The story
Starting in 1835 and 1836, Dutch-speaking farmers of the Cape Colony, later called Voortrekkers, loaded their families and livestock into ox wagons and moved north and east beyond British territory. Several thousand went in the first years, led by Hendrik Potgieter, Piet Retief and Andries Pretorius, and more followed over the next decade.
The Dutch had settled the Cape in 1652, and Britain took it permanently in 1806. Many Boers disliked British rule, its language and law, and the abolition of slavery in 1834, for which compensation was low and had to be collected in London. Frontier wars with the Xhosa added to the feeling of neglect, and the Mfecane wars had emptied much of the interior. The Zulu king Dingane killed Retief and his party in 1838. At Blood River on December 16, 1838, Pretorius's force of about 470 beat a much larger Zulu army. Britain annexed Natal in 1843, and the Boers founded the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, recognized in 1852 and 1854. Later conflicts over diamonds and gold led to the Boer War.
Why it mattered
- Led to the founding of the Boer republics, the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, in the interior.
- Brought violent conflict with the Zulu, Ndebele and other African peoples, and the loss of land for many of them.
- Gave Afrikaner nationalism a founding story, which was later used to build support for apartheid.
- Set up the clash with Britain that came with the discovery of diamonds and gold, and the Boer War of 1899.
- Spread European settlement across much of what is now South Africa.
Sources
- Great Trek Britannica
- Battle of Blood River Britannica
- December 16 and the Construction of Afrikaner Nationalism South African History Online
Drafted by AI (Claude) from the sources above and checked against them by AI; no historian has reviewed this page. Spot a mistake? Suggest a correction. How pages are made
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