[3] In the early 16th century, explorer Leo Africanus described the Cafri (Kafir's variant) as negroes, and one of five principal population groups in Africa.

Based on prehistorical archaeological evidence of pastoralism and farming in southern Africa, settlements forming part of countless ancient settlements remains related to Bantu language speaking peoples of Africa, specifically those from sites located in the southernmost region inside the borders of what is now Mozambique take importance to this article for being the closest, oldest archaeological evidence by distance to the South African border thus far related to South African Bantu–speaking peoples and dated 354–68 BCE.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there were two major areas of frictional contact between the white colonialists and the Bantu language speakers in Southern Africa.

[9][10] The history of the Bantu-speaking peoples from South Africa has in the past been misunderstood due to the deliberate spreading of false narratives such as The Empty Land Myth.

The fallacy of The Empty Land Myth also completely omits the existence of the Saan (hunter-gatherers) and the Khoikhoi (pastoralists) in southern Africans, who roamed much of the southwestern region of Africa for millenniums before the invasions, colonialism of Europeans.

(1779–1803): After European invasion of the present day Western Cape, South Africa region, colonialist's frontiersmen in the 18th century started encroaching the land farther inland present-day South African region, encountering more of the indigenous population, conflict of land and cattle grew sparking the first war that set to drive Xhosa people out of Zuurveld by 1781.

This began when Governor Maitland imposed a new system of treaties on the chiefs without consulting them, while a severe drought forced desperate Xhosa to engage in cattle raids across the frontier to survive.

In addition, politician Robert Godlonton continued to use his newspaper the Graham's Town Journal to agitate for 1820 Settlers to annex and settle the land that had been returned to the Xhosa after the previous war.

Large numbers of Xhosa were displaced across the Keiskamma by Governor Harry Smith, and these refugees supplemented the original inhabitants there, causing overpopulation and hardship.

In February 1852, the British Government decided that Sir Harry Smith's inept rule had been responsible for much of the violence, and ordered him replaced by George Cathcart, who took charge in March.

The cattle-killing movement that began in 1856 to 1858, led Xhosa people to destroy their own means of subsistence in the belief that it would bring about salvation from colonialism through supernatural spirits.

Before the early 19th century the indigenous population composition in KwaZulu-Natal region was primarily by many different, largely Nguni-speaking clans and influenced by the two powers of the Mthethwa and the Ndwandwe.

[17][18] The Pedi polity under King Thulare (c. 1780–1820) was made up of land that stretched from present-day Rustenburg to the lowveld in the west and as far south as the Vaal River.

The Pedi were well equipped for waging war though, as Sekwati and his heir, Sekhukhune I were able to procure firearms, mostly through migrant labour from the Kimberley diamond fields and as far as Port Elizabeth.

This led to the British annexation of the South African Republic (ZAR) on 12 April 1877 by Sir Theophilus Shepstone, a secretary for native affairs of Natal at that time.

King Mampuru II was then arrested and executed by the treaty restored Boer South African Republic (ZAR) on charges of public violence, revolt and the murder of his half brother.

The arrest was also well claimed by others to be because of Mampuru's opposition to the hut tax imposed on black people by the South African Republic (ZAR) in the area.

The Pedi paramountcy's power was also cemented by the fact that chiefs of subordinate villages, or kgoro, take their principal wives from the ruling house.

In the 1930s, this irrational oppression/discrimination was already well supported by propaganda, e.g. the Carnegie Commission of Investigation on the Poor White Question in South Africa, it served as the blueprint of Apartheid.

When the Cape's political system was severely weakened, the movement survived as an increasingly liberal, local opposition against the Apartheid government of the National Party.

This is seen through the non-racial values that were successfully propagated by the political ancestors of the African National Congress, and that came to reside at the centre of South Africa's post-Apartheid Constitution.

Until very recently, South African Bantu-speaking communities were often divided into different clans, not around national federations, but independent groups from some hundreds to thousands of individuals.

Traditionally and historically, being cattle breeders who lived in the semi-arid regions of Southern Africa, a deep understanding of agriculture and the natural world was essential for their survival.

All girls are required to undergo a virginity test before they are allowed to participate in a royal dance, they wear a traditional attire, including beadwork, and izigege, izinculuba and imintsha, with anklets, bracelets, necklaces, and colourful sashes.

The mopane worms are traditionally popular amongst the Tswana, Venda, Southern Ndebele, Northern Sotho and Tsonga people, though they have been successfully commercialised.

South African Bantu language speaking peoples' modern diet is largely still similar to that of their ancestors, but significant difference being in the systems of production and consumption of their food.

The most important of these were the transformation of the army, thanks to innovative tactics and weapons he conceived, and a showdown with the spiritual leadership, limiting the power of traditional healers, and effectively ensuring the subservience of the Zulu church to the state.

King Shaka integrated defeated Zulu-speaking tribes into the newly formed Zulu ethnic group, on a basis of full equality, with promotions in the army and civil service being a matter of merit rather than circumstance of birth.

Politicians and Activists: Nelson Mandela: The first democratically elected president of South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his role in the fight against apartheid.

de Klerk: The last State President of South Africa under apartheid and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his role in the country's transition to democracy.