The Pondo or Phondo are an ethnic group who have given their name to Pondoland, a sub-region comprising much of the northern seaboard of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

. The Pondo comprises several tribal groups that are all defined as amaXhosa and speak the Xhosa language

Xhosa language

Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...

. Their territory was annexed peacefully to Cape Province in 1884: missionary work had already begun in 1873 on the initiative of Henry Callaway

Henry Callaway

Henry Callaway was a missionary for the Church of England and a bishop of St. John's, Kaffraria, in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa .- Pre-missionary life :Henry Callaway was the son of a bootmaker...

, Bishop of St John's Kaffraria

Kaffraria

Kaffraria was the descriptive name given to the southeast part of what is today the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Kaffraria, i.e. the land of the Kaffirs, is no longer an official designation...

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The Pondo Revolt (1960–1962) was the result of the resistance of the Pondo people against the implementation of the Bantu Authorities Act

Bantu Authorities Act

The Bantu Authorities Act, 1951 was one of the pillars of apartheid in South Africa during the apartheid era. This legislation, succeeding the Native Affairs Act The Bantu Authorities Act, 1951 (Act No. 68 of 1951; subsequently renamed the Black Authorities Act, 1951) was one of the pillars of...

, part of the Apartheid legislation.
Under the Apartheid idiology, separate development of the various ethnic groups of South Africa was proposed and part of this was to segregate black Africans into 'homelands' that were granted independence from South Africa.
Transkei

Transkei

The Transkei , officially the Republic of Transkei , was a Bantustan—an area set aside for members of a specific ethnicity—and nominal parliamentary democracy in the southeastern region of South Africa...

 was the homeland that incorporated all of Pondoland and its people in addition to other Xhosa tribes in what used to be the eastern reaches of the then Cape Province

Cape Province

The Province of the Cape of Good Hope was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa...

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