Efforts have been made in recent years to understand the institution of apartheid in South Africa. From the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to the general study of the history of South Africa, many studies have been dedicated to studying the effects of apartheid and the atrocities committed in the post-World War II period. However, one topic remains largely unstudied: the origins of the vast apartheid structure established by the Herenigde (United) National Party (HNP) in the late 1940s and early 1950s, different and broader than the program than any other nation. Apartheid has long existed in most countries, but its persistence is unique to South Africa. Although most African nations had similar programs of racial discrimination during the colonial period, during the postcolonial era, only South Africa was able to establish South Africa's apartheid system due to the large white settler population in South Africa and their dedication to the status of South Africa over any colonial power. From the beginning of colonization in South Africa, white settlers wanted to create a separate land, away from black South Africans, for both moral and economic reasons. Apartheid laws, such as the passing of laws banning marriage between blacks and whites, were supported by white settlers in order to ensure a separate existence from blacks and maintain their moral purity. Afrikaners believed in their moral superiority over other South Africans and believed that they were the true South Africans. Because of this perceived moral superiority, Afrikaners believed they had to create a new and better world for themselves by segregating black South Africans into their personal tribes and ancestral lands. As early as 1839, Afri...... middle of paper...... Paris: Octagon Books, 1977.Cooper, Frederick. Africa since 1940: the past of the present (new approaches to African history). New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Herbst, Jeffrey. "Chapter Three: Europeans and the African Problem". In states and power in Africa. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. 53-96. Klein, Martin and Richard Roberts. “Building Colonial States and the Emerging Political Economies of Colonial Rule, 1880–1914.” Into the unknown. N/A: Unpublished, 2010. Moodie, T. Dunbar. The Rise of Afrikaner Rule: Power, Apartheid, and Afrikaner Civil Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Yudelman, David. The emergence of modern South Africa: State, capital and the incorporation of organized labor in the South African goldfields, 1902-1939 (Contributions to comparative colonial studies). New York: Greenwood Press, 1983.