The Ndwandwe are a Bantu Nguni -speaking people who populate sections of southern Africa . They are also known as the Nxumalo's
70-651: The Ndwandwe, with the Mthethwa , were a significant power in present-day Zululand at the turn of the nineteenth century. Under the leadership of King Zwide , the Ndwandwe nation destroyed the Mthethwa under their king Dingiswayo , and the power vacuum was filled by Shaka Zulu and the Zulu tribe. In a common front against the Ndwandwe, Shaka collected the remains of the Mthethwa and other regional tribes, and survived
140-695: A Ndwandwe legacy of enduring power that is scattered across Southern Africa. They speak Nguni dialects and their nations’ official languages are English in Zambia and Zimbabwe , and Portuguese in Mozambique . Mtetwa Empire The Mthethwa Paramountcy , sometimes referred to as the Mtetwa or Mthethwa Empire , was a Southern African state that arose in the 18th century south of Delagoa Bay and inland in eastern southern Africa. "Mthethwa" means "the one who rules". According to Muzi Mthethwa (1995),
210-602: A divergent course from the rest of the British Empire, allowing the continuance of Roman-Dutch law . British sovereignty of the area was recognised at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Dutch accepting a payment of 6 million pounds (equivalent to £31,2 billion in 2023) for the colony. This had the effect of forcing more of the Dutch colonists to move (or trek) away from British administrative reach. Much later, in 1820
280-516: A militaristic kingdom between the Tugela River and Pongola River , under the driving force of Shaka kaSenzangakhona, son of the chief of the Zulu clan. Shaka built large armies , breaking from clan tradition by placing the armies under the control of his own officers rather than of hereditary chiefs. He then set out on a massive programme of expansion, killing or enslaving those who resisted in
350-541: A mission station in the northern Cape Colony, are believed to have been the first white men to cross the Kalahari desert in 1849. The Royal Geographical Society later awarded Livingstone a gold medal for his discovery of Lake Ngami in the desert. The Zulu people are part of the Nguni ethnic group and were originally a minor clan in what is today northern KwaZulu-Natal, founded ca. 1709 by Zulu kaNtombela . The 1820s saw
420-645: A series of several hundred drawings known collectively as the Gordon Atlas, as well as in his journals, which were only discovered in 1964. Early relations between the European settlers and the Xhosa, the first Bantu peoples they met when they ventured inward, were peaceful. However, there was competition for land, and this tension led to skirmishes in the form of cattle raids from 1779. The British explorers David Livingstone and William Oswell, setting out from
490-460: A time of immense upheaval relating to the military expansion of the Zulu Kingdom , which replaced the original African clan system with kingdoms. Sotho -speakers know this period as the difaqane (" forced migration "); Zulu -speakers call it the mfecane ("crushing"). Various theories have been advanced for the causes of the difaqane , ranging from ecological factors to competition in
560-600: The Battle of Mhlatuze River . This led to the disintegration of the Ndwandwe nation as Zwide's generals and sons led sections of the Ndwandwe northwards. One such group, under Soshangane , formed the Gaza Empire in present-day central Mozambique while another, under Zwangendaba , established rule as the waNgoni in present-day Malawi . Others established themselves as chiefs of note in Swaziland and Zambia to create
630-596: The Congo basin as early as the 4th century BC. Some groups, ancestral to today's Nguni peoples (the Zulu , Xhosa , Swazi , and Ndebele ), preferred to live near the eastern coast of what is present-day South Africa. Others, now known as the Sotho–Tswana peoples ( Tswana , Pedi , and Sotho ), settled in the interior on the plateau known as the Highveld , while today's Venda and Tsonga peoples made their homes in
700-758: The Dutch Cape Colony . Following the Invasion of the Cape Colony by the British in 1795 and 1806, mass migrations collectively known as the Great Trek occurred during which the Voortrekkers established several Boer Republics in the interior of South Africa. The discoveries of diamonds and gold in the nineteenth century had a profound effect on the fortunes of the region, propelling it onto
770-740: The Dutch colonies in India had been introduced into the Cape area of South Africa by the Dutch settlers in 1654. By the end of 1847, following annexation by Britain of the former Boer republic of Natalia, nearly all the Boers had left their former republic, which the British renamed Natal. The role of the Boer settlers was replaced by subsidised British immigrants of whom 5,000 arrived between 1849 and 1851. By 1860, with slavery having been abolished in 1834, and after
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#1732764805802840-585: The First Boer War . Meanwhile, the discovery of diamonds around Kimberley and gold in the Transvaal led to a later return to instability, particularly because they fueled the rise to power of the ambitious colonialist Cecil Rhodes . As Cape Prime Minister, Rhodes curtailed the multi-racial franchise, and his expansionist policies set the stage for the Second Boer War . Indian slaves from
