A Bantustan (also known as a Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state, or simply homeland; Afrikaans: Bantoestan) was an area set aside by the National Party administration of South Africa as part of its apartheid policy for black residents of South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia). Outside of South Africa, the phrase refers to territories that lack true legitimacy, sometimes consisting of multiple interconnected enclaves, or that have developed as a result of national or international gerrymandering.
The phrase was coined in the late 1940s from Bantu (meaning “people” in several Bantu languages) and -stan (a suffix meaning “land” in the Persian language and some Persian-influenced languages of western, central, and southern Asia). Some critics of the apartheid-era government’s homelands afterwards saw it as a derogatory name. The Pretoria government established ten Bantustans in South Africa and ten in neighboring South West Africa (then under South African administration) to concentrate members of designated ethnic groups, thereby making each of those territories ethnically homogeneous as the basis for creating autonomous nation states for South Africa’s various black ethnic groups. The government robbed black South Africans of their South African citizenship by the Bantu Homelands Citizenship Act of 1970, depriving them of their limited surviving political and civil rights in South Africa, and designated them citizens of these homelands.
The South African government declared four South African Bantustans autonomous (the so-called “TBVC States”), but this proclamation was never recognized by anti-apartheid groups in South Africa or by any international government. Other Bantustans (such as KwaZulu, Lebowa, and QwaQwa) were given “autonomy” but never “independence.” Ovamboland, Kavangoland, and East Caprivi were declared self-governing in South West Africa, although a handful of other apparent homelands were never granted autonomy. With the end of apartheid in South Africa in 1994, a new constitution effectively dissolved the Bantustans.
What were the Bantustans used for?
The Apartheid government constructed Bantustans or homelands to which the majority of the Black people was relocated to prevent them from living in South Africa’s urban centers.
What were the living conditions like in Bantustans?
Living in the Bantustans’ slums was miserable, and what little work there was was in bad conditions, unregulated by the South African government. The Bantustans’ economies were so weak that the territories could only exist thanks to massive government subsidies from South Africa.
How many Bantustans exist?
Bantustan, any of the ten former territories declared by the Republic of South Africa as “homelands” for the country’s black African people from the mid- to late-twentieth century.
