Seeing as the black homelands had their own governments, political parties, police and armed forces, it seems as though there must have been a fair few people with a lot to lose if they were reincorporated into South Africa. Was there any serious resistence by their leaders or populations against losing their 'independence'.
Also, whilst looking for the answer to this, I kept coming across the fact that Transkei cut off relations with South Africa for a while in 1978 - but I can't find anything that says why they did this. Anyone know what happened?
Bophuthatswana definitely put up significant resistance in being absorbed back in SA. Its "president" (by that time a despot) resisted vigorously any moves to do so, and tried to establish that it was an legit independent nation, although I believe no one recognized it. The general population in the territory were opposed to the idea.
It quickly turned into a complete fiasco. At one point extremist Afrikaners came into the territory, more or less uninvited, to try to "support" the government. The result led to a few of them being killed. This is documented in one of the most infamous videos of the SA transition to democracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPvuAVO2-NI&list=PL3cImiWoVcqA6hCe68VnoCkUUv1Euuu6u#t=301
Needless to say that any official resistance collapsed after this.