910-702: The Great Fish River on the east coast of South Africa, where Dias had earlier turned back. Da Gama gave the name Natal to the coast he was passing, which in Portuguese means Christmas. Da Gama's fleet proceeded northwards to Zanzibar and later sailed eastwards, eventually reaching India and opening the Cape Route between Europe and Asia. Many Portuguese words are still found along the coast of South Africa including Saldanha, Algoa, Natal, Agulhas, Benguela and Lucia. The Dutch East India Company (in
980-520: The Great Trek . Among the initial reasons for their leaving the Cape colony were the English language rule. Religion was a very important aspect of the settlers culture and the bible and church services were in Dutch. Similarly, schools, justice and trade up to the arrival of the British, were all managed in the Dutch language. The language law caused friction, distrust and dissatisfaction. Another reason for Dutch-speaking white farmers trekking away from
1050-582: The Nkandla region. It consisted of roughly 30 Nguni chiefdoms, lineages, and clans. Unlike its successor, the Zulu Kingdom , the Mthethwa Paramountcy was a confederation. After Zulu chief Shaka kaSenzagakhona (better known as Shaka Zulu) became king, he forged a nearly homogeneous nation with a single king ( nkosi ). The Mthethwa Paramountcy was consolidated and extended under the rule of Dingiswayo . The chief entered into an alliance with
1120-534: The Second Boer War . The colony, with an estimated population of less than 400,000 in 1904 ceased to exist in 1910, when it was absorbed into the Union of South Africa as the Orange Free State Province . Natalia was a short-lived Boer republic established in 1839 by Boer Voortrekkers emigrating from the Cape Colony. In 1824 a party of 25 men under British Lieutenant F G Farewell arrived from
1190-660: The Silk Road to China. In the 14th and 15th century, Portuguese explorers traveled down the west African Coast, detailing and mapping the coastline and in 1488 they rounded the Cape of Good Hope . The Dutch East India Company established a trading post in Cape Town under the command of Jan van Riebeeck in 1652, European workers who settled at the Cape became known as the Free Burghers and gradually established farms in
1260-643: The Status of the Union Act . The monarchy came to an end on 31 May 1961, replaced by a republic as the consequence of a 1960 referendum , which legitimised the country becoming the Republic of South Africa . From 1948–1994, South African politics was dominated by Afrikaner nationalism . Racial segregation and white minority rule known officially as apartheid were implemented in 1948. On 2 February 1990, FW de Klerk , then president of South Africa and leader of
1330-658: The Tsonga to the north in the early 19th century and began trading Ivory and other things with the Portuguese in Mozambique . About 1811, the Buthelezi and a number of other Nguni groups, including the then still marginal Zulu clan led by Senzangakona , were integrated into a sort of confederacy with the Mthethwa clan predominating. Dingiswayo was killed in a battle with the Ndwandwe in 1817. The Mthethwa Paramountcy
1400-521: The Union of South Africa was created as a self-governing dominion of the British Empire on 31 May 1910 in terms of the South Africa Act 1909 , which amalgamated the four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony , Colony of Natal , Transvaal Colony , and Orange River Colony . The country became a fully sovereign nation state within the British Empire, in 1934 following enactment of
1470-571: The Batavian Republic. Like the Dutch before them, the British initially had little interest in the Cape Colony, other than as a strategically located port. As one of their first tasks they outlawed the use of the Dutch language in 1806 with the view of converting the European settlers to the British language and culture. The Cape Articles of Capitulation of 1806 allowed the colony to retain "all their rights and privileges which they have enjoyed hitherto", and this launched South Africa on
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#17327648058021540-521: The Boers besieged. A local trader Dick King and his servant Ndongeni, who later became folk heroes, were able to escape the blockade and ride to Grahamstown, a distance of 600 km (372.82 miles) in 14 days to raise British reinforcements. The reinforcements arrived in Durban 20 days later; the siege was broken and the Voortrekkers retreated. The Boers accepted British annexation in 1844. Many of
1610-524: The British authorities persuaded about 5,000 middle-class British immigrants (most of them "in trade") to leave Great Britain. Many of the 1820 Settlers eventually settled in Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth . British policy with regard to South Africa would vacillate with successive governments, but the overarching imperative throughout the 19th century was to protect the strategic trade route to India while incurring as little expense as possible within
