Transkei in the context of "Thabo Mbeki"

A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu homeland, a black homeland, a black state or simply known as a homeland; Afrikaans: Bantoestan) was a territory that the National Party administration of the Union of South Africa (1910–1961) and later the Republic of South Africa (1961–1994) set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia), as a part of its policy of apartheid.

The term, first used in the late 1940s, was coined from Bantu (meaning "people" in some of the Bantu languages) and -stan (a suffix meaning "land" in Persian and other Persian-influenced languages). It subsequently came to be regarded as a disparaging term by some critics of the apartheid-era government's homelands. The Pretoria government established ten Bantustans in South Africa, and ten in neighbouring South West Africa (then under South African administration), for the purpose of concentrating the members of designated ethnic groups, thus making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous as the basis for creating autonomous nation states for South Africa's different black ethnic groups. Under the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, the government stripped black South Africans of their South African citizenship, depriving them of their few remaining political and civil rights in South Africa, and declared them to be citizens of these homelands.

The Eastern Cape (Afrikaans: Oos-Kaap [ˈuəs.kɑːp]; Xhosa: eMpuma-Kapa) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, and its largest city is Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth). Due to its climate and nineteenth-century towns, it is a common location for tourists. It is also known for having been home to many anti-apartheid activists, including Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Chris Hani.

The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km) after the Northern Cape, it was formed in 1994 out of the Xhosa homelands or bantustans of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province. The central and eastern part of the province is the traditional home of the indigenous Xhosa people. In 1820 this area, which was known as the Xhosa Kingdom, began to be settled by Europeans who originally came from England, Scotland and Ireland. Eastern Cape is the only province in South Africa where the number of Black Africans declined from 86.6% to 85.7% since Apartheid ended in 1994.

The Gcaleka House is the Great house of the Xhosa Kingdom in what is now the Eastern Cape. Its royal palace is in the former Transkei and its counterpart in the former Ciskei is the Rharhabe, which is the right hand house of Phalo.

The Gcaleka House was founded by Gcaleka kaPhalo, who became King of the Xhosa nation in 1775 and young brother of Rarabe kaPhalo.

Mount Frere, officially KwaBhaca, is a town located in the Eastern Cape province, previously known as the Transkei region, of South Africa. KwaBhaca is situated between Kokstad and Mthatha along the N2 road about 100 km north east of Mthatha. It is administered by the Alfred Nzo District Municipality and the villages are ruled by the Tribal chief with intermediary borders.

Bophuthatswana (/ˌboʊpuːtətˈswɑːnə/, lit. 'gathering of the Tswana people'), officially the Republic of Bophuthatswana (Tswana: Repaboleki ya Bophuthatswana; Afrikaans: Republiek van Bophuthatswana), and colloquially referred to as the Bop and by outsiders as Jigsawland (In reference to its enclave-ridden borders) was a Bantustan (also known as "Homeland", an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity) that was declared (nominally) independent by the apartheid regime of South Africa in 1977. However, like the other Bantustans of Ciskei, Transkei and Venda, its independence was not recognized by any country other than South Africa.

Bophuthatswana was the second Bantustan to be declared an independent state by the Apartheid government, after Transkei. Its territory constituted a scattered patchwork of enclaves spread across what was then Cape Province, Orange Free State and Transvaal. Its seat of government was Mmabatho, which is now a suburb of Mahikeng.

The Thembu (Xhosa: AbaThembu) are a isiXhosa-speaking nation that inhabited the Kingdom of Thembuland. They were established around the 16th century as one of the federations in what became the apartheid era Transkeian territories. The federation was later annexed by the British Empire shortly after the death of King Sarhili.

According to Xhosa oral tradition, the Hala clan migrated along the east coast of southern Africa before settling in KwaZulu-Natal. The earliest known Thembu ancestor is Chief Mbulali Ka-Nanzinzaba, whose grandson (named uMthembu KaNtongakazi), led his people from what became the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal to Dedesi in the present-day Eastern Cape region of South Africa. The Thembu emerged as a single political entity during the reign of Nxeko, who settled in Dedesi and was awarded chieftainship by King Togu, who later handed him independence to form a new Xhosa state. Famous descendants of Nxeko include members of the royal line of the Xhosa Kingdom and politicians like Nelson Mandela, whose father was a reigning nobleman from a junior branch of the AmaMadiba clan of kings, and Walter Sisulu.