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History
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Johannesburg dates back to 1886, when Australian prospector
George Harrison
found the main Witwatersrand gold-bearing reef. Almost immediately, this quiet area of the Transvaal became swamped with diggers from near and far, and a tented city sprang up around the site. The Pretoria authorities were forced to proclaim a township nearby: they chose a useless triangle of land called the Randjeslaagte, which had been left unclaimed by local farmers.
Johan Rissik
, the surveyor, called it Johannesburg, either after himself, Christiaan Johannes Joubert, the chief of mining or ZAR president Paul Johannes Kruger.
Mining magnates such as Cecil Rhodes and Barney Barnato possessed the capital necessary to exploit the world's richest gold reef, and their Chamber of Mines (a self-regulatory body for mine owners, founded in 1889), attempted to bring some order to the digging frenzy, with common policies on recruitment, wages and working conditions. In 1893, due partly to pressure from white workers, and with the approval of the ZAR government, the chamber introduced the colour bar , which excluded black workers from all but manual labour. By 1895, Johannesburg's population had soared to over 100,000, many of whom were not remotely Boer and had no interest in the ZAR's independence. Kruger and the burghers regarded these uitlanders (foreigners) as a potential threat to their political supremacy, and denied them the vote, despite the income they generated for the state's coffers. Legislation was also passed to control the influx of blacks to Johannesburg, and Indians were forcibly moved out of the city into a western location. Before long, large shantytowns filled with blacks and Indians were springing up on the outskirts of Johannesburg. In 1900, during the Anglo-Boer War, Johannesburg fell to the British, who had attempted to annex the gold-rich area for some time. The High Commissioner Sir Alfred Milner imported whiz kids fresh out of Oxford and Cambridge to modernize the city. They lived in Parktown, and commissioned their houses from the celebrated English architect, Sir Herbert Baker . At the same time, more black townships were established, including Sophiatown (1903) in an area previously used for dumping sewage, and Alexandra (1905). Bubonic plague erupted on the northern fringes of the city in 1904, providing justification for the authorities to burn several Indian and African locations, including Newtown , just west of the centre. Meanwhile, white mine workers were becoming unionized, and outbreaks of fighting over pay and working hours were a frequent occurrence. Their poorly paid black counterparts were also mobilizing; their main grievance was the ruling that skilled jobs were the preserve of white workers. Resentments came to a head in the Rand Revolt of 1922, after the Chamber of Mines, anxious to cut costs, decided to allow blacks into the skilled jobs previously held only by whites. White workers were furious: street battles broke out and lasted for four days. Government troops were called in to restore order and over 200 men were killed. Alarmed at the scale of white discontent, Prime Minister Jan Smuts ruled that the colour bar be maintained, and throughout the 1920s, the government passed laws restricting the movement of blacks. During the Thirties, the township of Orlando became established southwest of the city, with accommodation for 80,000 blacks; this was the nucleus around which Soweto evolved. By 1945, 400,000 blacks were living in and around Johannesburg - an increase of 100 percent in a decade. In August 1946, 70,000 African Mineworkers Union members went on strike over working conditions. The government sent police in, and twelve miners were killed and over 1000 injured. In the same year, informal settlers on municipal land attempted a rent boycott, proclaiming "Asinamali!" ("We have no money!"). They were ignored, and non-rent-payers were evicted. Forced removals of black residents from Johannesburg's inner suburbs, particularly from Sophiatown, began in 1955. Thousands were dumped far from the city centre, in the new township of Meadowlands, next to Orlando, and Sophiatown was crassly renamed Triomf (triumph). The ANC established itself as the most important black protest organization during this period, proclaiming the Freedom Charter in Kliptown, Soweto, that year. During the 1950s, kwela , a black urban culture unique to Johannesburg, began to emerge in the townships, and the new marabi jazz was played in illegal drinking houses called shebeens . This was also the era of Drum Magazine , which revealed a sophisticated black Johannesburg culture, and introduced a host of talented journalists, like Can Temba and Casey "Kid" Motsisi, to the city and the world. Mbaqanga music emerged, with its heavy basslines and sensuous melodies capturing the bittersweet essence of life in the old townships. The formation in 1972 of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) rekindled political activism, particularly among Soweto students. On June 16, 1976, student riots erupted in the township, and the unrest spread nationwide. The youth's war against the State escalated in the 1980s, resulting in regular " states of emergency ", during which the armed forces had permission to do anything they liked to contain revolt. Towards the end of the decade, the government relaxed "petty" apartheid, turning a blind eye to the growth of "grey" areas like Hillbrow - white suburbs where blacks were moving in. The three years after Nelson Mandela 's release in 1990 saw widespread political violence in Gauteng right up until the day before elections. However, as elsewhere in South Africa, the election on April 27, 1994 went off peacefully. The ANC won comfortably in Gauteng and, as expected, consolidated their hold on power in 1999, albeit to the sound of grumbling from some elements of their constituency about corruption, unemployment and crime. Just as new faces populate the corridors of political power, so blacks are also making steady inroads into positions of influence in business, finance and industry, where the true power of the province lies. Signs of such changes can be seen almost daily on the pages of the country's business newspapers, and public-private partnerships are now initiating some bold plans for the province, notably the controversial Gautrain Rapid Rail Link, a high-speed train planned for completion in 2006 and designed to link Johannesburg airport, Johannesburg city centre, Sandton and Pretoria Other useful information
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