1680-521: The British traders on the Natal coast, but events had started to unfold that would see the demise of Zulu independence. Estimates for the death toll resulting from the Mfecane range from 1 million to 2 million. After 1806, a number of Dutch -speaking inhabitants of the Cape Colony trekked inland, first in small groups. Eventually, in the 1830s, large numbers of Boers migrated in what came to be known as
1750-670: The Cape Colony and established a settlement on the northern shore of the Bay of Natal, which would later become the port of Durban, so named after Benjamin D'Urban , a governor of the Cape Colony. Boer Voortrekkers in 1838 established the Republic of Natalia in the surrounding region, with its capital at Pietermaritzburg . On the night of 23/24 May 1842 British colonial forces attacked the Voortrekker camp at Congella. The attack failed, with British forces then retreating back to Durban, which
1820-611: The Cape Peninsula and surrounding districts, the Khoikhoi population was decimated by a smallpox epidemic introduced by Dutch sailors against which the Khoikhoi had no natural resistance or indigenous medicines. The Bantu expansion was one of the major demographic movements in human prehistory, sweeping much of the African continent during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC. Bantu-speaking communities reached southern Africa from
1890-467: The Cape between the European occupying population and imported Asian and African slaves, the indigenous Khoi and San, and their mixed-ethnicity descendants. Simon van der Stel , the first Governor of the Dutch settlement, famous for his development of the lucrative South African wine industry, was himself of mixed race-origin. In 1787, shortly before the French Revolution , a faction within
1960-415: The Cape was the abolition of slavery by the British government on Emancipation Day, 1 December 1838. The farmers complained they could not replace the labour of their slaves without losing an excessive amount of money. The farmers had invested large amounts of capital in slaves. Owners who had purchased enslaved people on credit or put them up as surety against loans faced financial ruin. Britain had allocated
2030-648: The Dutch and the Germans were joined by French Huguenots , Calvinist Protestants fleeing religious persecution in France under its Catholic ruler, King Louis XIV . Van Riebeeck considered it impolitic to enslave the local Khoi and San aboriginals, so the VOC began to import large numbers of slaves, primarily from the Dutch colonies in Indonesia . Eventually, van Riebeeck and the VOC began to make indentured servants out of
2100-471: The Dutch of the day: Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie , or VOC) decided to establish a permanent settlement at the Cape in 1652. The VOC, one of the major European trading houses sailing the spice route to the East, had no intention of colonizing the area, instead wanting only to establish a secure base camp where passing ships could be serviced and restock on supplies. To this end, a small VOC expedition under
2170-681: The Khoikhoi and the San. The descendants of unions between the Dutch settlers and the Khoi-San and Malay slaves became known officially as the Cape Coloureds and the Cape Malays , respectively. A significant number of the offspring from the white and slave unions were absorbed into the local proto- Afrikaans speaking white population. The racially mixed genealogical origins of many white South Africans have been traced to interracial unions at
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2240-411: The Khoikhoi into conflict with Dutch settlers over land ownership. Competition between Dutch and Khoikhoi pastoralists over grazing land led to livestock theft and conflict. The Khoikhoi were ultimately expelled from the peninsula by force, after a succession of wars. The first Khoikhoi–Dutch War broke out in 1659, the second in 1673, and the third 1674–1677. By the time of their defeat and expulsion from
2310-469: The Khoisan corresponds to the earliest separation of the extant Homo sapiens populations altogether, associated in genetic science with what is described in scientific terms as matrilinear haplogroup L0 (mtDNA) and patrilinear haplogroup A (Y-DNA), originating in a northwestern area of southern Africa. The San and Khoikhoi are essentially distinguished only by their respective occupations. Whereas
2380-523: The Middle Stone Age, as shown by archaeological discoveries at Klasies River Caves . The first human habitation is associated with a DNA group originating in a northwestern area of southern Africa and still prevalent in the indigenous Khoisan ( Khoi and San ). Southern Africa was later populated by Bantu-speaking people who migrated from the western region of central Africa during the early centuries AD. Professor Raymond Dart discovered
2450-820: The Mthethwas are descended from the Nguni tribes of northern Natal and the Lubombo Mountains , whose modern identity dates back some 700 years. They are among the first Nguni-Tsonga groups who left the Great Lakes in Central Africa between 200 AD and 1200 AD. On arrival in Southern Africa , they settled around modern-day Swaziland , mainly on the Lubombo Mountains , before leaving in the 17th century to settle in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal , in
