 Before the 1950's, this legislation largely applied to African men, and attempts to apply it to women in the 1910s and 1950s were met with significant protests.Pass laws would be one of the dominant features of the country's apartheid system, until it was effectively ended in 1986.The first internal passports in South Africa were introduced on 27 June 1797 by the Earl McCartney in an attempt to prevent natives from entering the Cape Colony.