Apartheid in South Africa - Social Studies Quiz - Tuesday June 21

Social Studies Chapter 6 Uses and Abuses of Power

In 1876, the Canadian government passed the Indian Act.  It was a law that aimed to assimilate First Nations in the dominant culture.

Under the terms of the Indian Act, First Nations people were not considered to be Canadian citizens. 

The Indian Act sought to end First Nations languages and cultures. 

First Nations children had to attend residential school for most of the year.             

Treaty – a formal agreement between two or more nations in reference to peace, alliance, commerce, territory or other relations.

 

 

South Africa gained independence from Britain in 1910.

White minority kept political and economic power for themselves. 

In 1948, the white minority in South Africa adopted apartheid as government policy to separate themselves from black people and other races. 

Apartheid laws were brutally upheld by armed security forces.

Laws forced black people to move to small, isolated areas called the Bantu homelands.

The South African government had reserved about 7 percent of the country for black people.  But black people made up about 80 percent of the population so the homelands were very crowded.  Living conditions were terrible with almost no jobs.

The government required black people over 16 years of age to carry identification passes.  Black people had to show their passbooks any time a white person, including a child, asked them for identification.  A black person who could not produce a passbook would be arrested.

Many people inside and beyond South Africa believed that apartheid was wrong. 
Black South Africans organized and protested.  Whit police often responded with violence,   sometimes shooting into crowds, killing hundreds of demonstrators at a time. 

The government banned groups such as the African National Congress (ANC).  This political party had worked for black civil rights since 1912.

One man who played a key role in ending apartheid was Nelson Mandela.  He was the ANC leader who was jailed in 1962.  He continued to protest for almost 30 years from his prison.  Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990 by President F. W. de Klerk.