2520-609: The Natalia Boers who refused to acknowledge British rule trekked over the Drakensberg mountains to settle in the Orange Free State and Transvaal republics. Between 1847 and 1854, Harry Smith , governor and high commissioner of the Cape Colony, annexed territories far to the north of the original British and Dutch settlement. Smith's expansion of the Cape Colony resulted in conflict with disaffected Boers in
2590-800: The Nationalist Party, unbanned the African National Congress (ANC) and freed Nelson Mandela from life imprisonment on Robben Island. The CODESA talks negotiated the creation of a new non-racial democratic South Africa, for which de Klerk and Mandela were later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . These negotiations led to the creation of a democratic constitution for all South Africa. On 27 April 1994, after decades of ANC led resistance to white minority rule, armed guerrilla struggle, and international opposition to apartheid - which ended in crippling sanctions against
2660-642: The Orange Free State. In March 1858, after land disputes, cattle rustling and a series of raids and counter-raids, the Orange Free State declared war on the Basotho kingdom, which it failed to defeat. A succession of wars were conducted between the Boers and the Basotho for the next 10 years. The name Orange Free State was again changed to the Orange River Colony , created by Britain after the latter occupied it in 1900 and then annexed it in 1902 during
2730-625: The Orange River Sovereignty who in 1848 mounted an abortive rebellion at Boomplaats, where the Boers were defeated by a detachment of the Cape Mounted Rifles. Annexation also precipitated a war between British colonial forces and the indigenous Xhosa nation in 1850, in the eastern coastal region. Starting from the mid-1800s, the Cape of Good Hope , which was then the largest state in southern Africa, began moving towards greater independence from Britain. In 1854, it
2800-462: The San were hunter-gatherers, the Khoikhoi were pastoral herders. The initial origin of the Khoikhoi remains uncertain. Archaeological discoveries of livestock bones on the Cape Peninsula indicate that the Khoikhoi began to settle there by about 2000 years ago. In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Portuguese mariners, who were the first Europeans at the Cape, encountered pastoral Khoikhoi with livestock. Later, English and Dutch seafarers in
2870-420: The Sotho (present-day Lesotho ) and the Swazi (now Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)). It caused the consolidation of groups such as the Matebele , the Mfengu and the Makololo . In 1828 Shaka was killed by his half-brothers Dingaan and Umhlangana . The weaker and less-skilled Dingaan became king, relaxing military discipline while continuing the despotism. Dingaan also attempted to establish relations with
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2940-423: The basis of race and, unlike the Boer republics, elections were held according to the non-racial Cape Qualified Franchise system, whereby suffrage qualifications applied universally, regardless of race. Initially, a period of strong economic growth and social development ensued. However, an ill-informed British attempt to force the states of southern Africa into a British federation led to inter-ethnic tensions and
3010-415: The colony. This aim was complicated by border conflicts with the Boers, who soon developed a distaste for British authority. Colonel Robert Jacob Gordon of the Dutch East India Company was the first European to explore parts of the interior while commanding the Dutch garrison at the renamed Cape of Good Hope , from 1780 to 1795. The four expeditions Gordon undertook between 1777 and 1786 are recorded in
3080-448: The command of Jan van Riebeeck reached Table Bay on 6 April 1652. The VOC had settled at the Cape in order to supply their trading ships. The Cape and the VOC had to import Dutch farmers to establish farms to supply the passing ships as well as to supply the growing VOC settlement. The small initial group of free burghers, as these farmers were known, steadily increased in number and began to expand their farms further north and east into
3150-428: The contact between Bantu-speakers and the indigenous Khoisan ethnic group remain largely unresearched, although linguistic proof of assimilation exists, as several southern Bantu languages (notably Xhosa and Zulu ) are theorised in that they incorporate many click consonants from the Khoisan languages , as possibilities of such developing independently are valid as well. The Portuguese mariner Bartolomeu Dias
3220-470: The discovery near Johannesburg of a previously unknown species of Homo was announced, named Homo naledi . It has been described as one of the most important paleontological discoveries in modern times. The descendants of the Middle Paleolithic populations are thought to be the aboriginal San and Khoikhoi tribes. These are collectively known as the Khoisan , a modern European portmanteau of these two tribes' names. The settlement of southern Africa by
