Xhosa

Xhosa, formerly spelled Xosa, a group of mostly related peoples living primarily in Eastern Cape province, South Africa. They form part of the southern Nguni and speak mutually intelligible dialects of Xhosa, a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo family. In addition to the Xhosa proper, for whom the entire group was named, the Xhosa clans include the Gcaleka, Rharhabe, Ngqika, Ndlambe, and the Gqunkhwebe (the latter being partly of Khoekhoe origin).

In the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts commonly known as the Cape Frontier Wars engaged the Xhosa against European settlers in the eastern frontier region of Cape Colony. The expanding Xhosa, moving southward in the search for land, encountered not only the hunting-and-gathering Khoisan-speaking peoples (many of whose click sounds they adopted) but also Cape colonists moving northward in search of good farmland. The struggle of the Xhosa peoples against the Cape colonists lasted for a century, but eventually they were defeated and their territories were annexed by the Cape Colony. The victors gave the name Transkei to the Xhosa lands lying east of the Great Kei River; the lands between the Great Fish and Great Kei rivers they called Ciskei.

In 1959 Transkei was administratively created by the South African government as a nonindependent black state (Ciskei followed in 1961) designated for the Xhosa-speaking peoples. Beginning in the 1960s, a high proportion of workers left Transkei as labour migrants, going to Johannesburg and other parts of the country. This migration of workers (for the most part men) seriously disrupted Xhosa family and community life. With the repeal of the apartheid system of racial separation, Transkei and Ciskei became part of the newly created province of Eastern Cape in 1994.

Although the socioeconomic life brought vast change to the Xhosa, many remain agriculturists who keep some sheep and cattle. They are still organized into patrilineal clans. They numbered some 7.3 million in the early 21st century.