Transkei became independent in 1976, marking the beginning of the apartheid government’s programme of Bantustan independence. The arrangement assigned African people citizenship in designated homelands and enabled the South African state to portray them as foreigners within the Republic. In practice, the territory remained connected to the wider South African economy through labour migration and dependence on employment beyond its borders.

The scale of migration grew rapidly before independence. The number of migrants in the five years preceding independence doubled from 191,600 in 1971 to 377,800 in 1976. By the latter date, no fewer than six out of every seven Transkeians earning a cash income were doing so outside the territory, notably on the Witwatersrand and in the western Cape.

Transkei therefore stood at the centre of a contradiction in apartheid’s territorial design. It was presented as a separate political homeland, yet its workers were drawn into mines, farms, and towns beyond its boundaries. The territory’s formal independence did not remove its structural dependence on the labour economy of South Africa.