3290-455: The earliest example ever discovered of abstract art or symbolic art created by Homo sapiens . Many more species of early hominid have come to light in recent decades. The oldest is Little Foot , a collection of footbones of an unknown hominid between 2.2 and 3.3 million years old, discovered at Sterkfontein by Ronald J. Clarke . An important recent find was that of 1.9 million year old Australopithecus sediba , discovered in 2008. In 2015,
3360-441: The first encounter of the Zulu Civil War with Zwide at the Battle of Gqokli Hill in 1818. In 1819, Zwide made another expedition against the Zulus, but Shaka again changed his tactics, letting the Ndwandwe army penetrate his territory and responding with guerrilla warfare. Shortage of supplies caused the Ndandwe to return home, but when they were crossing the river Mhlatuze in early 1820, their forces were split and defeated at
3430-415: The ivory trade. Another theory attributes the epicentre of Zulu violence to the slave trade out of Delgoa Bay in Mozambique situated to the north of Zululand. Most historians recognise that the Mfecane wasn't just a series of events caused by the founding of the Zulu kingdom but rather a multitude of factors caused before and after Shaka Zulu came into power. In 1818, Nguni tribes in Zululand created
3500-405: The late 16th and 17th centuries exchanged metals for cattle and sheep with the Khoikhoi. The conventional view is that availability of livestock was one reason why, in the mid-17th century, the Dutch East India Company established a staging post where the port city of Cape Town is today situated. The establishment of the staging post by the Dutch East India Company at the Cape in 1652 soon brought
3570-494: The minority white government, the ANC achieved a majority in the country's first democratic election. Since then, despite a continually decreasing electoral majority, the ANC has ruled South Africa. The ANC has notionally been in alliance with the South African Communist Party and the Congress of South African Trade Unions since 1994. High rates of crime , corruption , unemployment, low economic growth, an ongoing energy crisis , and poorly maintained infrastructure are some of
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#17327648058023640-408: The money due to them as payment for freeing their slaves. Those settlers who were allocated money could only claim it in Britain in person or through an agent. The commission charged by agents was the same as the payment for one slave, thus those settlers only claiming for one slave would receive nothing. The South African Republic (Dutch: Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek or ZAR, not to be confused with
3710-401: The much later Republic of South Africa ), is often referred to as The Transvaal and sometimes as the Republic of Transvaal. It was an independent and internationally recognised nation-state in southern Africa from 1852 to 1902. Independent sovereignty of the republic was formally recognised by Great Britain with the signing of the Sand River Convention on 17 January 1852. The republic, under
3780-403: The north-eastern areas of present-day South Africa. The Kingdom of Mapungubwe , which was located near the northern border of present-day South Africa, at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers adjacent to present-day Zimbabwe and Botswana , was the first indigenous kingdom in southern Africa between AD 900 and 1300. It developed into the largest kingdom in the sub-continent before it
3850-426: The politics of the Dutch Republic known as the Patriot Party attempted to overthrow the regime of stadtholder William V . Though the revolt was crushed, it was resurrected after the French invasion of the Netherlands in 1794/1795 which resulted in the stadtholder fleeing the country. The Patriot revolutionaries then proclaimed the Batavian Republic , which was closely allied to revolutionary France. In response,
3920-432: The premiership of Paul Kruger , defeated British forces in the First Boer War and remained independent until the end of the Second Boer War on 31 May 1902, when it was forced to surrender to the British. The territory of the South African Republic became known after this war as the Transvaal Colony. The independent Boer republic of Orange Free State evolved from colonial Britain's Orange River Sovereignty , enforced by
3990-400: The presence of British troops, which lasted from 1848 to 1854 in the territory between the Orange and Vaal rivers, named Transorange. Britain, due to the military burden imposed on it by the Crimean War in Europe, then withdrew its troops from the territory in 1854, when the territory along with other areas in the region was claimed by the Boers as an independent Boer republic, which they named
4060-420: The problems challenging contemporary South Africa. Scientists researching the periods before written historical records were made have established that the territory of what is now referred to generically as South Africa was one of the important centers of human evolution . It was inhabited by Australopithecines since at least 2.5 million years ago. Modern human settlement occurred around 125,000 years ago in
