THESEGREGATIONEM
of a truncated United party, and South Africa went to war as an ally of
Britain.F"
Segregation and Discrimination, I9IO-I939
By 19 I o, Whites had conquered the indigenous inhabitants of South
Africa. The people whom Whites grouped together as the Coloured Peo-
ple, whose ancestors included the indigenous hunting and herding inhabi-
tants of the western part of Southern Africa, owned scarcely any land; but
many Bantu-speaking African farmers were still able to practice subsis-
tence farming, modified but not destroyed by their conquerors, in reserves
proclaimed by the colonial governments or on land they bought from
Whites. 25 JDuring the ensuing years, however, the new state applied a
comprehensive program
of racial segregation and discrimination
and
gained control over the African peasantry. Laws limited land ownership
by Africans to demarcated
reserves, transformed
Blacks who lived in
rural areas outside the African reserves into wage or tenant laborers for
white farmers, and ensured white dominance in the industrial cities and
rural townships. Although the government was unable to enforce these
laws to the letter, they played a crucial role in expanding the capitalist
order under white control and reducing the black population to a pro-