Before European colonization, South Africa was sparsely populated by two native African groups, the Khoikhoi and San. The eastern areas were home to Bantu-speaking groups like the Xhosa and Zulu, who lived communally in rural villages and followed strong family and social structures. When Europeans began settling in the 1600s, they took control of more land and resources from native Africans. In 1948, the apartheid system was formally instituted, segregating all South Africans into racial groups and reserving over 80% of the best land and political power for the white minority. Apartheid enforced separate living areas, jobs, public facilities and denied political participation for non-whites, and was finally abolished

1. Cry, the Beloved Country Background: History, Geography and Apartheid

3. These groups included the Xhosa and the Zulu. Certain features of Xhosa culture were common to many groups of native Africans in southern Africa. For example, extended family ties were very strong, men acted as the heads of families, and children were taught to respect their elders. The people lived in rural villages and held land communally.

4. Labor was divided according to gender and age, with men tending the cattle and build­ing the homes and women work­ing in the fields, cooking, and raising the children. If anyone in a village suffered misfortune, others would help out.

5. In village life, the emphasis was on maintaining the group, and each individual had a role within the group. This communal way of life required cooperation and sharing.

6. The idea of the vital importance of a person’s rela­tionships with others is expressed in the Xhosa proverb, “People are people through other people.” This group emphasis contrasts sharply with the emphasis in Western culture on individualism and competition

8. The Atlantic waters of the western coast are cold enough to accommodate penguin, while the southern and eastern coasts sport warmer waters and provide habitat for parrots.

9. APARTHEID: Though black Africans have always lived in what is now known as South Africa, European settlers began to farm and ranch there in the 1 600s, eventually taking over more and more land from the native black Africans.

10. Later these colonies, given self-rule by the British, united to form the Union of South Africa, with a constitution giving whites almost complete power. In control were the Afrikaners, whose leaders often viewed themselves as a “civilized” people superior to all non­whites, with a mission from God to rule South Africa.

11. By 1948 the government had begun instituting apartheid (meaning “apartness”), perhaps the most stringent system of racial segregation and discrimination ever devised.

12. Laws classified all South Africans into one of four groups—Bantu (black), Colored (mixed race), Asian, or white—with strict living and business areas for each. More than 80 percent of the land was set aside for whites, who made up less than 20 percent of the population.

13. The government setup 10 tribal “homelands” on inferior parcels of land and made every black South African a citizen of one of these. Blacks could not live outside their homeland unless they had a temporary pass to work for a white employer.

14. Other laws established separate public facilities, restricted each race to certain kinds of jobs, and barred nonwhites from participating in the national government.

15. Apartheid was finally abolished in 1991, long after the United Nations had called it a “crime against humanity” and South Africa had become ostracized by other nations through economic sanctions and being barred from the Olympics (1971—1992).