Translated from the Afrikaans meaning 'apartness', apartheid was the ideology supported by the National Party (NP) government and was introduced in South Africa in 1948. Apartheid called for the separate development of the different racial groups in South Africa. On paper it appeared to call for equal development and freedom of cultural expression, but the way it was implemented made this impossible. Apartheid made laws forced the different racial groups to live separately and develop separately, and grossly unequally too. It tried to stop all inter-marriage and social integration between racial groups. During apartheid, to have a friendship with someone of a different race generally brought suspicion upon you, or worse. More than this, apartheid was a social system which severely disadvantaged the majority of the population, simply because they did not share the skin colour of the rulers. Many were kept just above destitution because they were 'non-white'.

In basic principles, apartheid did not differ that much from the policy of segregation of the South African governments existing before the Afrikaner Nationalist Party came to power in 1948. The main difference is that apartheid made segregation part of the law. Apartheid cruelly and forcibly separated people, and had a fearsome state apparatus to punish those who disagreed. Another reason why apartheid was seen as much worse than segregation, was that apartheid was introduced in a period when other countries were moving away from racist policies. Before World War Two the Western world was not as critical of racial discrimination, and Africa was colonized in this period. The Second World War highlighted the problems of racism, making the world turn away from such policies and encouraging demands for decolonization. It was during this period that South Africa introduced the more rigid racial policy of apartheid.

People often wonder why such a policy was introduced and why it had so much support. Various reasons can be given for apartheid, although they are all closely linked. The main reasons lie in ideas of racial superiority and fear. Across the world, racism is influenced by the idea that one race must be superior to another. Such ideas are found in all population groups. The other main reason for apartheid was fear, as in South Africa the white people are in the minority, and many were worried they would lose their jobs, culture and language. This is obviously not a justification for apartheid, but explains how people were thinking.

A quick note: yes, the nature of segregation did differ between the colonies that would make up South Africa before 1910. For example, the old Boer Republics retained laws that prohibited black ownership of property or franchise (not unchallenged, though--see the Tsewu case of 1905), and otherwise restricted movement in more severe ways than was the case in the Cape Colony. In the Cape, there were thousands of black voters on the rolls; in Natal there was one (I'm still trying to figure out who that was); but in the Free State and Transvaal there were zero. Part of the sticking point of Union was what would be done with the so-called 'native problem,' whether it would bend the direction of the Cape (segregationist but with an avenue to representation) or the more deliberate reserve policies of the other colonies. It went the latter way, though the last Cape black voters were only removed from the national rolls under the 1936 Land and Administration Act--which shows that until the advent of apartheid, national standards were anything but really uniform. Saul Dubow's books on the segregation era are really essential reading for that era, but before 1910 the Cambridge History of South Africa is still fairly authoritative, as is the last edition (2000) of Davenport/Saunders, South Africa: A Modern History.

By the way, that tightening of controls--uneven though it was--was a major reason why Botswana, Swaziland, and Lesotho--all protectorates under a devolved model of indirect rule, without significant settler populations--fought very hard to avoid incorporation into South Africa, even threatening open revolt. They were, of course, successful in this.