In your opinion how did the mineral revolution of the late 19th century impact SA society?

History shapes, forms and moulds the society in those we live in today. As such, different
events have come to form South Africa’s society. One of these instance’s was the mineral
revolution. This mineral revolution evolved through the discovery of the diamonds in 1869
and later gold in 1886. This discovery created the emergence of a mining diamond town
where in less than a year 50 thousand people moved to the city of “ diamonds”. However,
this movement was due to massive labour migration. This movement created a chain of
events that shaped and formed the society of South Africa that we know today. In this essay
we will address how evolution of how the mineral revolution shaped the path to segregation
and to apartheid.

Firstly, one must consider that the entire migration movement of the mineral revolution
reside on the need for labour. Here, labour control became imperative due to the fear of
workers robbing the company. This continued to evolve into a division of labour according to
race, which we may consider as one of the first steps that shaped the formation of
segregation later in history. White workers were favoured over black workers which created
a separation between the mining workers. Although, as this stage there were no official laws
of separation or segregation, it created a rift.

This rift quickly evolved to a political level which was the beginning of the emerging concept
of race apartheid. Here, Afrikaner nationalism created an official political movement which
used the addressing of the social problems for their ideology. Here, although the different
political parties had different aspirations, a common ground was found when it came to
ensuring white supremacy. With the outbreak of the first world war, the movement was only
made stronger as can be seen through the link between the Oxwagen sentinel and the Nazis.
After the end of the second world war, official started creating laws to separate the
population and this became the official start of the apartheid.

As such, the mineral revolution created a need for labour which transgressed into the
separation of races. This chain of events that lead up to apartheid were created in my
opinion by the development of events from the labour regulation needed during the mineral
revolution, the political supremacy developed through the Afrikaans nationalist movement
and finally the communal apartheid which made this segregation movement official.
Therefore, to conclude the mineral revolution movement lead up the apartheid and
consequently affected the south African society drastically.
 3. In your opinion how did the SA colonial past impact society today ?

Colonisation was vastly present throughout South Africa from 1652 onwards. This shaped
the identity of South Africa and what it stands for today. This can be represented by it’s
infrastructure and architecture, it’s history as well as it’s numerous official languages. The
dutch were present in South Africa for 150 years before the British took over in 1806. This
illustrates how present colonisation was in South Africa and consequently how it may have
had an important impact on south africa’s society.

For one, one must consider the impact of the Dutch who not only influenced the language
Afrikaans through what was called “ kitchen Dutch”. Furthermore, due to the formation of
the trading companies, the colonisation also vastly influenced South Africa’s role in from the
Dutch to the English, played a role in the difficulty of south Africa to present itself as a nation
or to form one identity, to find what makes up their culture and their population.

However, although the colonial past shapes south Africa’s identity as such, it is equally
responsible for a large part of history that it is present. Indeed, colonisation was also
responsible for the development of slavery, and which further influenced the societal
structures of race. Therefore, although one may consider that colonisation played a role in
trade, language, exposure it also played it’s role in the development of that black people
occupied a subordinate position through the role of slavery. Due to the settlers, needing
labour.

To conclude, the colonial past of south Africa played a role in the development of its history
but also in the development of south Africa’s identity whether it comes to the relations with
abroad nations today, the languages the population speaks today and the development of
colonial power to absence.