Government’s final consolidation of ‘homelands’

Date: 27 Mar 1975
Updated: 30 Sep 2019

The Nationalist party government announced its intention to consolidate the total number of separate 'homeland' areas from 113 to 36. The homelands were officially instituted in the 1950s as a form of apartheid separate development and a way to strip Black South Africans of their South African citizenship. The argument from the point of view of the Apartheid government was that Black South African people would be given the benefit of being able to self govern. The reality was that they became impoverished as cheap labour pools ruled by chiefs controlled by the apartheid state.

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How we know this

01SAHO, The Homeland, from South African History Online, [online], Available at, www.sahistory.org.za [Accessed: 27 March 2013]
02CDL, The Black Homelands, from University of California (Press E-books), [online], Available at publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/ [Accessed: 05 March 2013]

Last updated · 30 Sep 2019

Cite this entry

South African History Online. (2011, March 16). Government’s final consolidation of ‘homelands’. South African History Online. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012227

South African History Online (2011) 'Government’s final consolidation of ‘homelands’', South African History Online, 16 March. Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012227 (Accessed: 30 August 2026).

South African History Online, Government’s final consolidation of ‘homelands’ [website], https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012227, (accessed 30 August 2026).

"Government’s final consolidation of ‘homelands’." South African History Online, 16 Mar. 2011, https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012227. Accessed 30 Aug. 2026.

South African History Online. "Government’s final consolidation of ‘homelands’." South African History Online. March 16, 2011. https://sahistory.org.za/ref/E-0012227.