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SOUTH AFRICA

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South Africa description

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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