Nelson Mandela: The Official Exhibition Learning Resources TIMELINE Timeline: an overview of Some ideas for using the Timeline: • Students create a concurrent timeline along South African modern history • Students select highlights to help present a a personally-relevant historical theme such three-minute overview of Nelson Mandela. as their local town or city, their family, and key events in Nelson the rights of women in Britain, sport, arts, • Students choose one event, research it, then Mandela’s life literature, science. What was happening in all students present what they’ve found and the wider world at this time? Are there any how it relates to Nelson Mandela to build an connections between students’ lives and This timeline can be used to introduce students overall picture. to Nelson Mandela and the Freedom Struggle Nelson Mandela? against apartheid. It will help to prepare • Students use the Timeline to explore cause • Students can refer to the Timeline to help students for a visit to Nelson Mandela: and consequence. They highlight an event organise their thinking and present their The Official Exhibition, and to consolidate and then find an event or action that led to findings in enquiries, debates and other learning and organise their findings back in it, and another which happened because activities inspired by the exhibition. the classroom. of it. They add more detail and further causes and consequences during their exhibition visit. Timeline key: • Students categorise or tag events in the “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and Timeline using their own headings such as Origins of South Africa free society in which all persons live together in ‘resistance’, ‘politics’, ‘women’. What other harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an events can they find in the exhibition to add ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. to their categories? The rise of apartheid — But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am Nelson Mandela’s early life • A small number of events have been prepared to die.” highlighted as key moments in Nelson Nelson Mandela, Rivonia Trial, 1964 Apartheid and resistance — Mandela’s life and the Struggle against Nelson Mandela and the ANC apartheid. Students use their exhibition visit to choose exactly five more to also Nelson Mandela and the highlight. They explain their choices. dismantling of apartheid Are they from the existing Timeline or did they add new ones found in the exhibition? Key events in Nelson Mandela’s life Can the whole class agree on a top ten? 1 Nelson Mandela: The Official Exhibition Learning Resources TIMELINE The Great Trek begins Dutch-speaking settlers migrate from the Cape Colony into the interior of South Africa, away from the boundaries of the British colony. These Europeans encounter what ‘Voortrekkers’, descended from is now South Africa for the Dutch, German and French first time settlers come to be known The Khoisan are established collectively as Afrikaners or as the dominant power in the Boers (‘farmers’). They seize Southern and South-Western strongholds from various Cape regions. Nguni and The British occupy the African chiefdoms, driving Sotho speaking groups begin out indigenous peoples and Cape Colony (the Cape colonizing the Cape region. forming two republics in the Portuguese and, later, English of Good Hope) for the northern part of today’s and Dutch ships begin to map first time South Africa: the Orange Free Diamonds are discovered its coastline and trade with Formal possession of the State and the South African in one of the Afrikaner Africans in what is now colony by the British takes Republic (also known as the republics, the Orange Table Bay. place in 1814. Transvaal Republic). Free State Late 1400s–1500s 1600s 1795 1820 c. 1835–40 1838 1867 1880 Europeans settle in South Around 4,000 British The Voortrekkers draw The Anglo-Boer Africa for the first time settlers arrive up constitutions for their Wars begin They begin to colonize and They are encouraged to migrate new states Fighting breaks out when the trade with the Khoisan peoples to what is now the Eastern These entrench the legal British attempt, and eventually at the Cape. The first Khoisan- Cape, to increase the size of superiority of White people succeed, in annexing the two Dutch war is fought. Chiefdoms the White settler population. over Black people. Afrikaner republics, escalating begin to strengthen, and the They are used by the colonial into full-scale war. These Nguni and Sotho groups begin authorities as a buffer against conflicts have many names, splitting into the groups such as the indigenous people on but become known in Britain Zulu and Xhosa we know today. whose land they are settled. as the Boer Wars. The conflict leads to a series of so-called ‘frontier wars’ between the European settlers and the Xhosa people. 