Eastern Cape Provincial Article - South African Vacations

The Xhosa people, a mixture of North-East African Hamitic pastoralists and
agriculturalists from West Africa, later migrated to the same area. From these
migrants the great Xhosa nation, made up of a diversity of tribes of Nguni
stock, developed and their men soon became known as bold and brave
fighters. At the time when clashes between these tribes and the white
frontiersmen took place they were ruled by two major chiefs, Ngqika (Gaika)
the rightful heir, and his uncle Ndlambe who, loath to give up his regency, later
settled west of the Great Fish River with his followers. Today, although each
group of the Xhosa-speaking tribes has its own distinctive costumes and
colours, they are bound together by the customs and traditions of their
ancestors.
The first European spark of interest in the area was ignited when the
Portuguese navigator, Bartolomeu Diaz, landed on the coast in the late 1400s.
Vasco da Gama was the next well-known European seafarer to arrive. Algoa
Bay, as it is now called, is derived from the Portuguese term, Bahia de Lagoa
(Lagoon Bay). At first these early Europeans merely used the bay to land their
ships and to get fresh water. However, Cape Dutch “Voortrekkers”, trying to
escape the yoke of British colonial rule soon arrived and established farms in
the area. In 1820 they were joined by the British Settlers, who settled in an
area extending from Algoa Bay in the west to the mouth of the Great Fish
River in the east and inland for 300 km. This was the old frontier, an area of
bitter contention between the white settlers and the indigenous Xhosa tribes.
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