The current belief is that two major migration routes brought the Bantu tribes into southern Africa. Originating from the Rift Valley of east central Africa a central migration route through the upper tributaries of the Zambesi River and southwards, across the Limpopo River into Botswana, had commenced at least by the third century BC. This brought the Bantu into contact with the Khoisan, of northern Botswana and western Zimbabwe, possibly as early as the first century BC. Thus the early pastoralist communities penetrated southern Africa, and from them the Bantu migrated eastwards towards the coast, where they eventually fused with the people who followed the second, eastern major migration route. This eastern migration likewise started in the Rift Valley region and extended to the Indian Ocean during the first and second century AD. As the population increased it rapidly spread down the coast as fishing and agriculturalist communities, then up the river valleys into the hinterland, and then into the region of southern Malawi and easten Zimbabwe. Roland Oliver [1991] noted that the main inter-penetration of the central and eastern streams of Bantu probably took place in the fifth century AD. The Bantu had reached the Transkei by the fifteenth century.
The Xhosa are a smaller lighter skinned group of people than other east coast tribes, primarily due to interbreeding with the Hottentots. The amaXhosa were founded in the 14th century by chief Zwide, whose three sons were Mtembu, Xhosa and Mpondo. By the middle of the 19th century there was no more land locally to migrate into and as the population grew so pressure mounted up. This was added to by pressure from the Europeans, by Bantu refugees from the north , and by the Zulus.
The population pressure led to a major conflict when the witch-doctor Makonda gathered 10,000 men and unsuccessfully attacked the Europeans at Grahamstown. In general, however, violence was not the preferred method of the Xhosa. Rather, sacrifices, principally of goats and cattle, were made in an attempt to influence the future; and, finally in 1856 a minor prophet, Nungquase, predicted that the Europeans would be swept into the sea if the people sacrificed their cattle. 200,000 cattle were slaughted almost instantly! Of course, the population then starved and, in order to survive, a large segment of them moved into the northern part of Cape Province to obtain work amongst the European communities. Thus began the inital major migration of Bantu labor into the European territory.