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However these populations would also continually serve as the labour inside the Cape Colony. The historical end-result would be the containment of large portions of the Cape native population into native reserves in the Easternmost part of the Cape. This sparked off the Cape frontier wars, which represent some of the longest military resistance to colonialism.

With the settlement of the Cape by Europeans in 1652, the native populations were gradually pushed eastwards, until, in the 1700s, the borders of the Cape Colony had pushed populations far enough east (with relations between colonist and native significantly broken down) to create a critical mass of hostile population to resist the colonists in the Eastern Cape. The Xhosa polity achieved political ascendancy over most of the Cape Khoi extending to the very fringes of the Cape Peninsula. Xhosa identity became political, rather than narrow ethnic, and anyone who accepted the House of Tshawe as rulers became Xhosa.

Also Khoikhoi tribes were incorporated, these include the Inqua, the Giqwa and the amaNgqosini (both khoi and sotho origin).įormerly independent clans (many of khoi origin) and chiefdoms in the region became tributary to the amaTshawe and spoke isiXhosa as their main language. Tshawe and his army then incorporated formerly independent Nguni clans into the Xhosa Kingdom. Īccording to oral tradition, the modern Xhosa Kingdom was founded somewhere before the 15th century by Tshawe (whom the royal clan of the Xhosas is named after) who overthrew his brother Cirha (assisted by his brother Jwarha) with the help of the amaNgwevu clan of the Mpondomise state. This community is based on a diaspora that moved up from the Cape in South Africa upon the setting up of Rhodesia with Cecil Rhodes. There is a small but significant Xhosa ( Mfengu) community in Zimbabwe, and their language, isiXhosa, is recognised as a national language.

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Many Xhosa live in Cape Town ( eKapa in Xhosa), East London ( eMonti), and Port Elizabeth ( e-Bhayi).Īs of 2003, the majority of Xhosa speakers, approximately 5.3 million, lived in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 2 million), Gauteng (671,045), the Free State (246,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225). The pre-1994 apartheid system of Bantustans suspended the Xhosa South African citizenship, but assigned them to have self-governing 'homelands' (native reserves), namely Transkei and Ciskei, now both a part of the Eastern Cape Province where most Xhosa remain. Presently, approximately eight million Xhosa people are distributed across the country, and the Xhosa language is South Africa's second-most-populous home language, after the Zulu. They are the second largest race group in Southern Africa and are native speakers of the IsiXhosa language. The Xhosa people, or Xhosa-speaking people ( / ˈ k ɔː s ə, ˈ k oʊ s ə/ Xhosa pronunciation: ( listen)) are a Nguni- affiliated ethnic group whose traditional homeland is primarily the Cape Provinces of South Africa. Traditional African religions, Christianity Xhosa (many also speak Zulu, English, and/or Afrikaans)