Transkei traders: glimpses of a bygone era
The Transkei (‘Beyond the Kei River’) was the first of apartheid South Africa’s Bantustans. Declared a ‘homeland’ for the Xhosa people, with Umtata (now Mthatha) its capital, it was given nominal autonomy by Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in 1963. In 1976 it was declared independent of South Africa, the only country that acknowledged it as a legal entity. It became part of the Eastern Cape in 1994.
Long before the Europeans arrived, the region was divided into kingdoms, each ruled by its own king around whose ‘Great Place’ his subjects settled.
The population density was low and the people were self-sufficient. There was no need for commerce or trade with the world, whether
