South Africa was an important stop on the way to India. In 1652 the Dutch-East India Company founded a maintenance station in Table Bay. The first settlers of the Dutch Cape colony were nomadic Boers or settled Afrikaans, both groups were white with European origins. They suppressed the original inhabitants, who they called Hottentots. The local tribes were subjected to their rule and were used as cheap labor like the slaves in North Africa. 

Great Britain recognized the Cape colony in 1806. As increasing numbers of British settlers arrived and the British government banned slavery in 1833, the Boers moved inland and founded the states of Transvaal and the Orange Free State. Both states were contested and by 1861 and 1877-81 respectively were under British control. Their independence was recognized following this.

For laborers to leave their job, they had to pay a tax of three pounds. None of them were in a position to raise this kind of money on their pitiful wages. Most of them worked in mines and lived in Ghettos, which were so filthy that it was here that the plague broke out. Their position was only slightly better than that of slaves.

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