The colonization of South Africa is a long and often brutal contest of power that involves entire groups of people as they clashed for control over land, identity, and freedom at the southern point of the African continent. The country’s history cannot be reduced to a simple tale of conquest.
From the first European sailors who rounded the Cape of Good Hope in search of trade, to the rise and fall of empires and republics, South Africa became a place where colonizers, indigenous peoples, and enslaved communities collided in ways that would reshape the nation forever.
The echoes of colonization can still be felt in South Africa to this day, and it has left behind a jarring (and oftentimes disturbing) legacy. How was this southern nation colonized? And what brutal battles scarred its landscape? Click through this gallery to find out.