Why did opposition to apartheid increase during the years 1960-61?

Question 1

What were the usual penalties for a pass offence by 1960, how did this compare to a typical black person wage and how many pass law cases went through the courts per day?

Answer 1

A fine of £5-£8, imprisonment for 5-8 weeks
More than 2 weeks’ wages
Roughly 1,000

Question 2

PEACEFUL PROTEST

How many days after Sharpeville had the ANC initially made plans for their own campaign?

Answer 2

PEACEFUL PROTEST
10 days (31st March 1960)

Question 3

What was the PAC’s strategy for Sharpeville?

Answer 3

To overwhelm the police and judiciary through overcrowding

Question 4

THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

What was the Vaal Triangle?

Answer 4

THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE

A heavily industrialised area in which Sharpeville was located

Question 5

What happened in the nearby township of Evaton in 1956, how many died?

Answer 5

Bus boycott

15 people killed

Question 6

How many people were forced into Sharpeville (1958) due to the Group Areas Act and how did this help to politicise the community?

Answer 6

10,000

little new housing, rents increased

Question 7

Migrant workers from what British colony favoured Sharpeville and how did their presence help to politicise the community in 1959?

Answer 7

Lesotho

Some came illegally, pass raids stepped up

Question 8

When was a PAC branch founded in Sharpeville, what was the name of the trade unionist that helped set it up and how did this help to politicise the community?

Answer 8

1959
Nyakane Tsolo
The local branch was able to respond to Sobukwe’s short notice through house-to-house visits and leaflets.

Question 9

PAC membership in Sharpeville was no more than a few hundred. Other than encouraging participation, how did their task force raise awareness for the campaign?

Answer 9

They threatened those who wanted to go to work (including bus drivers carrying commuters)

Question 10

Who moved onto the streets on the night of 20th March 1960? Who was stabbed, what was police reaction and how many protestors died (and where)?

Answer 10

Youths
A policeman
Responded with baton charges and gunfire
2 protestors at a football stadium

Question 11

How many people gathered outside of the police station at Sharpeville, what did they request and what did they think that government reaction would be?

Answer 11

5,000
They all be arrested
The suspension of the pass laws

Question 12

Name three “groups” of people (other than the PAC) that were present in the crowd. What was the PAC slogan being shouted and what did Benjamin Pogrund quote that the atmosphere was?

Answer 12

ANC members, people there out of curiosity, journalists/photographers
Izwi Lethu- The land is ours
“relaxed and friendly”

Question 13

By 1 pm how many white and black police reinforcements had arrived (from out of area), What was the name of their more aggressive chief of police and what event (a few weeks prior) could have increased police nervousness?

Answer 13

200 white- machine guns and 200 black- clubs
Lieutenant Colonel Pienaar
9 police killed at Cato Manor

Question 14

What did police later claim about the event?

Answer 14

They had faced an angry crowd of 20,000

Question 15

What happened to Nyakane Tsolo when he refused to order the crowd to disperse and what did this lead the crowd to do?

Answer 15

He was arrested

Surge forwards

Question 16

What did Pienaar admit he had failed to do?

What order did he not give and what did he say about the situation?

Answer 16

Warn the crowd of the danger of an armed response

The order to fire, the situation did not merit armed response

Question 17

What happened shortly before 2 pm?

How many died? How many were injured?

Answer 17

One of the police shouted ‘fire’

69, 187

Question 18

What were the police accused of doing after the shooting? Most people were not arrested but, who was and where?

Answer 18

Placing “thrown” stones, kicking/killing the wounded

Sobukwe and key supporters in Orlando, Soweto

Question 19

Despite seeing a big influx of migrant workers after ww2, in which of SA’s major cities were Africans still a minority?

Answer 19

Cape Town

Question 20

CAPE TOWN
Why were African migrant workers (in the Western Cape) in a particularly vulnerable position? What were the names of the townships that they lived in (separated from coloured people)?

Answer 20

CAPE TOWN
The government was keen to limit their entry and protect jobs for coloured people.
Langa (sun) and Nyanga (moon)

Question 21

How many of Langa’s 25,000 inhabitants were male?

Answer 21

18,000

Question 22

What were the names of the two people that took over the Cape Town PAC branch in January 1960?

Answer 22

Philip Kgosana, Christopher Mlokoti

Question 23

What concerns did Robert Sobukwe focus on when he spoke in Cape Town (give 3 examples)?
What societal problems did Mlokoti link these to (give 3 examples)?
What were the two other ‘potent’ themes and why?

