Apartheid FAQ: When Did Apartheid Start in South Africa?

Question: Apartheid FAQ: When Did Apartheid Start in South Africa?

Answer:

The term Apartheid was introduced during the 1948 as part of the election campaign by DF Malan's Herenigde Nasionale Party (HNP – 'Reunited National Party'). But racial segregation had been in force for many decades in South Africa. In hindsight, there is something of an inevitability in the way the country developed its extreme policies. When the Union of South Africa was formed on 31 May 1910, Afrikaner Nationalists were given a relatively free hand to reorganize the country's franchise according to existing standards of the now-incorporated Boer republics, the Zuid Afrikaansche Repulick (ZAR – South African Republic or Transvaal) and Orange Free State. Non-Whites in the Cape Colony had some representation, but this would prove to be short-lived.

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