4130-451: The region the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site. South Africa's first known inhabitants have been referred to as the Khoisan , the Khwe and the San. Starting in about 1,000 BC, these groups were then joined by the Bantu ethnic groups who migrated from Western and Central Africa during what is known as the Bantu expansion . European exploration of the African coast began in the 13th century when Portugal sought an alternative route to
4200-514: The skull of a 2.51 million year old Taung Child in 1924, the first example of Australopithecus africanus ever found. Following in Dart's footsteps Robert Broom discovered a new much more robust hominid in 1938 Paranthropus robustus at Kromdraai , and in 1947 uncovered several more examples of Australopithecus africanus at Sterkfontein . At the Blombos cave in 2002, stones were discovered engraved with grid or cross-hatch patterns, dated to some 70,000 years ago. This has been interpreted as
4270-455: The stadtholder, who had taken up residence in England, issued the Kew Letters , ordering colonial governors to surrender to the British. The British then seized the Cape in 1795 to prevent it from falling into French hands. The Cape was relinquished back to the Dutch in 1803. In 1805, the British inherited the Cape as a prize during the Napoleonic Wars , again seizing the Cape from the French controlled Kingdom of Holland which had replaced
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#17327648058024340-420: The sum of 1,200,000 British Pounds (equivalent to £5,53 billion in 2023) as compensation to the Dutch settlers, on condition the Dutch farmers had to lodge their claims in Britain as well as the fact that the value of the enslaved people was many times the allocated amount. This caused further dissatisfaction among the Dutch settlers. The settlers, incorrectly, believed that the Cape Colony administration had taken
4410-415: The territories he conquered. His impis (warrior regiments) were rigorously disciplined: failure in battle meant death. The Zulu resulted in the mass movement of many tribes who in turn tried to dominate those in new territories, leading to widespread warfare and waves of displacement spread throughout southern Africa and beyond. It accelerated the formation of several new nation-states, notably those of
4480-464: The territory of the Khoikhoi. The free burghers were ex-VOC soldiers and gardeners, who were unable to return to Holland when their contracts were completed with the VOC. The VOC also brought some 71,000 slaves to Cape Town from India, Indonesia, East Africa, Mauritius, and Madagascar. The majority of burghers had Dutch ancestry and belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church , but there were also some Germans, who often happened to be Lutherans . In 1688,
4550-550: The widespread existence of amabutho going back into the 18th century and perhaps earlier. The Mthethwa were amongst the first Nguni Chiefdoms to use guns. 28°30′54″S 31°50′55″E / 28.51500°S 31.84861°E / -28.51500; 31.84861 This South African history -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . History of South Africa The first modern humans are believed to have inhabited South Africa more than 100,000 years ago. In 1999, UNESCO designated
4620-440: The world stage and introducing a shift away from an exclusively agrarian-based economy towards industrialisation and the development of urban infrastructure. The discoveries also led to new conflicts culminating in open warfare between the Boer settlers and the British Empire , fought for control over the nascent South African mining industry. Following the defeat of the Boers in the Anglo–Boer or South African War (1899–1902),
4690-425: Was abandoned because of climatic changes in the 14th century. Smiths created objects of iron, copper and gold both for local decorative use and for foreign trade. The kingdom controlled trade through the east African ports to Arabia , India and China , and throughout southern Africa, making it wealthy through the exchange of gold and ivory for imports such as Chinese porcelain and Persian glass beads. Specifics of
4760-425: Was granted its first locally elected legislature, the Cape Parliament . In 1872, after a long political struggle, it attained responsible government with a locally accountable executive and Prime Minister. The Cape nonetheless remained nominally part of the British Empire, even though it was self-governing in practice. The Cape Colony was unusual in southern Africa in that its laws prohibited any discrimination on
4830-411: Was the first European to explore the coastline of South Africa in 1488, while attempting to discover a trade route to the Far East via the southernmost cape of South Africa, which he named Cabo das Tormentas , meaning Cape of Storms . In November 1497, a fleet of Portuguese ships under the command of the Portuguese mariner Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope. By 16 December, the fleet had passed
4900-415: Was then superseded by the Zulu Kingdom under Shaka, a former lieutenant in the Mthethwa army. Many military and administrative institutions, including the system of age regiments ( amabutho ) that later characterized the Zulu kingdom were utilized by Mthethwa, although an older theory that credits the Nyambose rulers of Mthethwa with the introduction of amabutho is no longer accepted because of evidence for
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