Overall Sources A and B partially on some of the points raised but they mostly disagree about how the blacks were acting and that they meant no trouble. Source A is the from the Blacks point of view and Source B is defending the police’s actions.
Study Sources C & D
- Do these photographs prove that either Source A or Source B is wrong? Use the sources to explain your answer.
Source C is a picture of the police station at Sharpeville being crowded by the blacks who are making peaceful protests and you can tell this because you cant see any weapons apart from on the whites that are looking on from their Saracen.
Source D shows the Blacks making the thumbs up sign as a sign of peaceful protest. It shows that the blacks don’t mean any trouble.
Source C gives the impression that the blacks are blocking the way through to the police station but it is not clear that they are being violent or not. The picture is taken from to far away to see if they are holing offensive weapons or not because it captures one moment in time, and at this time they could have just getting ready to get violent. Source D gives the impression that the blacks are making a peaceful protest, but because the photo is taken and captures only one moment in time, as soon as the picture was taken the blacks could have got violent.
Both of these facts mean that the photos are not conclusive evidence and it is hard to prove from these that the other Sources are wrong. Source A states that “They were grinning and cheerful” which shows that the blacks were happy and weren’t causing any trouble. It shows this in Source C because the blacks are just standing there having a chat and laughing with each other. In Source B it says “A motor car that went through earlier in the morning, emerged as a wreck and the people inside were injured”, this could have been after the photo of Source D was taken
Study Sources E & F
- How reliable is Source F as evidence of what happened at Sharpeville? Use the sources to explain your answer.
Source F is a statement made a few days after Sharpeville shootings by the Anglican Bishop of Johannesburg, Ambrose Reeves. He interviewed all of the surviving blacks when they were in hospital and they were all kept in different wards.
Source is a reliable piece of evidence but it is also unreliable in some ways.
The Source is reliable because all of the interviews conducted by the bishop were with people that had been separated from all of the other survivors, this is reliable because it means that the blacks couldn’t talk and change their stories so it put all the blame on the whites. The Source is also reliable because the Bishop is a religious man and it would be seen as a sin if he had lied.
The statement “ Nearly all of those who were later treated in hospital had been shot in the back”; this says to me that the blacks were running away. The fact that the people who were running away can be checked because if they were running away they would have been shot in the back. This means that the Source is reliable because the facts can be checked over and it is visual evidence that means that people cant make it up, it is hard evidence.
Another fact that makes the Source reliable is that the Bishop is white and you would expect him to take the white point of view and defend the whites.
However, although there were a lot of factors that meant that the Source was reliable, there are also factors that make the Source unreliable. For instance the fact that the Bishop wasn’t there and doesn’t know what went on and is just taking the blacks word for it, but the blacks want to abolish the apartheid and so even though they haven’t talked to each other they know what every one else will say. Also if the blacks were fired at by the whites, they are bound to fell anger and hatred towards, more that they do already, and so could make a story up to put the blame on the whites.
Being a Anglican Bishop, Ambrose Reeves would have been against the apartheid because his faith believes that everyone is equal and that was everything that the apartheid wasn’t, which is another reason that the Source isn’t reliable because he could have manipulated the interviews against the whites in the hope that the apartheid would be abolished. This could have been the reason why he conducted the interviews and not the police. He has a biased view of the apartheid.
The Source also doesn’t tie up with some of the other Sources such as Source E, because in Source F it says that “the police lined up outside the police station and all fired together”. This in not what it says in Source E, in Source E is States that “we heard the chatter of a machine gun, then another, then another”, this was from an extract from Humphrey Tyler’s report. Tyler was the only reporter there and he was actually at the event, so that makes the report by the bishop unreliable because he wasn’t there, so you have to believe the person who was actually at the event. Of course you don’t know if Tyler is telling the whole truth because being a reporter, the government can control what Tyler can report.
I therefore conclude that Source F can reliable but can also be unreliable in some ways
Study Sources E & G
- Which is more useful as evidence of what happened at Sharpeville, Source E or Source G? Use the sources to explain your answer.
Source E is an extract from Tyler’s account who was the only journalist and Source G is a photo taken by Humphrey Tyler. Source G shows the black protesters running away from the firing police.
Source E is useful because it is an eyewitness account of what really happened
and Tyler, the person who wrote the report, is a journalist and he’s job is just report and not to have a biased view.
Source G is less useful than Source E because it is just a still moment in time and doesn’t give the background as to what is happening. Source G is still useful though because it shows that the blacks are running away, this shows that they don’t want to be fired at that they didn’t expect it. This says to me that they were only protesting peacefully and didn’t want any violence.
However both of the sources do back each other up this is because
Study Sources F, H & I
- Why do you think Sources H and I disagree with Source F about the events at Sharpeville? Use the sources to explain your answer.
Source H is an extract from colonel Pioneer’s statement on his points of view of what happened at Sharpeville. Source I is an extract from the South African president … Veorwood, who was white
Use all the sources and your knowledge.
- Study the following interpretations of what happened at Sharpeville.
- ‘The demonstrators were peaceful and unarmed. The police opened fire and continued to shoot at the crowd as they ran away in fear’ (Nelson Mandela in his autobiography, published in 1994.)
- ‘The police were under attack and only opened fire in self defence.’ (From a book published in South Africa in 1988.)
Which interpretation is best supported by the evidence in these sources and your knowledge of the period? Use the sources to explain your answer.
I think that interpretation is best supported by the Sources because most of the Sources back up the fact that the blacks were there to protest peacefully and that they were not armed. The Sources are mostly written by Humphrey Tyler, who was the only journalist there, the other Sources that back up interpretation A are either photos or an account by the Archbishop Ambrose Reeves, who was strongly against the apartheid.
The sources that defend the actions of the police are the sources that are accounts of the events, by white people in important places in the South African government, who are for the apartheid. For example Source H is the view of the Colonel Pioneer the leader of the defences e.g. the police, and Source I is the view of Dr Veorwood who was the Prime Minister of South Africa. Veorwood is the person who instigated the idea for apartheid. Veorwood basically says that it was the blacks that who were at fault because there were so many of them who were acting violently and provocatively. An example of this is when Veorwood says, “the demonstrators were entering peoples homes and forcibly removing their identity books”. This is the only Source that it says anything like this in so how can it be believable when you have someone that is strongly for apartheid, and who wasn’t even there when someone like Tyler was there and isn’t biased. Tyler doesn’t mention anything about this matter so this is why Veorwood’s account isn’t reliable. Veorwood is just exaggerating the truth to get people on his side. An example of this is when he says, “The crowds grew until there was some 20,000 people there”, when we know from Tyler’s report that there was only just 4,000 people there.
Source H was a speech from Colonel Pioneer also showed the white point of view and the same as Veorwood’s. You can tell this because he comments on
