1652-1806 History of Southern Africa





Oranje Vrijstaat
1854-1902 		Zuid-Afr. Rep.
1839-1902 		Natal
1824-1893



The Great Trek, 1835-1843



In 1835, a large group of BOERS or AFRIKANERS from the Cape Colony (since 1806 under British administration) decided to emigrate into the interior of Southern Africa rather than to stay under continued British administration, which they perceived as illegitimate, injust, godless and favouring the bushmen and xhosa over them.
The Afrikaners were frontiersmen, stubborn, deeply religious. They organized themselves well and had excellent leaders in PIET RETIEF and ANDRIES PRETORIUS.
An estimated 12,000 to 14,000 Afrikaners moved inland in wagon treks, settling in Natal, in the Oranje and Vaal valleys, where they eventually established the Boer republics of NATALIA (1838-1842), ORANJE VRIJSTAAT (1854) and the ZUID-AFRIKAANSCHE REPUBLIEK (in English often referred to as Transvaal) in 1852. The entire emigration is called the VOORTREK in Afrikaans, the GREAT TREK in English.






EXTERNAL
FILES 		Northward Ho ! the Wagons, the Great Trek of South Africa, from Barnes Review
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE Robert Ross, A Concise History of South Africa, Cambridge Concise Histories, 1999, 219 pp.



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted in 2001, last revised on November 7th 2004

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