How was apartheid codified and implemented, 1948-59?

Question 1

What was the basic principle behind apartheid?
By 1948 was there yet a clear way of how apartheid could be implemented?

Answer 1

That via separate development, all racial groups would progress
No

Question 2

What are two examples (amongst many more) of preexisting legislation that the National Party was able to build on for apartheid?
What did the NP have “great respect for” which was the way they began to fully instigate apartheid?
Name one black “problem” that could be fixed quickly with legislation
What ‘groups’ were formed to investigate the best ways to advance the apartheid agenda?

Answer 2

Laws disenfranchising blacks and limiting where they could buy land
The law (used parliament)
Sexual relations across the colour line
Commissions

Question 3

What was an early priority of the National Party?
How did they achieve this (and what year)?

Answer 3

To stay in political power
6 members of parliament were added for whites in South West Africa (now Namibia) where the Nationalists had support, 1949

Question 4

Despite coloured people sharing much of the same cultural history with whites, and speaking Afrikaans/English, Why were the nationalists keen to move them into a separate racial category?

Answer 4

They still had a vote in parliament and they voted overwhelmingly for the united party

Question 5

Where was the coloured vote specially protected, how was it protected?
What did the nationalists pass to change this (and when)? Controversy?

Answer 5

In the Cape, it needed a two-thirds majority of parliament to change it
They passed a Separate Representation of Voters Act (1951). They didn’t even have over 2/3rds

Question 6

What was the court judges initial reaction to the Separate Representation of Voters Act?
What two things did the NP government do to deal with this?
In what year did the NP increase their vote by almost 200,000, what did this increase from-to?
How long did the NP stay in power for?
Name three examples of senior positions in the state which Afrikaners moved quickly to take
How much did state employment increase from-to in the 1950s (and who were the majority of new employees)?

Answer 6

They fought a constitutional battle with the NP, stating that the Act was invalid without a two-thirds majority
Appointed new Afrikaner judges to get in their way, packed the senate with sympathetic Afrikaners
1953,400,000-600,000
The next 40 years
Military, Police, Bureaucracy
482,000 to 799,000, Afrikaners

Question 7

Name two types of Afrikaner views on how apartheid should work
Despite Apartheid literally meaning ‘separateness’, what did the policy not entirely create? Why?
What, rather, did it aim to cement?

Answer 7

Hardliners-tighter separation of races…Pragmatists- saw that the economy requires African workers in large numbers.
Complete segregation between blacks and whites. Black workers eg on farms needed.
A hierarchy of rights and power

Question 8

Whilst black rights were being diminished in white-controlled areas, what new political strategy did the NP party believe would reach the aspirations of blacks?

Answer 8

Self-governing territories based around old reserves with more rights… separate development.

Question 9

Who first coordinated apartheid, when was he PM?
What did he and his staff convince themselves (about Africans)?
Which act of what year was the first step to separate development?
What did it aim to do?

Answer 9

Hendrik Verwoerd, (1958-66)
That they still saw themselves as tribal people with their primary identity and loyalty to their own kingdom/chiefdom, their language and specific rural zone
Bantu Authorities Act (1951)
Place responsibility for local government onto a rural African leadership that would cooperate with the government.

Question 10

Which act, of what year envisaged self-governing African units based around the traditional authorities?
How did Afrikaners hope that Africans would react to ethnically separate, separate development?
What did Verwoerd argue he was offering?

Answer 10

Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act (1959)
Hoped that they would welcome it
A form of internal decolonisation

Question 11

Why did Afrikaner nationalists dislike sexual relations between blacks and whites?
Which two acts of which two years prevented marriage and sex across the colour line respectively?

Answer 11

Religious reasons, Racist reasons
Mixed Marriage Act (1949), Immorality Act (1950)

Question 12

Which act of what year attempted to assign everyone in SA into one of four racial categories?
What two things meant that one’s race would be public knowledge?

Answer 12

The Population Registration Act (1950)
A national register, identity documents

Question 13

From what year were Group Areas Acts implemented?
What did they do?
Give three key examples of places where blacks felt the cruelties of Group Areas and urban dispossession

Answer 13

1950
Made it so that no coloured, Indians or blacks could own or let places within cities or the closer suburbs
Sophiatown (Johannesburg), District Six (Cape Town), Durban

Question 14

Where was Sophiatown?
How many did SophiaTown house?
Being close to the city centre, who did it attract? Good or bad for Sophia-town?
Give four examples of what the culture/what it became a venue for/was like
Because of this reputation, it was the first town to be targeted by the NP, what year did planning for its removal begin?
How many years did it take for it to be largely bulldozed into rubble?

Answer 14

Johannesburg
Nearly 60,000 people
Writers and journalists… bad- recorded hard drinking cultural aspects.
African politics, new music, shebeens (illegal bars), tsostis (youthful street criminals)/gangsters
1950
6 years

Question 15

How many people did Durban, SA’s third-largest city, house in 1951?
What fraction were Indian, African or white?
What happened to land in there in the 1940s?
What year did Africans attack Indians, why?
How many were killed during riots and subsequent police suppression?
By what year had the shacks been largely removed from Cato Manor and tens of thousands of Africans sent off to distant townships?
What Act was this due to?
Who were also moved from central areas?
What was allowed in the Indian suburbs that wasn’t in the African townships?

Answer 15

450,000
roughly 1/3rd each (equally split)
It began to fill quickly with shack settlements
1949, they felt that landlords and shop keepers were exploiting them
142
1965
Group Areas Act
Indians.
Private property ownership

Question 16

Where was District Six and what was the majority race there?
When was Group Areas enforced there?
How many people were forcibly removed and resettled on the distant Cape flats?
Alongside communities, what else was bulldozed?

