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The Republic of South Africa, unified and integrated, dates from 1994.  Before the arrival of Europeans, much of the native population was tribal and migratory.  Beginning in the late 1400s Europeans began interacting with the native populations when Portuguese traders began using the Cape of Good Hope as a trading station.  In the mid-1600s Dutch settlers began arriving in large numbers, along with French Huguenot refugees, who together with settlers from Flanders and Germany would eventually comprise the speakers of the Dutch-based language known as Afrikaans. This group of people would eventually be given the name “Boers” (farmers).  While European populations maintained the ties to maritime trading, they also pursued farming and mining as they moved further inland.  South Africa’s legal development included both tribal customary law from the native African settlers, as well as Roman and civil law from the Dutch, French, and other continental European settlers.     

As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, a British presence was established in South Africa, eventually incorporating Cape Town and its surrounding region as the Cape Colony in 1806.  This marked the beginnings of the influence of the English common law in the region.  The disaffected Boer populations began pushing inland, and would eventually establish what were known as the “Boer Republics.”  The British and Boer Republics eventually fought the Boer Wars at the close of the 19^th century.  This struggle was partly a fight to control South Africa’s great mineral wealth in the Boer Republics, and partly a British geo-strategic war. British victory did not come easily, but was accomplished by 1902. South Africa then became, step by step, a dominion of the British Empire. 

European emigration continued throughout this period.  An increase in Scottish immigrants would have a marked effect on the legal culture as  Scots law, which included elements of civil law, added its own influence to the unique South African amalgam of civil and common law.  These Scots were joined in the latter half of the 19^th century and the early 20^th by members of the Indian commercial class, who were likewise already familiar with English common law.     

The 1913 Native Lands Act marked the beginning of the apartheid ("apartness") system in South Africa. Following World War II the Afrikaner population, which dominated government,  fully implemented the apartheid system which prevailed, with few changes, until the late 1980s.  Following discussions and negotiations between the Afrikaner government and the leaders of the anti-apartheid movement,  the first free elections of all adult South Africans in 1994 marked the end of the dismantling of apartheid. The Constitutional Court approved what is widely regarded as one of the most progressive constitutions in the world in 1996.  One unique aspect of the apartheid’s demise was the operation of “Truth and Reconciliation” tribunals in South Africa.

Jason Emmanuel authored this Research Guide as part of the course requirements for the fall 2012 Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Advanced Legal Research course.  Mr. Emmanuel graduated from the University of Iowa College of Law in May 2014.

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