In the 17th century the Dutch and the British colonized the previously unexplored South Africa. English domination of the Dutch offspring (known as Boers or Afrikaners) resulted in the Dutch establishing the new colonies of Orange Free State and Transvaal for there own use. However the discovery of diamonds in these lands around 1900 resulted in an English invasion, which sparked the Boer War. A power struggle remained between the two, in the years following the famous Anglo-boer war. A battle that resulted in a social code dominated by race to maintain the economic, political and social dominance of the Imperialists in the cape.
Colonial authority was based on the notion that Europeans in the colonies were a biological and social superior…show more content… Eugenics fuelled the social and physiological reality of racism, which was legalized, institutionalized and internalized under the early colonial apartheid regime. Although many African nations had similar racial discrimination programs during the colonial period, South Africa was the only one able to institute the system of Apartheid due to the large white colonist population in South Africa and their dedication to the…show more content… This paper assesses the influences, which advanced the practice of racism in South Africa with particular attention directed on the ideological and scientific reasoning, which led way to the ingrained notions of racial division and racial hierarchy that resulted in the development of the early apartheid state of South Africa. Not to mention the relationship between ideological structures of domination and oppression which grew out of Europe’s conquering and ruling of much of the rest of the world.
Colonialism, Religion and the development of race in South Africa
As the Anglo Boer was came to a gradual end, both sides the English and the Afrikaans shared the fear of Ethnic survival, degeneration and additionally the eradication of the marginal white race in South Africa. The war engraved anxiety amongst both the British and the Afrikaaners alike, and developed the need too support white supremacy in the cape to enforce and sustain the absolutist and patriarchal imperialist dominance in the newly discovered