It covered an area of 7,700 square kilometres (3,000 sq mi), almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean.

[4][5] In contrast to the Transkei, which was largely contiguous and deeply rural, and governed by hereditary chiefs, the area that became the Ciskei had initially been made up of a patchwork of "reserves",[6] interspersed with pockets of white-owned farms.

In Ciskei, there were elected headmen and a relatively educated working-class populace,[6] but there was a tendency of the region's black residents—who often worked in East London, Queenstown, and King Williams Town—to oppose traditional methods of control.

[7][8] These differences have been posited as the reason for two separate homelands for the Xhosa people being developed, as well as the later nominal independence of Ciskei from South Africa, than Transkei.

By the time Sir John Cradock was appointed governor of the Cape Colony in 1811, the Zuurveld region had lapsed into disorder, and many white farmers had begun abandoning their farms.

[9] This amalgamation reduced the total length of Ciskei's borders, making them easier for the South African government to police, as well being an attempt to create a more viable area for the homeland.

[17] Typhoid epidemics also broke out in the resettlement camps, which were often isolated, located far from urban areas, and lacked health facilities, sanitation, and schools.

[8] The forced relocations of blacks to the Ciskei resulted in high population densities in the homeland, a situation that persists to the present day.

One of these raids was an attack on leader Lennox Sebe's compound, with the apparent goal of taking him hostage, in order to force a merger of the two Bantustans.

[7] However, during a later meeting of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it was revealed that the plan to amalgamate the Transkei and Ciskei into a proposed Xhosaland, as well as the freeing of Charles Sebe from prison, had been carried out by South African security forces linked to the Civil Cooperation Bureau, in order to consolidate an anti-ANC front in the Eastern Cape region, as part of the abortive Operation Katzen.

[32][33] Gqozo refused to participate in the negotiations to agree to a post-apartheid constitution for South Africa, and initially threatened to boycott the first non-racial elections.

This became unsustainable, and in March 1994, Ciskei government workers went on strike for fear of losing their job security and pensions in the post-apartheid era.