Changing racial attitudes in Colonial and Apartheid South Africa. This piece explores the changing racial attitudes of the white communities of South Africa towards the Coloureds and Blacks, between British take-over and independence.

This essay hasn't yet been marked by one of our teachers

You can view 3 essays on 1950-1999 that have been Marked by Teachers

The first 200 words of this essay...

This piece explores the changing racial attitudes of the white communities of South Africa towards the 'Coloureds' and Blacks, between British take-over and independence. Race will be defined here as "a group descended from a common ancestor"1 This period is interesting as different "groups were brought into contact that had not had contact, or at least, simultaneous contact before"2 Firstly, the resentment of the Boers to the transplantation of European liberal ideas of the time about race to the South African Cape Colony shall be explained. Secondly, the period between the Great Boer Trek commencing in 1836 and the end of the Natalian Vortrekker Republic in 1945 will be outlined as its fundamental to the romantic or ethnic nature of Afrikaner nationalism. Thirdly, the development of segregationist and racial discriminatory policies between then and independence and how these were indicative of the racial attitudes of the time.

Even though "the need to 'civilise inferior natives' became part of the justification for the scramble for Africa"3, Britain's main reason for taking control over the Cape Colony in 1806 was economical: to secure a key port on the trade passage to India. In 1833, however, the colonial administration, following having already