Eastern Cape (Xhosa)

The frontier, in the specific sense that the word carries in South African history. The Eastern Cape is where the expanding Cape colonial society met the Xhosa chiefdoms of the Ciskei and Transkei, and the collision produced nine wars between 1779 and 1879 - the longest running series of frontier conflicts anywhere in Africa. The Xhosa were agriculturalists with cattle and a dense settled population, which meant they could not simply be displaced, and the wars were fought over grazing, raiding and land rather than settled in a single campaign. The most destructive event was not a battle. In 1856 and 1857, following a prophecy by the girl Nongqawuse that killing the cattle and destroying the grain would drive the British into the sea, a large part of the Xhosa nation did exactly that; tens of thousands starved and the survivors entered colonial labour on the colony's terms. Missionary education concentrated here as nowhere else, at Lovedale and later Fort Hare, the first Black university in southern Africa, which produced Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Robert Sobukwe, Govan Mbeki, Robert Mugabe and Kenneth Kaunda. The African National Congress drew a strikingly large share of its leadership from this one region as a direct result. Apartheid made Ciskei and Transkei into two of the four nominally independent homelands, stripping their residents of South African citizenship. The province remains among the poorest and has been a labour exporter for a century. Mandela was born at Mvezo and buried at Qunu, both in the former Transkei. Fort Hare opened in 1916. Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha, is the province's industrial centre and builds most of the country's cars. Grahamstown was founded as a frontier garrison.

• Existed: 1000 CE – present
• Type: Entity