🗳 Keeping white control
Africans were about 70 per cent of the population. If they were made citizens of other 'nations', they would have no claim to a vote in South Africa. White rule would be safe for good.
The Growth of Apartheid, 1955-59 » Verwoerd, Vorster and the Bantu Self-Government Act
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 1, Depth study 8, Key topic 2
- How Verwoerd turned apartheid into a plan to divide the land itself
- The causes of the Bantu Self-Government Act (1959) and what it said
- The consequences of the Act for land, homes, work and rights
- How Vorster carried the policy on to Transkei's 'independence' in 1976
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Unlock This CourseVerwoerd and 'separate development'
In August 1958 the prime minister, J.G. Strijdom, died. In September Dr Hendrik Verwoerd took his place. Remember, Verwoerd had been Minister of Native Affairs since 1950. He is often called the 'architect of apartheid'.
Until then, the Nationalists had defended apartheid quite openly as white control. Verwoerd gave it a new name and a new argument. He called it separate development. South Africa, he said, was not one country with a black majority. It was a group of separate 'nations', and each should develop in its own area. In 1961 he described apartheid as 'a policy of good neighbourliness'.
Key terms:
- Separate development: Verwoerd's name for apartheid, claiming each 'nation' would run its own affairs in its own area
- Grand apartheid: the large-scale plan to divide the land and remove Africans' political rights in 'white' South Africa
- Homeland (Bantustan): an area, made from the reserves, set aside as the official 'home' of one African language group
- Black spot: land owned by Africans inside an area the government had marked as white
Causes of the Bantu Self-Government Act, 1959
👥 Divide and rule
The ANC said Africans were one people. Splitting them into separate groups by language would weaken that unity. It also made whites look like the largest single 'nation'.
🌍 Criticism from abroad
European empires in Africa were ending. Ghana became independent in 1957. Open white rule was getting harder to defend, so Verwoerd claimed South Africa was also giving Africans freedom, in their own areas.
📊 The Tomlinson Commission
This government commission reported in the mid-1950s that the reserves were too poor and crowded to support their people. It asked for about £104 million over ten years and for white-owned factories inside them. Verwoerd kept the idea of developing the reserves but refused most of the money and banned white firms from investing there.
What the Act said
Its full name was the Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act.
- Africans were declared to be eight separate 'national units', based on language, such as Xhosa, Zulu and Tswana. In time there were ten homelands.
- Each unit would have a homeland, built from the existing reserves. It would move by stages towards governing itself, led by the government-approved chiefs.
- A white Commissioner-General was appointed for each unit to link it to the government.
- The few white MPs and senators who had spoken for Africans in Parliament since 1936 were removed in 1960. Africans now had no voice at all in Parliament.
Consequences of the Act
🗺 Land and poverty
The homelands covered only about 13 per cent of South Africa. Most were scattered pieces of land, not single blocks. The cities, mines, ports and best farmland all stayed in 'white' South Africa. With few jobs at home, men still had to leave as migrant workers, while women, children and the old were left behind in poverty.
🏠 Forced removals
Between 1960 and 1983 about 3.5 million people were moved by the government. Many were sent to the homelands: families cleared from black spots, and people in the towns who were no longer wanted as workers. Some were left in bare resettlement camps with little water, work or schooling.
🏛 Homeland governments
Transkei, a Xhosa homeland, was the first to get self-government, in 1963, with Chief Kaiser Matanzima as chief minister. Chiefs gained salaries and power, so some Africans now had a stake in the system. But South Africa kept control of defence, foreign affairs and security.
Did it work? Not as Verwoerd hoped. White-owned factories, farms and mines still needed black workers, so the number of Africans living in the towns kept growing. The government tried placing 'border industries' on the edges of the homelands, but they created few jobs. Grand apartheid never achieved real separation. It did, however, give the government a reason to treat every African in a city as a visitor.
Vorster carries the policy on
On 6 September 1966 Verwoerd was stabbed to death in Parliament by a parliamentary messenger. The Minister of Justice, B.J. Vorster, became prime minister and held the post until 1978. He pushed the homelands policy to its end point.
- Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act (1970): every African was made a citizen of a homeland, including people born in a city who had never seen it. The aim was that, one day, there would be no black South African citizens at all.
- A law of 1971 let the government give self-government to any homeland.
- Transkei, 26 October 1976: Transkei became the first 'independent' homeland, with Matanzima as prime minister. Its people lost their South African citizenship. The United Nations called the independence invalid, and no country except South Africa recognised it. Bophuthatswana followed in 1977.
Not every homeland leader went along. Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi of KwaZulu refused to take 'independence'. Why does this matter? The world's refusal to recognise Transkei showed that separate development had failed in one of its main aims: to make apartheid acceptable abroad.
Common mistakes
Don't write that the homelands were free countries. Always put 'independent' in inverted commas and say who refused to recognise it. And don't mix up the two laws: the 1959 Act set up the homelands, the 1970 Act took away citizenship.
Exam-style question
'In the years 1955-59, the most significant development in apartheid was the Bantu Self-Government Act (1959).'
How far do you agree? Explain your answer.
You may use the following in your answer:
- the Bantu Self-Government Act (1959)
- petty apartheid
You must also use information of your own. [16 marks]
Model answer
I mostly agree. The Act changed the whole direction of apartheid, although other developments were felt more sharply at the time.
The Bantu Self-Government Act was highly significant because it began grand apartheid. It declared Africans to be eight 'national units', each with a homeland made from the reserves, and it removed the white MPs who had represented Africans in Parliament. This turned apartheid from separation inside one country into a plan to divide the country itself. Its results were long-lasting: about 3.5 million people were moved between 1960 and 1983, and Vorster built on it with the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act (1970) and Transkei's 'independence' in 1976.
However, petty apartheid was more significant in daily life in these years. Separate carriages, entrances, benches and even cemeteries humiliated black South Africans many times a day. About 65,000 people were removed from Sophiatown from 1955, and job reservation under the Industrial Conciliation Act (1956) held black workers in low-paid jobs. From 1956 reference books were issued to African women too. In 1959 the Act was still mostly a plan, while petty apartheid was already everywhere.
Changes in education were also significant. From 1955 Bantu Education was put into practice with fixed state funding and double sessions of about three hours a day, so a whole generation of African children was prepared only for unskilled work. The Extension of University Education Act (1959) then shut black students out of the open universities. These changes limited the future of millions of young people.
Overall, I agree to a large extent. If significance is judged by impact at the time, petty apartheid and Bantu Education mattered more, because they shaped every day of people's lives in the 1950s. But if it is judged by how far a development changed apartheid and how long its effects lasted, the Bantu Self-Government Act was the most significant. It gave the government its reason to deny Africans any political rights in South Africa, and it led to mass removals and the loss of citizenship. The other developments made life harder inside South Africa. This Act tried to put Africans outside it altogether.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers three aspects (one not in the bullets), argues both sides with precise facts, and reaches a judgement using stated criteria: impact at the time against lasting change.
Exam tip
An answer that uses only the two bullets cannot reach the top level, so plan a third aspect before you write. Here, education is the obvious one. Decide what 'significant' means before you start, and use that test in your conclusion. For more on this question type, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 1 Question (c): The 16-Mark How Far Do You Agree Essay.