Bantu Tribe

'Bantu' is a generic name covering many black tribes. Bantu migration into South Africa began in the 3rd century AD with the occupation of the fertile eastern and coastal stretches of the country, where they came into contact with the Khoikhoi.

The Xhosa people are a Bantu tribe that settled along the south coast a thousand kilometers east of Cape Town. They encountered European and English settlers along their western border, the Great Fish River, from the seventeenth century onwards. Their ability to resist Afrikaners encouraged the Great Trek away from the area.

Labour migration of Xhosa to Cape Town began in the mid-eighteenth century and measures were taken to control the Black population. Nevertheless migration continued in the twentieth century and a township was created at Langa.

In the early twentieth century black people became more politicised in the face of discrimination.

This discrimination became systematic and ruthless under the apartheid system, against which a long struggle ensued until liberation was achieved in the new South Africa.

*Taken from Capetown Connected.