South Africa: National Party Ascendancy and Apartheid

The National party won the 1948 elections, partly by criticizing the more liberal policy toward nonwhites associated with Jan Hofmeyr, Smuts's close aide. D. F. Malan of the National party was prime minister from 1948 to 1954, and he was followed by J. G. Strijdom (1954–58), H. F. Verwoerd (1958–66), B. J. Vorster (1966–78), and P. W. Botha (1978–89)—all members of the National party, which won the general elections between 1953 and 1979. These governments greatly strengthened white control of the country. The policy of apartheid in almost all social relations was further implemented by a varied series of laws that included additional curbs on free movement (partly through the use of passbooks, which most blacks were required to carry) and the planned establishment of a number of independent homelands for African ethnic groups.

Black South Africans had long protested their inferior treatment through organizations such as the African National Congress (ANC; founded 1912) and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (founded 1919 by Clements Kadalie). In the 1950s and early 60s there were various protests against the National party's policies, involving passive resistance and the burning of passbooks; in 1960 a peaceful protest against the pass laws organized by the Pan-Africanist Congress (an offshoot of the ANC) at Sharpeville (near Johannesburg) ended when police opened fire, massacring 70 protesters and wounding about 190 others. In the 1960s most leaders (including ANC leader Nelson Mandela) of the opposition to apartheid were either in jail or were living in exile, and the government proceeded with its plans to segregate blacks on a more permanent basis.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• The New South Africa
• A Regime Unravels
• The Republic of South Africa and Racial Strife
• National Party Ascendancy and Apartheid
• The Union of South Africa
• Natural Riches and British Victory
• The British and the Boers
• Colonialism and African-European Relations
• Early History
• Government
• Economy
• People
• Political Geography
• Physical Geography
• Bibliography

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