Answer 16

Near the heart of Cape Town city centre, Coloureds
From 1966
about 60,000
Inner city architectural heritage

Question 17

What act of what year reinforced petty apartheid?
What did this act make legal?

Answer 17

The Reservation of Separate Amenities Act (1953)
Providing separate facilities for black people that were not of an equal quality

Question 18

What was influx control?
What three things did the NP aim to protect Whites from in the cities through influx control?
Before which year did all African men outside the reserves have to carry a pass?
What did the NP do regarding this?

Answer 18

the Afrikaner policy of reducing African migration to the cities
cheap black labour and crime
1948
Natives Abolition of Passes Act: each African adult to carry a reference book, had to present on-demand, 1952.

Question 19

What year were reference books extended to women?
Why were the pass laws so deeply resented by the African people?
Why were most police seen as brutal and cruel?

Answer 19

1956
They would be frequently stopped and searched in streets…experienced constant harassment
White police were mostly Afrikaner… racist.

Question 20

The African Urban population of South Africa rose from . million people in ____ to . million in ____ (more than the whole white population)
What does this show about pass laws?

Answer 20

1.8 million, 1946, 3.5 million, 1960
Pass laws failed to keep Africans out the cities.

Question 21

Prior to 1948, where did most blacks get educated?
In the ____ census, only __% of Africans were recorded as literate.

Answer 21

Government funded schools- managed by local churches (primary level education)
1951, 24%

Question 22

What act of which year aimed to extend African education, but also to segregate the context of education?
Why? Gov fear of what?

Answer 22

The Bantu Education Act- 1953
Youth in urban gangs (tsotis)

Question 23

What was the key reason for the Bantu Education Act?

What did Henrik Verwoerd (minister of native affairs 1950-58) believe about state education for blacks?

Answer 23

Unskilled workers were no longer adequate for an efficient black workforce
That the state should only provide basic education preparing African people for only limited opportunities.

Question 24

Prior to the 1950s, what universities were wealthy black school-leavers able to attend?
Which University became a key centre of black opposition to apartheid?
What did the government pass (and which year) to deal with this?

Answer 24

the University of Fort Hare- the Universities of Cape town and Witerwatersrand
Univeristy of Fort Hare
The Extension of University Education Act, 1959 (ensured that Fort Hare came under government control)

Question 25

When did Professor Tomlinson make his report? How much did he estimate would need to be invested into the bantustans? What did he state about agricultural plots and tenure? Where did Tomlison advocate major industry investment? What was a third key point that Tomlinson made?

Answer 25

1955 £100 million Agricultural plots had become too small, tenure should be made private rather than communal Rural areas Private enterprise should be encouraged to invest in these areas

Question 26

Economically, what were two reasons for Verwoerd ignoring the Tomlinson report? What were two more social/political reasons? What did the Native affairs department warn?

Answer 26

Expensive in favour of blacks, creates competition for whites. Africans who were moved off land for farms would likely end up in cities. "Individual tenure would undermine the whole tribal structure"

Question 27

What policy did the government use instead of listening to the Tomlinson report? Later called? What was this caused by? Why coud it potentially cause many Africans to move to cities? What did they hope that that this policy would achieve? How did they attempt to solve the "problem" of over-grazing? How did the government create enough space for this policy? What were some farmers also forced to do to support this policy? How did Africans feel about this policy/why, so much so that the culling of livestock was largely abandoned in the 1960s?

Answer 27

"Betterment"- (later called rehabilitation) Concerns about soil erosion…peasants living in poverty would move to cities. Intensified farming, without the destruction of soil and vegetation By dividing plots into smaller paddocks so that livestock would be moved throughout the year They moved rural families from scattered settlements into compact villages Sell their livestock- to ease pressure on the pastures Deeply resented- cut across traditional ways of living

Question 28

What were two key problems with the bantustans (social/geographical)?

Answer 28

They made up a very limited percentage of South Africa's land area They were subdivided into historical chieftaincies and language groups despite the fact that they often didn't chose to identify only in this way… meanwhile whites had no division.

Question 29

What was the Congress alliance? In what year were how many members of the Congress Alliance arrested in dawn raids? What were those arrested accused of? What did prosecutors try to prove? How long did it take for the treason trial to be fully resolved?

Answer 29

(a broad coalition of anti-apartheid organisations, inc. the ANC, Indian Congress, Trade unionists etc) 1956, 156 High treason That the congress movement planned to overthrow the government by force and they espoused communist ideals 5 years

Question 30

What was one way the Treason Trial benefitted the Congress allaince? What was a negative effect on ANC leaders? What was the result of the trial, what year was this determined?

Answer 30

They were able to use the trial to speak about their ideas (much media interest) They were tied up in legal proceedings for several years. Prosecutors were unable to prove their case, accused were aquitted in 1961

Question 31

When and what was the Urban Areas Act? What did the act state? Why did the NP still allow some Africans Urban rights? What could Africans still not do in the cities and townships?

Answer 31

1952…gave Urban rights to African people who had been born in town, worked for ten years in town, or lived there for 15; rights extended to their children. They recognised the need for a workforce in services and industries They could not buy houses

Question 32

Convictions under the pass laws increased from ___,___ in ___ to ___,___ in ___ How many people were turned into criminals, how did this affect the magistrate's courts?

Answer 32

164,000 in 1952 to 384,000 in 1962 3 million, clogged them up