including headings Cape Town, Free burghers and slaves, Cape Dutch and Trekboers, The Cape in the French wars, Slaves and Hottentots, ...
When World War I breaks out, the newly independent dominion of South Africa rallies to the British cause. The only German target in the immediate region is South West Africa. In February 1915 the South African president,...
Ships sailing to and from the east make a habit of calling in at the bay below Table mountain - to barter with the Khoikhoi tribes of the region for fresh food, and to engage in an informal postal system. Letters and new...
Outright warfare between British and Afrikaners derives from the various tensions which have characterized the 1890s, in particular British expansionism and an understandable Afrikaner fear of being surrounded, squeezed,...
The statistics of the concentration camps tarnish the British victory in the Boer War. By contrast the military deaths during the three years of fighting emphasize the martial spirit and skills of the Afrikaners (22,000...
By 1657 it is clear that there is more work at the Cape than can be done under central direction by the company's employees. Van Riebeeck proposes that it will be more effective to release married men from their contract...
Until 1707 the Dutch East India Company makes some effort to encourage immigration to the Cape. Yet by that time, half a century after the first settlement, the burgher families still number only 1779 men, women and chil...
The German seizure of Angra Pequena in 1884 is one of the first incidents in the European scramble for Africa. The resulting colony becomes known as South West Africa. Over the next hundred years the tribes living here,...
South Africa's involvement increases over the years because of the situation in neighbouring Namibia, where the insurgent group SWAPO receives support from Angola's MPLA. From South Africa's point of view, maintaining co...
Chief Jonathan's political stance (one of profound hostility to South Africa) wins him much international approval as a virtuous David confronting the evil Goliath. But it also brings many political refugees across his b...
The activities of Renamo are very little reduced by the withdrawal of South African support. The violent civil war continues, causing more than a million refugees to flee the country - until in the late 1980s the Frelimo...
The population of settlers rapidly increases in the territory adminstered by Rhodes's British South Africa Company. There are as many as 1500 Europeans in the region by 1892. More soon follow, thanks partly to developmen...
In the early years of independence Zambia's economy flourishes. The mineral rights of the British South Africa Company now accrue to the state. And copper prices rise dramatically, largely because of the needs of the Vie...
Seretse, while studying at Oxford, marries a British woman, Ruth Williams. This causes consternation in South Africa, where just two years previously the new Nationalist government has introduced apartheid laws against s...
In South West Africa (now Namibia) the situation is more complicated. Here the main neighbour is South Africa, an ally to whom Britain entrusts the task of seizing the German colony. But such a policy is much resented by...
