Integrating Poor Populations in South African Cities - Agence ...

1. An Urban History of South Africa: From 1652 to the Present
During their northwards expedition, the Boers had to affront, among others, the Zulu,
which led to a bloody battle in 1838, the Battle of Blood River. Along their path, the Boers
created several republics, including the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State.
Diamond mines were then discovered and the English annexed the various Boer states,
which became British colonies in 1902. These clashes between the English and the
Boers gave rise to two wars, the second of which — the Boer War — was particularly
deadly.
Independence of the Union of South Africa and the First Stirrings of Territorial
Segregation
In 1910, all the British colonies merged and acquired independence by becoming
the Union of South Africa. From the very formation of this new country, black
populations were excluded from power and territorial segregation was set up. The Native
Land Act of 1913 limited the amount of land that could be acquired by the black
population to 7% of the national territory. Simultaneously, the Afrikaner identity was
formed by bringing together all of the descendants of the Dutch colonists, Boer citydwellers
and farmers. The economic difficulties of 1930 brought the English-speaking
and Afrikaner parties representing the white populations closer together. In 1948, a
radical Afrikaner party, the National Party, took power and immediately established
the apartheid system, imposing separate development for white and black
populations.
1.1.2. Apartheid’s Policy of Exclusion
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Separatist Ideology and the Legal Framework
The National Party promoted separate development of the races so that, theoretically,
better development of each population would be possible. This ideology did not simply
mean segregation, as that had already been present since the start of colonization, but
rather legislative engineering that systematically and in an authoritarian manner organized
a radical spatial separation of different populations. The apartheid government
wanted urbanization to formally exclude all non-white populations, and especially all black
populations. This was supposed to ensure that the white population was protected by
controlling, on all levels, the other populations. In order to succeed in its goals, the
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