How was apartheid legislated during the 1950s?

South Africa – Early Resistance to Apartheid, 1948-60

In this course, Dr Nicholas Grant (University of East Anglia) explores some aspects of resistance to apartheid in South Africa. In the first lecture, we think about how apartheid was legislated throughout the 1950s. In the second lecture, we think about the presence and effectiveness of mass disobedience campaigns as anti-apartheid protests. In the third lecture, we think about how the Defiance Campaign laid the ground work for developing anti-apartheid movements. Next, we think about the role of women in early anti-apartheid protests. In the fifth and final lecture, we think about how apartheid was viewed internationally.

How was apartheid legislated during the 1950s?

In this lecture, we think about how apartheid legislation was built on throughout the 1950s, focusing in particular on: (i) defining apartheid as meaning ‘apartness’ in Afrikaans; (ii) its implementation in South Africa from 1948-94; (iii) the establishment of the first Southern African settlement by the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), or Dutch East India Company, in 1652, in what is now Cape Town; (iv) the term ‘Boer’ as an alternative to Afrikaner, which literally translates to ‘farmer’; (v) Britain’s invasion of the Cape Colony in 1795 as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, handing it to the Batavian Republic in 1803, after the bankruptcy of the VOC in 1799, as part of the Peace of Amiens of 1802; (vi) the Great Trek (1835-40) as the movement of Afrikaner people into the interior of South Africa, away from the British-ruled Cape Colony, leading to the establishment of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal; (vii) the election of the National Party in 1948, who implemented apartheid in South Africa until 1994; (viii) the election of the National Party being in response to the ‘Black peril’, which consisted of an increased number of African people moving from rural areas into towns and cities; (ix) the practice of segregation prior to apartheid in South Africa; (x) some key legislation implemented in the 1950s which underpinned the apartheid system; (xi) the core underpinnings of apartheid being the requirement to control the movement and influence of African people while maintaining access to African labour; (xii) the policing of social lives through the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages (1949) and Immorality (1957) Acts; (xiii) the forced movement of African people to ‘homelands’ and townships; (xiv) the excessive policing of African people throughout South Africa.