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Xhosa people

Bantu ethnic group

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The Xhosa people are descendants of Nguni clans who settled in the southeastern part of Southern Africa displacing the original inhabitants, the Khoisan. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Xhosa people have inhabited the area since the 7th century.

Presently, over ten million Xhosa-speaking people are distributed across Southern Africa. In 1994 the self-governing bantustans of Transkei and Ciskei were incorporated into South Africa, becoming the Eastern Cape province.

As of 2003, the majority of Xhosa speakers, approximately 19.8 million, lived in the Eastern Cape, followed by the Western Cape (approximately 1 million), Gauteng (971,045), the Free State (546,192), KwaZulu-Natal (219,826), North West (214,461), Mpumalanga (46,553), the Northern Cape (51,228), and Limpopo (14,225).

There is a small but significant Xhosa-speaking (Mfengu) community in Zimbabwe, and their language, isiXhosa, is recognized as an official national language. This community was brought by Cecil John Rhodes for cheap labour in Rhodesian mines in early 20th century.

History

Some archaeological evidence has been discovered that suggests that Xhosa-speaking people have lived in the Eastern Cape area since at least the 7th century. The modern Xhosa are Nguni people.

Origins

The Xhosa people are descendants of the ancestors of Ngunis. Xhosa oral history also mentions a historical settlement called 'Eluhlangeni' believed to have been in East Africa in which the Ngunis lived in for some time before continuing with their migration.

Upon crossing mountains and rivers in South Africa, these farm-working agropastoralists brought their cattle and goats with them and absorbed the weaker San groups in the region. They also brought weapons, notably their assegais and their shields and would form groups or chiefdoms and kingdoms mainly in what is now the Eastern Cape.

Kingdom

According 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 amaMpondomise Kingdom. Tshawe and his army then incorporated formerly independent Nguni clans into the Xhosa Kingdom. Khoekhoe tribes were incorporated, including the Inqua, the Giqwa, and the amaNgqosini (both Khoi and Sotho origin).

Formerly independent clans (many of Khoekhoe origin) and chiefdoms in the region became tributary to the amaTshawe and spoke isiXhosa as their primary language.

The Xhosa polity achieved political ascendancy over most of the Cape Khoe extending to the very fringes of the Cape Peninsula.

With the settlement of the Cape by Europeans in 1652, the native Khoisan 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. This sparked off the Cape frontier wars, which represent some of the longest military resistance to colonialism.

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. However, these populations would also continually serve as labour inside the Cape Colony. These native reserves would be re-branded "homelands" in the 20th century and would only be fully dismantled in 1994, with populations moving back into the wider Cape.

In the 19th century, the Xhosas fought and repulsed many tribes that were escaping the Zulus in the Colony of Natal, this was during the historical mfecane. Those who were accepted were assimilated into the Xhosa cultural way of life and followed Xhosa traditions. The Xhosas called these various tribes AmaMfengu, meaning wanderers, and were made up of clans such as the amaBhaca, amaBhele, amaHlubi, amaZizi and Rhadebe. To this day, the descendants of the amaMfengu are part of the Xhosa people and they speak isiXhosa and practice the Xhosa culture.

Xhosa unity and ability to fight off colonial encroachment was to be weakened by the famines and political divisions that followed the cattle-killing movement of 1856–1858. Historians now view this movement as a millennialist response, both directly to a lung disease spreading among Xhosa cattle at the time, and less directly to the stress to Xhosa society caused by the continuing loss of their territory and autonomy.

Some historians argue that this early absorption into the wage economy is the ultimate origin of the long history of trade union membership and political leadership among Xhosa people. That history manifests itself today in high degrees of Xhosa representation in the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), South Africa's ruling political party in the government.

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