Identity area
Type of entity
Authorized form of name
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Surrounded by the Cape Province (in the portion that is now Eastern Cape) of South Africa, the black "homeland" of Ciskei consisted of two parcels of land, the larger one bordering the Indian Ocean to the southeast.
Under acts of the South African Parliament, land was set aside for blacks in pseudoindependent territories (originally called Bantustans), allegedly to allow blacks self-government and cultural preservation. Ciskei was designated for Xhosa-speaking people. In 1961, Ciskei became a separate administrative territory and in 1972 was declared "self-governing. Following the 1973 Election Lennox L Sebe replaced Thandatha Jongilizwe Mabandla as Chief Minster. Sebe remained Chief Minster until 1981, and was President from 1981-1990. During the 1970s Xhosa-speaking people were relocated to the homeland.
In 1981, Ciskei became the fourth homeland to be granted "independence and subsequently its residents' South African citizenship was revoked. Ciskei, like all of the homelands, was not recognized as an independent nation by the international community. Even after the legal foundation of apartheid was largely struck down in 1991-92, the Ciskei government remained closely aligned with the South African government. In September 1992, Ciskei police fired on a crowd of African National Congress demonstrators, killing 28 and wounding several hundred. South Africa took control of Ciskei in early 1994 after a coup by local police, and later that year, Ciskei and the other homelands were reincorporated into South Africa after the nation's first all-race elections.