1 | 2 Description (Page 1)
Archeologists report evidence that humans have inhabited Southern
Africa for more than 100,000 years. Over many modern centuries assorted
African tribes moved steadily south to populate the country we now call South Africa.
Bantu peoples began migrating across sub-Saharan
Africa from the Niger River Delta around 2,500 years ago, and arrived in South Africa in small waves setting up small villages.
By 1200 AD a trade network emerged, and the premise of a sacred leadership took hold. Then, in 1487, Bartolomeu Dias, a
Portuguese explorer, became the first
European to land in southern
Africa.
However, it wasn't until 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the Cape Sea Route, that the
Dutch East India Company founded a station at what would later become Cape Town.
The
Dutch used the port primarily to transport slaves from
India,
Indonesia and
Madagascar to be used as laborers for the colonists.
After the
British seized the Cape of Good Hope area in 1806, Cape Town soon became a
British colony. Many of the original
Dutch settlers (the Boers) as well as some Flemish,
German and
French interests moved north to found their own republics.
The discovery of diamonds (1867) and gold (1886) spurred additional wealth; speculators poured in and that unfortunately intensified the subjugation of the native inhabitants.
The Boers continually resisted the growing
British encroachments, but they were defeated in the second Boer War (1899-1902) - a lengthy conflict involving large numbers of troops from many
British possessions.
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