apartheid movement around the world, a rebellion amongst Afrikaner and English-speaking youth as well as open revolt within the ruling National Party - State President F.W. de Klerk announced the unbanning of the African National Congress and Pan Africanist Congress as well as the release of Nelson Mandela on 2 February 1990, which signaled the beginning of a transition to democracy. In the referendum held on 17 March 1992, a white electorate voted 68% in favour of dismantling apartheid through negotiations.

After years of negotiations under the auspices of the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA), a draft constitution appeared on 26 July 1993, containing concessions towards all sides: a federal system of regional legislatures, equal voting-rights regardless of race, and a bicameral legislature.

From 26 to 29 April 1994, the South African population voted in the first universal suffrage general elections. The African National Congress won election to govern for the very first time, leaving the National Party and the Inkatha Freedom Party behind it and parties such as the Democratic Party and Pan Africanist Congress took up their seats as part of the parliamentary opposition in the first genuine multiracial parliament. Nelson Mandela was elected as President on 9 May 1994 and formed -according to the interim constitution of 1993- a government of national unity, consisting of the ANC, the NP and the Inkatha. On 10 May Mandela was inaugurated as South Africas new President in Pretoria and Thabo Mbeki and FW De Klerk as his vice-presidents.

Following the elections, the fostering of a culture that recognised human rights became important. After considerable debate, and following submissions from special-interest groups, individuals and ordinary citizens, the Parliament enacted a new Constitution and Bill of Rights as legislation in 1996.

After apartheid

After the enactment of the constitution, focus turned to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established in 1995 to expose crimes of the apartheid era under the dictum of Archbishop Desmond Tutu: "Without forgiveness there is no future, but without confession there can be no forgiveness". The commission heard many stories of horrific brutality and injustice from all sides of the struggle, and offered some catharsis to people and communities shattered by their past experiences.

The Commission operated by allowing victims to tell their stories and by allowing perpetrators to confess their guilt; with amnesty on offer to those who made a full confession. Those who chose not to appear before the commission would face criminal prosecution if the authorities could prove their guilt. But while some soldiers, police, and ordinary citizens confessed their crimes, few of those who had given the orders or commanded the police presented themselves. For example, State President P.W. Botha himself, notably, refused to appear before the Commission. It has proven difficult to gather evidence against these alleged higher-level criminals.