Decolonization of Africa · CHAPTER 10 ·
Apartheid in South Africa
Chapter 10 of The Decolonization of Africa, 1945–1994: “Apartheid’s Long Fall”
From 1948 South Africa’s National Party built apartheid, a legal system of racial classification, dispossession and exclusion. After police killed sixty-nine people at Sharpeville in 1960 the ANC and PAC turned to armed struggle; township revolt, the 1985 debt crisis and the Cold War’s end led to Mandela’s release in 1990.
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The map above is the world of Africa, March 1990 — Namibia — and Mandela walks.
Every state on the map that year: The world in 1990 · Europe in 1990.
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SHORT EXPLANATION
South Africa had been governed by a white minority since 1910. From 1948 the National Party constructed an interlocking system of racial classification, dispossession, movement controls, and political exclusion. It deprived the Black majority of land, citizenship, and the vote. People resisted through protest, labor action, township organizing, armed struggle, and international campaigning. Sharpeville, Soweto, and Steve Biko are marked on this map as memorials to people harmed and killed by the state.
By the 1980s the costs of maintaining the system were mounting. Township revolt made rule harder, and in 1985 banks refused to renew short-term loans, helping trigger a debt crisis and capital flight. White business leaders could see the cost of isolation. South Africa’s regional military dominance had been checked, while the ending Cold War weakened Pretoria’s anti-communist justification. F. W. de Klerk chose to bargain while the state still had leverage: he unbanned the ANC in February 1990, and Nelson Mandela was released nine days later. The dismantling of apartheid remained to be negotiated.
The full story
From 1948 the National Party made racial separation a system of government. Classification affected where a person could live, work, study, and marry. Pass laws controlled movement, and land policy reserved most of the country for whites. The homeland policy assigned Black South Africans to fragmented territories, allowing the state to deny them national political rights while continuing to rely on their labor. These measures worked together: the government sought both political exclusion and a controlled workforce.
Resistance met violence. At Sharpeville in 1960 police killed sixty-nine people, after which the government banned the ANC and PAC and the movements turned toward armed resistance. Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison. The Soweto uprising of 1976 and Steve Biko’s death in custody brought further evidence of the force used to maintain the system. The state could suppress opponents for decades, but it could not secure their consent.
During the 1980s strikes, boycotts, and township revolt made the country harder to govern. Financial pressure added a different problem. In 1985 international banks refused to renew short-term loans; South Africa faced a debt crisis, the rand collapsed, and capital fled. International isolation was now threatening white business interests as well as the government. Regional setbacks and the ending Cold War further altered Pretoria’s choices.
Apartheid had been designed as a lasting order. Its laws classified the population, restricted marriage and movement, reserved about 87% of the land for whites, and used the homelands to support political exclusion. Reforming individual rules would leave the rest of that structure in place. A full account belongs to the planned apartheid atlas; here the important point is the scale of what would have to be dismantled.
In February 1990 de Klerk unbanned the ANC and released Mandela. That opened negotiations; it did not complete liberation. The state still held power and the movement could mobilize resistance, so each could frustrate a settlement while neither could simply impose its preferred outcome. Armed struggle wound down as bargaining over a new constitution began. The next chapter follows the four years between Mandela’s release and an election.
FULL EXPLANATION
How apartheid worked
Apartheid entered daily life through many institutions at once. Racial classification affected where a person could live, work, study, and marry, as well as their political status. Land laws and forced removals concentrated ownership in white hands, while pass laws regulated the movement of Black labor. Courts, employers, police, and local offices each administered part of the system. The homeland policy shows how the parts fitted together. Black South Africans were assigned to fragmented territories, giving the state a means to deny them national political rights while continuing to use their labor. Resistance arose wherever those arrangements were enforced: against passes, school language, removals, low wages, and township government. Since the measures reinforced one another, adjusting a few rules would not settle the exclusion on which the order rested. A new constitutional order was needed. Sharpeville, Soweto, and deaths in custody recall the people who paid for resisting the old one.
Why negotiate in 1990?
The government that began negotiations in 1990 still possessed a formidable security apparatus. Its difficulty was that repression could contain resistance without providing a stable political future. Township movements and organized labor made rule more costly at home. Abroad, regional wars consumed resources without securing lasting dominance, and the Namibia settlement changed the value of continued confrontation. The 1985 debt crisis gave white business leaders a reason to reassess isolation: it threatened finance and growth. The ending Cold War also weakened Pretoria’s claim that minority rule was necessary against communism and eased its fear of a Soviet-backed takeover. In this setting de Klerk judged that bargaining from relative strength was safer than waiting for decline. His decision was not inevitable, and it did not make him the author of liberation. Years of resistance had changed the options before him; political change required a decision to act on that altered calculation.
