Bantu homelands

Bantu homelands (informal name Bantustans) The former “homelands” reserved for Black Africans in the Republic of South Africa, regarded by many as the clearest manifestation of APARTHEID. Ten Bantu homelands were created by the Bantu Self-Government Act of 1959. The Black population was assigned to a homeland according to ethnic or linguistic group despite the fact that only 40% actually lived in these areas. The Bantu Homelands Constitution Act (1971) established them as Separate Development Self-Governing Areas and envisaged eventual “independence”. This was in fact granted to four of the homelands: Transkei, chiefly Xhosa people, in 1976; Bophuthatswana, chiefly Tswana, in 1977; Venda in 1979; and Ciskei in 1981. The populations of these homelands automatically lost their South African citizenship, becoming citizens of the new states. Most of these states were made up of scattered areas of poor-quality land and were not viable as independent countries; for this reason, and because most of their citizens were South African residents, they were only recognized by South Africa itself. Each of the four began with a democratic constitution, but were inherently unstable. There were military coups and counter-coups in all of them during the 1980s. The Bantu homelands were abolished following South Africa's adoption of a multiracial constitution in 1994 and South African nationality was restored to all their citizens.