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Launch of Union 1910. On the 31 May 1910, exactly eight years after the Boers had made peace with the English through the Treaty of Vereeniging, South Africa became a Union. Despite the mistrust in the Boer camp, the Afrikaners, as they now became known, had negotiated and achieved self-determination.
The Afrikaner ideal of a republic. South Africa only became a Republic on the 31st May 1961, but the formation of a Republic had been the dream of many Afrikaners since the nineteenth century, and was not something that was thought about only after National Party (NP) victory in 1948. In the 1830s when some Afrikaners left the Cape on the Great ...
The first Constitution for the Union of South Africa was adopted in 1910. This gave rights to the white minority but took away the right to vote of the majority of South Africans. In 1960 the white government held a referendum to decide whether South Africa would become a Republic. On 31 May 1961 South Africa was declared a Republic and the ...
The Union of South Africa, 1910 ‘South African War (a.k.a. the Anglo-Boer War) remains the most terrible and destructive modern armed conflict in South Africa’s history. It was an event that in many ways shaped the history of 20th Century South Africa. The end of the war marked the end of the long process of British conquest of South ...
The creation of the Union of South Africa was quickly followed by the launch of two important political movements. One was the South African Native National Congress (later ANC) formed in 1912, and the other made up of more radical Boers who split away from the SAP under the leadership of General Barry Hertzog, forming the National Party (NP) in 1914.
The union had 170 members after only five months in existence. 1906 Cigarette makers, influenced by the General Workers' Union and the Social Democratic Federation, go on strike in Cape Town, resulting in the workers establishing the first socialist-oriented co-operative society South Africa.
The first election that created the modern South African state, held in accordance with the provisions of the Union of South Africa Act of 1909, set the scene for a political system that lasted for over eighty years. In the dispensation that merged the two independent Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, and two British colonies of Natal and the Cape Province, the constitution explicitly excluded Blacks from participating in mainstream political activity.
Brian and Sonia Bunting, members of the South Africa Communist Party (SACP), visited the Soviet Union in March 1954 as the guests of the All-Union Society of Cultural Ties with Foreign Countries, and were followed by Ruth First, who was a guest of the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Women. However, there is no indication that these visits were part of attempts to establish inter-party relationships.
The roots of Trade Unionism and Socialism can be traced back to the vast influx of majority White workers who came to Southern Africa from across the globe in the search of fortunes and work in the wake of the discovery of diamonds and later gold. The story of labour is also the story of forced labour. A vast number of people were forced ...
The Natives Land Act sparked fierce opposition particularly by Black African people. While the Act was still a Bill in parliament on 21 March 1913,, John L Dube, President of the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), published an article “Wrong Policy” in the newspaper ILanga Lase Natal.