Key places on the map
On this day
Why it happened
The architecture of apartheid. The National Party built on earlier segregation after 1948, using racial classification to organize rights and restrictions throughout society. Mixed marriages were banned; land laws reserved about 87% of the country for whites; pass laws controlled Black movement. Under the homeland policy, Black South Africans were assigned to nominal states in fragmented territories, and those assigned citizenship there lost South African citizenship. Political exclusion and restricted access to land helped sustain a controlled labor supply. Because the measures supported one another, changing a few laws would leave much of the structure intact. Its full anatomy belongs to the planned apartheid atlas.
The turn to armed struggle. The massacre at Sharpeville in 1960 and the banning of the ANC and PAC changed the conditions of resistance. Police had killed sixty-nine protesters, and open political organization became much harder. The ANC’s Umkhonto we Sizwe turned to sabotage and later guerrilla struggle; leaders including Mandela and Walter Sisulu faced prison or exile. Resistance continued for decades from cells, townships, and neighboring states. As in Algeria, state violence helped radicalize opposition, though the movements and wars followed different paths.
The pressure of finance. Sanctions had often been partial and could be evaded. The financial crisis of 1985 exposed a more immediate vulnerability: international banks refused to roll over short-term loans. South Africa faced a debt crisis, the rand fell, and capital fled. Businesses dependent on finance could see the price of isolation in their own affairs. Alongside internal resistance, the crisis persuaded white business leaders and officials that apartheid threatened economic as well as political stability. Economic self-interest helped move an establishment that moral appeals alone had not persuaded.
De Klerk’s calculation. By 1989 de Klerk had to weigh the strength the state still possessed against pressures it could not easily remove: township resistance, economic strain, costly regional conflict, and the loss of a protective buffer. The Namibia settlement changed the value of further regional confrontation. Meanwhile, the ending Cold War weakened Pretoria’s claim to be an anti-communist bastion and reduced its fear of Soviet backing for the ANC. De Klerk judged that bargaining from relative strength offered better prospects than waiting for decline or continuing an unwinnable confrontation. Resistance had changed his options; he chose negotiation among them.
THE TURNING POINT
Mandela walks free, 11 February 1990. Nelson Mandela walked out of prison on 11 February 1990, after twenty-seven years. The government had unbanned the ANC and was prepared to bargain with the movement it had tried to suppress. Like Algeria and Rhodesia, South Africa had seen a long struggle over settler rule. Under enormous pressure, its government now chose negotiation. Mandela’s release marked the beginning of that phase, not the settlement itself. The next chapter follows the costs of the bargain and how narrowly it survived.
What it changed
From resistance to negotiation. A banned movement and the government that had imprisoned its leader now entered negotiations. The government controlled the state, while the liberation movement could mobilize resistance. Either could obstruct an agreement, yet neither could readily impose its own terms. Armed struggle wound down as the parties began bargaining over a new constitution. Four difficult years lay ahead.
The memorials remain. A political transition could not undo the deaths at Sharpeville and Soweto, Steve Biko’s death in custody, or the loss of thousands of others. The later Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought public testimony about abuses so that the past would enter national memory; its choices about accountability remain contested. The places shown here are sites of memory, never scores of progress.
Southern Africa and the Cold War. The collapse of Soviet communism in 1989–91 changed the international setting for a settlement. Pretoria’s claim to be a bulwark against communism lost force, while the ANC faced the loss of a Soviet patron. With those changes, fears surrounding negotiation diminished on both sides. Namibia’s independence and the ANC’s unbanning came within months of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Southern Africa’s endgame was bound up with the changing Cold War order.
DISCUSSION QUESTION — After decades of protest, sanctions and armed resistance, why did the apartheid government begin to negotiate around 1990?
By 1990 the state still had formidable security forces, but force had not produced a stable future. Township resistance and organized labor raised the cost of governing. The 1985 refusal by banks to renew short-term loans led to a debt crisis and capital flight, making the financial consequences of isolation clear to white business leaders and government. Regional fighting, including Cuito Cuanavale, and the Namibia settlement challenged Pretoria’s ability to maintain regional dominance. The ending Cold War changed the calculation as well. It weakened the government’s anti-communist justification and reduced its fear of a Soviet-backed ANC. De Klerk judged that bargaining while the state retained leverage was preferable to continued confrontation or negotiation after further decline. Decades of resistance had changed the choices before him, but the decision was still contingent. Negotiation began the work of ending apartheid; it did not complete it.
An interesting fact
Long Walk to Freedom began in secret on Robben Island. Mandela wrote at night in the mid-1970s, while Walter Sisulu and Ahmed Kathrada added comments in the margins. Mac Maharaj copied the text in minute script and carried it out when he was released in 1976. The original was buried in containers in the prison courtyard, where warders found it while digging foundations for a new wall. Mandela lost his study rights for four years. The confiscated manuscript became a president’s memoir.
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