International Business of Africa
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South Africa South Africa is currently the most advanced nation on the entire continent of Africa. By exploring the rich history of South Africa, including its most prominent historical figure Nelson Mandela; as well as the geography, government, demographics and the economic and financial sectors; one can understand why South Africa is the most advanced nation on the continent. South Africa has been populated for millions of years. In one of South Africa’s provinces, Gauteng, there is a complex of limestone caves where fossilized evidence of humans dating back to three and half million years ago has been found which gives this area the nickname the, “Cradle of Humankind.” The indigenous people of South Africa were hunter gatherers or farmers and by 300 AD the Bantu speaking majority began to settle south of the Limpopo River joining the Khoikoi and San people who had been living there for thousands of years. By the 1400s, the Zulu and Xhosa tribes established large and powerful kingdoms in the South Africa region. In the 1480s, European explorers began to arrive in the area to collect supplies. The arrival of the Europeans and their eventual system of Apartheid is what spawned the rise of Nelson Mandela.
Apartheid’s roots begin with the arrival of the English and the Dutch in the sixteenth century. The Europeans had come to South Africa to establish a new home and way of life. With them, they brought weapons, technology, education, and Catholicism. They had discovered gold and diamonds which became their main export to the rest of the world. The Europeans were able to overpower the native Africans with their weapons resulting in white dominance. In the twentieth century, after World War Two, there was a black liberation movement calling for equality for blacks in South Africa. The Afrikaners, referring to