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History
The farm where gold was first discovered in 1886.
The Central Business District of Johannesburg around 1931.History of
Johannesburg
The region surrounding Johannesburg was inhabited by small numbers of Bushmen
and the Bantu people. When Europeans arrived in the area, small numbers of Boers
and British started farms, but there was no major European settlement until the
1880s, when gold was discovered in the region, triggering a gold rush.
Gold was initially discovered to the east of present-day Johannesburg, in
Barberton. Gold prospectors soon discovered that there were even richer gold
reefs in the Witwatersrand. Gold was discovered at Langlaagte, Johannesburg in
1886.
Johannesburg was initially a suburb of Pretoria as one had to get permission
from the government in Pretoria to build a house in Johannesburg. The town was
much the same as any small prospecting settlement, but, as word spread, people
flocked to the area from all other regions of the country, as well as from North
America, the United Kingdom, and the rest of Europe. As the value of control of
the land increased, tensions developed between the Boer government in Pretoria
and the British, culminating in the Second Anglo-Boer War. The Boers lost the
war and control of the area was ceded to the British. Controversy surrounds the
origin of the name, as there were any number of people with the name "Johannes"
who were intimately involved in the early history of the place. Two of the prime
candidates are the principal clerk attached to the office of the surveyor
general, Johannes Rissik, and Christiaan Johannes Joubert, member of the
Volksraad and the Republic's chief of mining.
The 1910 declaration of the Union of South Africa paved the way for a more
organised mining structure. Later, the South African government instituted a
harsh racial system whereby blacks and Indians were heavily taxed, barred from
holding skilled jobs, and consequently forced to work as migrant labour on
Johannesburg's growing crop of gold mines.
The South African government then instituted a system of forced removals, moving
the population of non-European descent into specified areas. It is this system
that created the sprawling shantytown of Soweto (South Western Townships), one
of the areas where blacks were forced to live during the apartheid era. Nelson
Mandela spent many years living in Soweto and his Soweto home in Orlando is
currently a major tourist attraction.
Large-scale violence broke out in 1976 when the Soweto Students' Representative
Council organized protests against the use of Afrikaans, considered to be the
language of the oppressors, as the primary language of instruction in black
schools. Police shot into a peaceful student march in Soweto. 1000 people died
protesting the apartheid system, in the following 12 months. One of the most
famous victims of the massacre, Hector Pieterson, is commemorated with a large
Museum dedicated to his memory, in Soweto.
The regulations of apartheid were abandoned in February 1990, and, since the
1994 elections, Johannesburg has been free of discriminatory laws. The black
townships have been integrated into the municipal government system, and, to
some extent, the suburbs have become multiracial. However, there has been a
large-scale migration of businesses and commerce away from the Central Business
District and the southern suburbs, in favour of the more affluent northern
suburbs. This was fueled by a rise in the crime rate, serious traffic
congestion, inadequate public transport, and a more favourable tax environment
for landlords in the northern suburbs prior to the integration of the city.
Currently the Johannesburg Metropolitan Council is implementing a large scale
Inner City Revival project, leading to many business moving back to the inner
city.
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