2 Nelson Mandela: The Official Exhibition Learning Resources TIMELINE The Urban Areas Native Pass Act Louis Botha is the first Black Africans seeking work Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa Gold is discovered in in cities must obtain a permit, allowing them just six days Racial segregation becomes the Witwatersrand in to find a job. ‘Pass Laws’ later official policy. Botha introduces the Afrikaner-controlled become a dominant feature of laws that reserve certain Austria-Hungary declares Transvaal the apartheid system, as well occupations for White workers war on Serbia signalling Migrants from all over the as resistance to it. They apply and force Black South Africans the start of the First world flock to the area. mainly to men until the 1950s. to live in rural ‘reserves’. World War 1886 1896 1909 1910 1912 1914 1918 Johannesburg becomes South Africa is united for The South African Native Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela the largest city in the first time into a single National Congress (later is born on 18 July South Africa state known as the Union the ANC) is formed He is born in Mveso, a rural The ‘Randlords’ (mining bosses) of South Africa Its membership remains village in what is now the and authorities segregate This is largely due to Britain exclusively male until women Eastern Cape, into the Madiba different peoples within the forcing the Transvaal and the are allowed to join in 1943. clan of the Thembu people. city aiming to prevent ‘racial Orange Free State into a union He spends his early life in mixing’. Poverty, overcrowding with the two British colonies, Mveso and Qunu. Madiba later and disease is rife. Cape Colony and Natal. Long- becomes his preferred name. standing tensions between Afrikaans-speaking and English- The armistice is signed speaking White South Africans between the Allies and remain. Although a dominion Germany, bringing the of the British Empire, this new First World War to an end state is self-governing. 3 Nelson Mandela: The Official Exhibition Learning Resources TIMELINE The Rand Revolt An uprising by White miners Nelson Mandela’s in the Witwatersrand leads father dies to a general strike and open revolution. They protest against Rolihlahla Mandela is Nelson Mandela moves the proposal to replace the given the English name ‘colour bar’ and increase to the ‘Great Place’ of the ratio of Black to White ‘Nelson’ by his primary Mqhekezweni Wartime statesman mineworkers, which could school teacher Here he is entrusted to Thembu Field Marshal J.C. Smuts threaten their jobs. The revolt This is common practice and an Regent King Jongintaba becomes Prime Minister is brutally supressed by the indication of the British colonial Dalindyebo. It is years before of South Africa Smuts government. influences of the time. he sees his mother again. 1919 1921 1922 1924 1925 1929 1930 1931 The Communist Party of The National Party’s The Great The African National South Africa is formed J.B.M. Hertzog becomes Depression begins Congress Women’s They help organise protests Prime Minister The Wall Street Stock Exchange League is founded such as bus boycotts, in He introduces his ‘Civilised in New York collapses, plunging It is integrated with the ANC in opposition to segregation and Labour’ policy, excluding Black the global economy into 1943 when women are allowed increasing oppression of Black Africans from trade unions crisis, including South Africa. to join for the first time. Africans. Many of their leaders and protecting the wages and Thousands of South Africans and members are White. occupations of White workers. lose their jobs – Black Africans He also replaces Dutch with are usually among the first Afrikaans as the second official – and experience extreme language (after English). poverty, especially in rural areas. This is worsened by a devastating drought. Pass laws are tightened. 4 Nelson Mandela: The Official Exhibition Learning Resources TIMELINE Nelson Mandela undergoes the Thembu initiation ceremony This is the traditional rite- of-passage from boyhood to manhood, including the ulwaluko circumcision ceremony. D.F. Malan forms the Purified National Party Believing in the racial superiority of Afrikaner people, Nelson Mandela begins he leads the movement to studies for a Bachelor Nelson Mandela is promote Afrikaner nationalism of Arts degree at the expelled from university Nelson Mandela starts and make South Africa a University College of after becoming involved attending African National ‘White man’s land’. Fort Hare in a student protest Congress meetings 1934 1936 1939 1940 1941 1942 1944 ‘Native’ Acts Adolf Hitler invades Nelson Mandela moves Nelson Mandela co-founds Prime Minister Hertzog Poland sparking the to Johannesburg the African National proposes ‘Native’ legislation outbreak of the Second Regent Dalindyebo arranges Congress Youth League which restricts the voting World War marriages for his son Justice (ANCYL) rights of Black Africans, while The South African government and for Nelson Mandela, but His co-founders are Ashby Mda, making it easier for White and is divided in response.