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Apartheid: Forced removals

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Apartheid in South Africa - forced removals

Key concept: consequence

Essential Questions: 

  • What were the nature and characteristics of discrimination in the apartheid system?
  • How did the apartheid system impact the lives of South Africans?
  • pps. 31 - 34, 39 - 44 of the Rights and Protest Course Companion book supports the resources on this topic
Grand apartheid - Refers to the government policy of the 1960s and 1970s that sought to separate the country into white “South Africa” and African “homelands.” Depriving Africans of citizenship rights in “white” South Africa and relegating them to rural reserves. Was part of apartheid’s “separate development” theory and practice (see “Bantustans”).

These laws were designed to achieve complete residential separation of South Africa's different population groups: 

  • Group Areas Act 1950: The Group Areas Act assigned particular racial groups to different residential and business locations in urban areas. One of the reasons for the law was to exclude non-whites from living in the most coveted and developed areas, which were restricted to whites only under the new law. Apart from being blatantly discriminatory, the laws caused untold hardships. People were forced to leave their homes and friends, businesses were closed and many non-whites were faced with the expensive and time-consuming task of having to commute long distances in order to be able to continue working. 

"Laws Effecting the Removals." The South End Museum, 2019, www.southendmuseum.co.za/index.php/laws-effecting-the-removals. Accessed 19 Jan. 2019.

  • The Bantu Authorities Act 1951:  "created new regional authorities for Africans, which were based in the reserves, and dispensed with the old Natives Representative Council, an elected national body representing all Africans."
  • Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act 1959: "This law divided the African population into eight distinct ethnic groups (later expanded to 10 ethnic groups).  The members of each group were assigned a White commissioner-general, whose task it was to assist them in making a political transition to full self government in their designated areas.  As a result of the act, the limited and indirect representation of Africans in the South African parliament was abolished. In 1970, the government decreed that all Black South Africans were citizens of the homelands, and not of the Republic of South Africa.  This in effect meant that millions of South Africans - Blacks who did not live in the homelands - immediately became foreigners in their own country, under constant threat of deportation and being dumped in the Bantustans."

Clinton, Peter. Rights and Protest - Ib History Course Book: p. 39, Oxford Ib Diploma Program. Oxford UP, 2015.

Segregation of populations and amenities

Bantustan - Ethnically defined areas for Africans created on the basis of the “Native Reserves” (Land Act, 1913). Constituted only 13% of South African territory. Bantustans were to be given self-government and later independence in order to deny Africans citizenship rights in “white South Africa.” 3.5 million Africans were forcibly removed to Bantustans. Widespread poverty in these areas helped employers secure a supply of cheap black labor. Today, all South Africans have political rights in a unified country, and Bantustans no longer exist.

Bantustan

"Bantustan." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 16 Oct. 2009. school.eb.com/levels/high/article/Bantustan/15513#. Accessed 13 Jan. 2019.

Bantustans system

The South African government designated all Africans as citizens of a homeland or Bantustan.  By 1984, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana, Transkei and Venda had been granted "independence," which was recognized by no other nations except South Africa.

"Homelands (Bantustans)." South Africa: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy, Michigan State University, 1984, overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/image.php?id=65-254-FF. Accessed 17 Jan. 2019. Map.

Interviews of South Africans who experienced the Forced Removals

Use this link to access video clips of South Africans talking about the forced removals.

South African: Overcoming Apartheid, Building Democracy, Michigan State University archiv

SABC News report on the history of Sophiatown including the forced removals beginning in 1955. By 1960, the 65,000 residents of Sophiatown had been relocated.  The entire area was replaced with a new Afrikaner suburb that the authorities christened Triomf, the Afrikaans word for "triumph."

"TRC Episode 84, Part 05." YouTube, uploaded by SABC News Channel, 14 June 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=-4iB_0XcxTE. Accessed 21 Jan. 2019.