The Homeland System

Non white political representation was completely abolished in 1970, and soon the natives lost their citizenship and were forced to become new citizens of  one of ten self-governed homelands called “bantustans”. The govermnets soon began to segregate almost everything.

In 1958, the govermnent of South Africa attempted to make South Africa into a number of different states, in an attempt to create different nations for different ethniciteies. Under this new system, blacks were no longer considered to be south african citizens and were forced to become part of the newly formed homelands. During the 1960’s-1980’s the government of South Africa created a new policy called, “resettlement” which was used to force citizens to move to their newly designated area. The removals included people being relocated because of slum clearance, living in”black spots” or areas of black owned land surrounded by white owned farms, and the “surplus”  people from urban areas. The Group Areas Acts of 1950 forced 55,00 coloured and indian people to move to new areas of South Africa. In total, narly 600,000 coloured, indian, and chinese people were forced out of their homes.