The First Anglo-Boer War

This is the Cape of Good Hope, an area of today’s South Africa. For hundreds of thousands of years, African peoples like the Ndebele and the Zulu have lived here. In the 1600s, Dutch farmers, called Boers, land on the shore. Soon, the Boers take control of the region. They start farms and enslave the Africans living there.

Two hundred years later, British ships arrive. The British want to bring the region into their Empire. The Boers put up little resistance, and in 1815 the British take power. The Boers grow unhappy with British rule. The British outlaw slavery, but many Boers want to keep using slave labour.

Boer ways of life and the Dutch language are being suppressed under British rule. So in 1836, tens of thousands of Boers move northward to try to take new territory where they can establish their own rule again. Their mass migration is called the Great Trek; the journeyers call themselves voortrekkers, meaning pathfinders in Dutch. The voortrekkers fight with Ndebele and Zulus who live in the lands they cross. The Boers shoot with long guns; the Ndebele and the Zulus battle with spears.

Hundreds of Boers die. Thousands of Africans are killed or forced to flee their land. Finally, the voortrekkers arrive in a region belonging to several African tribes and take it for themselves. They start two republics: the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. There is peace between the British and the Boers… ...briefly.

In 1870, diamonds are discovered in the Boer republics. Suddenly, Britain is very interested in the region. The British propose to the Boers that they should take over the republics — after all, the British could help protect the Boers from the Zulus, who regularly attack the European intruders. The Boers are divided in their feelings, but eventually, in 1877, they let the British take over. Two years into Britain’s rule of the region, the British defeat the Zulus.

Now the Boers are free from imminent danger, they decide they no longer want to live under British rule. In 1880, ten thousand Boers gather and declare their independence. The British are provoked. They send troops north into the republics. The First Anglo-Boer War breaks out.

The Boers are excellent at shooting from horseback. They pick off the red-clad British soldiers with ease. After several battles, they defeat the British at Majuba Hill in 1881. The two sides sign a treaty recognising the Boer republics as independent. The Transvaal changes its name to the South African Republic.

For now, there is peace between the British and the Boers, while the original African inhabitants of the region have been stripped of land.