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Although Khoisan tribes of nomadic hunters, gatherers and pastoralists have lived in southern Africa for around 40,000 years, they didn't reach the Cape of Good Hope until about 2000 years ago. By the 15th century most arable land had been settled by encroaching Bantu pastoral tribes.

Southern Africa became a popular stop for European crews after Vasco de Gama opened the Cape of Good Hope spice route in 1498, and, by the mid-17th century, scurvy and shipwreck had induced Dutch traders to opt for a permanent settlement in Table Bay on the site of present day Cape Town. The mostly Dutch burghers pushed slowly north, decimating the Khoisan with violence and disease as they went. Towards the end of the 18th century and with Dutch power fading, Britain predictably jumped in for another piece of Africa. It was hoped that British settlers would inhabit a buffer zone between skirmishing pastoral Boers and Xhosa, but most of the British immigrant families retreated to town, entrenching the rural/urban divide that is evident in white South Africa even today. Although slavery was abolished in 1833, black/white division of labour served all whites too well for any real attempt to change.

Upheaval in black southern Africa wasn't generated only by the white invaders. Difaqane was the name given to a terror campaign masterminded by the Zulu chief, Shaka. This wave of disruption through southern Africa left some tribes wiped out, others enslaved and the lucky ones running. Into this chaos disgruntled Boers stomped on their Great Trek away from British rule. Most of the pastures they trekked through were deserted or inhabited by traumatised refugees; they were easily turned into cattle runs. The Zulus were no pushovers, however. They put up strong and bloody resistance to the Boers before eventually ceding to superior firepower. Boer republics popped up through the interior, and were annexed one by one by Britain in a chaotic kerfuffle of treaties, diplomacy and violence through the middle part of the 19th century. Just when it looked like the Union Jack was going to fly from Cairo to the Cape, diamonds were discovered in Kimberley, and the Dutch resistance became suddenly stronger.

The First Anglo-Boer War ended in a crushing Boer victory and the establishment of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. The British backed off until a huge reef of gold was discovered around Johannesburg and then marched in again for the Second Anglo-Boer War, dribbling with Empiric greed. By 1902 the Boers had exhausted their conventional resources and resorted to commando-style raids, denying the British control of the countryside. The British quashed resistance with disproportionate reprisals: if a railway line was blown up, the nearest farmhouse was destroyed; if a shot was fired from a farm, the house was burnt down, the crops destroyed and the animals killed. The women and children from the farms were collected and taken to concentration camps - a British invention - where 26,000 died of disease and neglect. The Boers were compelled to sign an ignominious and bitter peace.

Soon after the Union of South Africa was established in 1910, a barrage of racist legislation was passed restricting black rights and laying the foundations for apartheid. After a last flutter with military rebellion during WWI, the Afrikaners got on with the business of controlling South Africa politically. In 1948 elections the Afrikaner-dominated and ultra-right National Party took the reins and didn't let the white charger slow down until 1994. Every individual was classified by race, and race determined where you could live, work, pray, learn and shit. Irrespective of where they had been born, blacks were divided into one of ten tribal groups, forcibly dispossessed and dumped in rural backwaters, the so-called Homelands. The plan was to restrict blacks to Homelands that were, according to the propaganda, to become self-sufficient, self-governing states. In reality, these lands had virtually no infrastructure, no industry and were therefore incapable of producing sufficient food for the black population. There was intense, widespread suffering and many families returned to squalid squatter camps in the cities from which they had been evicted. Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi was pivotal in the Inkatha movement, a failed attempt to unite Homeland leaders. Black resistance developed in the form of strikes, acts of public disobedience and protest marches, and was supported by international opinion from the early 1960s after 69 protesters were killed in Sharpeville and African National Congress (ANC) leaders including Nelson Mandela were jailed.

After withdrawing from the British Commonwealth in 1961, South Africa became increasingly isolated. Paranoia developed through the 1960s and '70s, as the last European powers withdrew from Africa and black, often socialist, states formed around South Africa's northern borders. South Africa's military responses ranged from limited strikes (Mozambique, Lesotho) to full-scale assault (Angola, Namibia). When Cuba intervened in Angola in 1988, South Africa suffered a major defeat and war looked much less attractive. As the spirit of Gorbachev-style detente permeated southern Africa, Cuba pulled out of Angola, Namibia became independent and a stable peace was finally brokered in 1990.

The domestic situation was far from resolved. Violent responses to black protests increased commitment to a revolutionary struggle and the United Nations finally imposed economic and political sanctions. But in the mid-1980s, black-on-black violence in the townships exploded. Although bitter lines were drawn between the left wing Xhosa-based ANC and the right wing Zulu-dominated Inkatha movement, such distinctions are too simplistic in the context of the massive economic and social deprivation of black South Africa. There were clashes between political rivals, tribal enemies, opportunistic gangsters, and between those who lived in the huge migrant-workers' hostels and their township neighbours. President PW Botha detained, tortured and censored his way to 1989 when economic sanctions began to bite, the rand collapsed and reformist FW De Klerk came to power. Virtually all apartheid regulations were repealed, political prisoners were released and negotiations began on forming a multiracial government. Free elections in 1994 resulted in a decisive victory for the ANC and Nelson Mandela became president. De Klerk's National Party won just over 20% of the vote, and the Inkatha Freedom Party won 10.5%. South Africa rejoined the British Commonwealth a few months later.

Despite the scars of the past and the enormous problems ahead, South Africa today is immeasurably more optimistic and relaxed than it was a few years ago. The international community has embraced the new South Africa and the ANC's apparently sincere desire to create a truly non-racial nation. Among whites there is dazed relief, and among blacks there is the exhilaration of freedom gained. Although it will be some time before the black majority gain much economic benefit from their freedom, the political structure seems strong enough to hold the diverse region together. There are huge expectations for the new South Africa.

In 1999, after five years of learning about democracy, the country voted in a more normal election. Issues such as economics and competence were raised and debated. There was some speculation that the ANC vote might drop with the retirement of Nelson Mandela. The ANC's vote didn't drop - it increased to put the party within one seat of the two-thirds majority that would allow it to alter the consitution. Thabk Mbeki, who took over the ANC leadership from Nelson Mandela, became president in the 1999 elections.