Thembu

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The Thembu ( isiXhosa : abaThembu , plural: amaThembu ; also Tembu, in the 19th century in Afrikaans Tamboekie or Tambookie ) are an ethnic group belonging to the Bantu in today's South Africa . You belong to the Xhosa . Their historical settlement area in today's Eastern Cape Province was called Tembuland by the British . Today it belongs to the OR Tambo district .

history

Nelson Mandela

King Zwide is considered the founder of the Thembu ethnic group. King Ngubengcuka united the Thembu at the beginning of the 19th century. Until the British annexation of their territory in the wake of the Ninth Frontier War , the Thembu formed an independent kingdom on the Mzimvubu . In 1857 Thembu took part in the Xhosa cattle killing . With the weakening of the Xhosa, the British Cape Colony gained long-term control of the area. After the annexation, the area was administered as part of the Transkei , which was reserved for blacks except for a few white missionaries and traders. The administration was led by white magistrates. Later, the Transkei became a Bantustan or homeland , which had been established for all Xhosa living in the east and was declared independent by South Africa in 1976.

The royal dynasty carried the clan name Madiba. The Thembu kings have had the addition of Dalindyebo to their name since the 20th century, after a king who ruled around 1900. From 1989 Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo was head of Thembu, the son of Sabata Jonguhlanga Dalindyebo, born in 1964. Sabata had been overthrown by Emperor Matanzima , the then President of the Transkei, who was also head of the abaThembu baseRhoda clan . In 2009, King Buyelekhaya was sentenced to 15 years in prison for several capital crimes. He then proposed a secession of the Thembu area from South Africa. In 2013 Buyelekhaya joined the opposition Democratic Alliance from the African National Congress . He was sentenced to twelve years in prison for kidnapping, assault and arson. In 2015 he began serving the sentence.

The political municipality with the center Mthatha was named after the end of apartheid after King Sabata Dalindyebo, who was deposed in 1980 .

The best known Thembu was the South African President Nelson Mandela , who came from a branch line of the royal family and was therefore called Madiba . His companion in the apartheid era , Walter Sisulu , was also a Thembu on his mother's side.

Thembu kings (selection)

  • 000000000: Zwide, founder of Thembu
  • 1790-1830: Vusani Ngubengcuka a Ndaba
  • 1884–1920: Alava Dalindyebo Ngangelizwe
  • 1954–1980: Sabata Jonguhlanga Dalindyebo
  • 1989–2016: Buyelekhaya Zwelinbanzi Dalindyebo a Sabata (removed from office for lawful conviction to imprisonment)
  • since 2016: controversial

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom Volume I: 1918–1962. Little, Brown and Company, New York City 1994, ISBN 978-0-7540-8723-6 , p. 4.
  2. Nelson Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom Volume I: 1918–1962. Little, Brown and Company, New York City 1994, ISBN 978-0-7540-8723-6 , p. 5.
  3. ^ The royal house at worldstatesmen.org (English), accessed on September 16, 2013
  4. Troubled monarch sentenced to 15 years IOL on 6 December 2009 (English), accessed on September 16, 2013
  5. ^ Convicted king plans independent state IOL on December 23, 2009 (English), accessed on September 16, 2013
  6. Report on bbc.com from December 31, 2015 (English), accessed on January 1, 2016
  7. Walter Sisulu ( Memento from June 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Ancestry24 (English)
  8. a b Royal family faction rejects Dalindyebo's son as new king. News24.com, January 12, 2016