The History of Apartheid in South Africa Apartheid was a system employed by the dominantly white government that held the people of Africa apart for over half a century, and is only now being uplifted. It literally means ‘apartness’, and that states a lot about the system itself. The basis of it was to classify all the different people of Africa into races - of which there were four basic ones: White (European and Caucasian), Black (any native African), Indian (Pakistani and Indian) and Coloured (A mix of any of the above). Furthermore, these were sub-divided even more. Apartheid officially came into use in 1948, when the