The Early 20th
Century
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| Index |
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| Introduction |
Cape Town had
grown rapidly at the end of the British Era. Her population was very diverse,
and included a significant proportion of 'Coloured' and African peoples as well
as Afrikaans and English speaking whites.
In the years 1910 - 1948 the city continued to grow and took on
a modern appearance, but the influence of new laws and old prejudices led to
discrimination that separated and stratified the population on racial lines.
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| Mother City |
In the new Union
of South Africa, Cape Town was the seat of parliament but real economic and
political power was held in the Transvaal, a thousand miles
north-east.
Through monuments and new institutions Cape Town asserted
itself as a cultural centre of South Africa, the 'Mother City' of the
nation.
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By 1946 the
population of Cape Town had reached approximately half a million, of which
whites were less than half.
Economic hardship and racial discrimination encouraged policies
that favoured whites; this created economic and cultural differences that
steadily split the population along racial lines.
Immigrants, coloured and black groups struggled to define their
identity and political response to this discrimination.
Meanwhile Afrikaner Nationalism grew stronger in Cape Town and across South
Africa, leading to a growing right-wing movement.
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| Growth and Control |
| With increasing
migration and an economic depression, conditions of absolute poverty developed
in the inner-city and in shanty towns on the outskirts of the city.
Poverty and discrimination led to crime, social breakdown
and the spread of disease in the poorest areas. Welfare organisations developed
to try to address these needs.
Urban planners cleared slums and built townships to control
the growing population and divide the city into separate racial areas.
A great land reclamation project dramatically extended Cape
Town's Foreshore and created the modern Docks, but destroyed the city's
waterfront.
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| Conclusion |
| In the early
twentieth century Cape Town lost its political power and its depressed economy
did not keep up with continuous migration to the city.
Racial policies eclipsed liberalism and although parts of
Cape Town were still racially mixed in 1948 and race relations relatively
harmonious, the city was already far along the road of segregation that was to
be enforced across the country by the apartheid regime.
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