How did slavery start in South Africa?
Slavery in Africa
The final major transformation of slave relationships came with the inconsistent emancipation efforts starting in the mid-19th century. As European authorities began to take over large parts of inland Africa starting in the 1870s, the colonial policies were often confusing on the issue. For example, even when slavery was deemed illegal, colonial authorities would return escaped slaves to their masters. Slavery persisted in some countries under colonial rule and in some instances it was not until independence that slavery practices were significantly transformed. Anti-colonial struggles in Africa often brought slaves and former slaves together with masters and former masters to fight for independence; however, this cooperation was short-lived and following independence political parties would often form based upon the stratifications of slaves and masters. In some parts of Africa, slavery and slavery-like practices continue to this day and the problem has proven to be difficult for governments and civil society to eliminate.
Efforts by Europeans against slavery and the slave trade began in the late 18th century and had a large impact on slavery in Africa. Portugal was the first country in the continent to abolish slavery in metropolitan Portugal and Portuguese India by a bill issued on 12 February 1761, but this did not affect their colonies of Brazil and Portuguese Africa. France abolished slavery in 1794. However, slavery was again allowed by Napoleon in 1802 and not abolished for good until 1848. In 1803, Denmark-Norway became the first country from Europe to implement a ban on the slave trade. Slavery itself was not banned until 1848. Britain followed in 1807 with the passage of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act by Parliament. This law allowed stiff fines, increasing with the number of slaves transported, for captains of slave ships. Britain followed this with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 which freed all slaves in the British Empire. British pressure on other countries resulted in them agreeing to end the slave trade from Africa. For example, the 1820 U.S. Law on Slave Trade made slave trading piracy, punishable by death. In addition, the Ottoman Empire abolished slave trade from Africa in 1847 under British pressure.
British people
The British arrived in the area which would become the modern-day South Africa during the early 18th century, yet substantial settlement only started end of the 18th century, in the Cape of Good Hope; the British first explored the area for conquests for or related to the Slave Trade. In the late 19th century, the discovery of gold and diamonds further encouraged colonisation of South Africa by the British, and the population of the British-South Africans rose substantially, although there was fierce rivalry between the British and Afrikaners (descendants of Dutch colonists) in the period known as the Boer Wars. When apartheid first started most British-South Africans were mostly keen on keeping and even strengthening its ties with the United Kingdom. The latest census in South Africa showed that there are almost 2 million British-South Africans; they make up about 40% of the total White South African demographic, and the greatest white British ancestry populations in South Africa are in the KwaZulu-Natal province and in the cities of Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.