Bit of a long post for a weight lifting site.
But to over simplify, starting in 1488 the Portuguese were looking for a trade route to China via the Cape of Good Hope. They founded a little stop-over in a bay now known as “Cape Town.” At the time, the area was thinly populateda Khosian hunter-gathering population (the largest group) known as the Khoikhoi, and Nilo-Saharian peoples who were largely herders.
Not quite two hundred years later (1652), the Dutch East India Company turned Cape Town into a proper town, with no particular interest in a colony, although more infrastructure was needed to support the port, so ex-soldiers and farmers and slaves from Indonesia were brought in, along with German peasants, Irish, Jews, French Hueognauts, and the usual lot of deplorables nobody else wanted. The indigenous Khoikhoi (and another African tribe called “Sans”) also joined the mix.
This racial mismatch was called “white” – and later Afrikaner, despite not being very white.
This kicked along for 100 years, when the Dutch had a bit of a civil war, the French had a revolution, and the British saw an opportunity, and so, in 1795, the English took over Cape Town.
The Brits had slums to empty and the USA was newly closed to white slavery (er, I mean indentured servitude), so they started dumping off their deplorables in Cape Town.
Also ruling the place a bit like that Admiral in the Pirates of a Caribbean movies, despite promises in 1806 to leave them alone.
This caused a large number the “white” Afrikaners to push north a bit from Cape Town and become proper farmers, just to get the English boot off their ass.
Also, for brevity, I am skipping over the great Indian migration here.
Also, skipping the Griqua people (who are really the same mix of deplorables as the Afrikaners, but more indigenous San and Khoikhoi – but don’t tell anyone).
While not exactly correct, you can call the Griqua and the Indians – coloreds. (No, it’s not exactly as racist as saying that in the USA.)
I’m skipping all that because, at the same time all of the foregoing was happening, there was an expansive group from 1,000 miles away in Africa known as the “Bantu”. They were a genocidal and expansive group that made the British and Spanish (and Chinese) look like amateurs, but without boats, comprehensive capitalistic industrial infrastructure, and modern-for-the-times weaponry.
The Bantu had been pushing south, slaughtering the indigenous Africans in their path, and were well on their way to their own Manifest Destiny until they met the Afrikaners who promptly lost interest in fighting the British (for a bit, anyway).
The Bantu and the Afrikanners/English/Griqua/Indians came into conflict and the Bantu lost the war.
But the Bantu continued to migrate in, cause trouble, and great hostility among all the various groups occurred as the invasive Bantu, Afrikanners/British and “coloureds” continued to clash.
I’m skipping five solid wars here, amongst the various groups, including WWI and WWII.
A “genius” came up with the idea of apartheid, both to keep the peace, keep the indigenous San and Khoikhoit safe from the Bantu, keep the Indians and Griqua safe from the Bantu but mainly to keep the British and Afrikaners on top of all these various warring factions.
The Bantu had clever backers in the form of the Soviet Union who decided to tell a tale of European colonization oppressing native blacks (which was kind of sort of true) and rely on the stupidity of politicians to ignore that it was mainly the Batu oppressing blacks and to ignore the Bantu were no more native than the Indians or English or Dutch or Portuguese – simply because the Bantu were black.
And no one cares about blacks killing blacks, no matter where it happens.
Anyway, an embargo resulted as a result of clever Bantu and Soviet propaganda – and, candidly wrong and racist acts by British and Afrikaners.
The result is the government has been in slow motion collapse.
And the Bantu have mercilessly killed, raped, and enslaved the indigenous African population, Afrikaners – who are a unique people made from a blend of of European, Asian, and African – are quietly fleeing their homeland to avoid genocide.
