People of South Africa

 South Africans see themselves as a special people. Their uniqueness stems from the distinctive colonial history, racial segregation and triumphal democratization of the country. This exceptional story revolves around apartheid - literally "separateness". The legacy of segregation and apartheid, together with the irreconcilable differences in interpreting their meaning, still hinders the effort to create a consolidated national identity and a coherent and inclusive social order.

The history of South Africa was shaped by the discovery, around 1870, of deposits of diamonds and then of gold. And from the reaction of the ruling imperial power, the United Kingdom, to the opportunities and risks of such discoveries. However, if it is true that the history of modern South Africa begins with the "mineral revolution", the consequences of these discoveries cannot be well understood without first delving into the complex balance of forces which, between 1870 and 1880, characterizes the territory that today is called the Republic of South Africa.

Reflecting the geopolitical maps of the time, there are four great stories that take place there: that of the Khoisan peoples; that of the African peoples made up of shepherds and farmers; that of the Boers - the colonists of European descent - and that of the British imperialists.

The lesser known story is that of the subjugation of the first inhabitants of the region. The societies dedicated to hunting and herding, known today as khoikhoi and san or collectively as khoisan, inhabited the western and north-western territories of southern Africa since 1000 BC. approximately. The first phase of European settlement - during the domination of the Dutch East India Company, in the second half of the seventeenth century - was particularly hard for them.

The European settlers subjugated them very quickly, also because of the diseases they had introduced. In 1870, within the borders of present-day South Africa, the other three strongest actors - the protagonists of the other three great stories mentioned above - were already competing for the exploitation of resources. But no one can prevail. The first and most important group includes some African peoples, known in the colonial period as the xhosa and the Zulu. Their resilience to European colonization is confirmed by the fact that, two hundred years after the beginning of colonial expansion, Xhosa and Zulu still express organized societies.

African patriarchal kingdoms had spread to the region starting in the 3rd century AD. approximately. They were dynamic social organizations, which at the end of the eighteenth century already appeared widespread throughout the territory of present-day South Africa, almost to the western limit. Economy and social organization revolved around breeding. Politically, those societies were made up of patriarchal communities led by a hereditary leader.

They counted between one thousand and fifty thousand souls, but they were not closed societies: they included various lineages, immigrants from poor regions and individuals from other patriarchal realms. They were not "tribes", as Thompson points out: "The Western concept of tribe, usually used to indicate populations within which established cultural characteristics are reproduced, cannot be applied to these African farmers." If anything, they were fluid and politically affiliated societies: "People interacted, operated and coupled, as well as competing and fighting, exchanging ideas and practices, but also rejecting them" 1.

The third extraordinary story is that of the "Boers" (farmers), descendants of Dutch-speaking settlers who settled in the Cape region at the beginning of the seventeenth century with the initial function of supplying the ships of the Dutch East India Company with fuel and supplies. . Gradually the Cape also became the starting point for a dynamic, albeit discontinuous, expansion of the settlers towards the interior.

The experience of the Boer societies was in many ways similar to that of their African contemporaries. The expansion to the north and east, in regions already occupied by African societies, began around the end of the eighteenth century. The success of the Boer settlers can be explained by a combination of factors: the ability to exploit the divisions within African societies and the (uneven) cooperation between whites; the technological superiority given by firearms and the ability to preserve goods and wealth with an economic system more sophisticated than that of Africans; and finally the ability to exploit an unexpected and important transformation within African societies.