Abstract
The failure of the African National Congress (ANC) led government to provide the residents of Temba in Hammanskraal with clean and safe drinking water almost 30 years post-apartheid has contributed to the ways in which people remember their lives in Bophuthatswana ambivalently. Although in South African there is extensive literature about the policy of separate development through the homelands system, very little is mentioned about the ethnic fluidity which already existed and persisted before and after the introduction of the homelands.
Through oral interviews, archival sources and secondary sources this paper will examine the life experiences of people who live in the Bophuthatswana region of Hammanskraal to understand how different ethnic groups were treated during the reign of Lucas Mangope. Contrary to the belief that Bophuthatswana was mostly made up of people of Tswana descent, my research discovered that in Hammanskraal, the AmaNdebele Amoletlane not only owned most of the land but were also the most populous before Mangope’s reign. Today residents of the former Bophuthatswana region in Hammanskraal remember Lucas Mangope’s tenure in different ways, some as days of plenty while others as times of terror.