Answer 23

Material concerns: Disparity between educational provisions for whites and blacks, bus fares, pass laws, police repression, municipal rent.
Poverty, gangs, alcoholism and prostitution
Pan-Africanism and the independence of Ghana (illustrated African liberation)

Question 24

What was Sobukwe cautious about that grass roots speakers weren’t?

Answer 24

The anti-white rhetoric (“we must teach our children to hate the Europeans”)

Question 25

As well as others in Nyanga, how many people gathered in Langa on the 21st March?
What was the police reaction?

Answer 25

About 6,000

Refusal to make arrests, baton charges, live ammunition and Saracen armoured vehicles

Question 26

How many people died, what did this cause?
What percentage of the African Cape town was on strike by 27th March, how many people attended the funeral of those killed in Langa?

Answer 26

20, rioting

95%, approximately 50,000

Question 27

Why did Sharpeville create a larger international reaction than other instances of police repression?

Answer 27

Many photos were taken which was quickly circulated in the national and international press

Question 28

What did the United Nations Security Council pass on the 1st of April 1960?
How did Britain and France react but then later (Britain and US) later support?

Answer 28

A resolution condemning Sharpeville and calling for a reversal of apartheid and racial discrimination
They both abstained, supported a later resolution that declared apartheid to be a violation of the UN charter.

Question 29

When did the ANC have their own pass protest?
Who burnt their own pass in front of the media, whilst in Pretoria for the treason trial?
What did the ANC call for at the end of March?

Answer 29

28th March
Albert Luthuli
A further stayaway and a day of mourning

Question 30

What date did the government declare a state of emergency?

What did Africans in Cape Town do on the same day (and how many were there)?

Answer 30

30th March

30,000 Africans marched in a non-violent, orderly demonstration from Langa to the edge of central Cape Town.

Question 31

What did police promise the crowd if they would disperse?

How did Kgosana (leading the crowd) react to this and what happened to him as a result?

Answer 31

That the minister of justice would meet a PAC delegation.
Persuaded the marchers to turn back
he was arrested later that day

Question 32

What happened at Cato Manor the next day and what ensued over the next few days?

Answer 32

A protest/activists trying to stop workers going into town, clashes between protestors and police/workers

Question 33

What happened in February 1960, Mpondoland?

What was this disagreement over?

Answer 33

A local magistrate and police escort found 200 people gathered at a local trading store saying “white-man go back”
Forest usage/restrictions

Question 34

Who was the unpopular, government-imposed chief of Mpondoland?
What policy were many Africans afraid would be imposed?

Answer 34

Botha Sigcau

Betterment

Question 35

Why did a rebellion begin in March 1960?

Answer 35

The house of an advisor to Sigcau was burnt down because he was an advocate for betterment.

Question 36

Who organised the rebellion?
Name three of their (local) aims
What did rebels do throughout March and June?

Answer 36

Solomon Madikizela and four others
Reverse Bantu authorities, allow people to have their own chiefs, stop betterment and forestry-related convictions
Burned the homes of chiefs and “cooperators”, boycotted trading stations ran by whites and coloureds

Question 37

What happened on the 6th of June 1960 at Nyguza hill?

How many died?

Answer 37

Rebel meeting, rumours of attacking Sigcau’s home

11, many more injured

Question 38

Who arranged legal representation, for the rebels, for the June inquest?

Answer 38

Durban ANC

Question 39

Over the next few months, sustained revolts took place in Mpondoland and Sekhukhuneland. How many were arrested by November 1960? How many were hung for treason? What happened to Madikizela?

Answer 39

over 5,000
23
Banishment under police surveillance, in the Transvaal

Question 40

THE BANNING OF POLITICAL PARTIES & THE STATE OF EMERGENCY
What did the state of emergency do?
What did it outlaw?
What 1953 act meant that police required no warrants for arrest?

Answer 40

THE BANNING OF POLITICAL PARTIES and THE STATE OF EMERGENCY
Strengthened police powers
Public meetings
The Public Safety Act

Question 41

Where were Mandela and some other ANC leaders taken to appear in court and for what?
Who was assaulted after his arrest?
Who was Joe Slovo (also arrested)?

Answer 41

Pretoria prison, Treason Trial
Albert Luthuli, ANC president
A white communist lawyer, about to defend hundreds of black (and 6 white) families of miners who had died in a mine disaster.

Question 42

What date was the Unlawful Organisations Act passed?

What happened the next day and how was it resolved?

Answer 42

8th of April 1960
A white English-speaking man shot Verwoerd, he was “unhappy with the conflict in South Africa” but was committed to a psychiatric hospital and could not stand trial. Verwoerd survived.