#volkstaat

A section of the white population in South Africa is preparing for the worst scenario in case aging former South African President Nelson Mandela passes away. The national evacuation plan over possible genocide was drafted almost a decade ago.

Since Mandela’s was elected South Africa’s first black president in 1994 after spending 27 years in prison for actively opposing the segregationist policies of apartheid in the country, Afrikaners say over 3,000 white farmers have been murdered in revenge for the suppression enforced by its own National Party. Afrikaners say the government has never shown much desire to investigate the deaths.

And now as Mandela is in and out of hospital at age 95, Afrikaners and their supporters are preparing for the worst upon his death.

The Suidlanders is a right-wing group spread across the country devising a national evacuation plan should violence occur.

“We have the guidance, love and mercy of an Almighty Father, who supports us in the execution of His mission,” the group says on its website. “Therefore, the Suidlanders stand grateful, humble and prepared with faith, hope and love for our people, for a period of anarchy.”

They say they have thousands of groups meeting on a regular basis to support members “spiritually, emotionally and with practical assistance in preparing for times of emergency.”

“We have been planning for eight years,” head of emergency planning Coenie Maree told RT. “It started simple, the idea was to give people an option. We’ve divided the country into 27 provinces and divided those further into groups. Each group has its own plan.”

There are around three million Afrikaners across South Africa who are descendants of primarily northern Europeans who arrived in the country three to four centuries ago.

Genocide Watch, an organization that analyzes conditions around the world that could result in mass murder, puts Afrikaners’ risk of slaughter at level six or “preparation” stages, one level away from killings.

Gustav Muller and his team preparing for the worst are afraid level seven could start any moment. A former intelligence officer in the South African army, he says it was simple to read the warning signs.

“We are believers, and in our Bible, it says if you notice warning signs, you must convey it,” Muller told RT.“If you don’t, you will have blood on your hands.”

Last year, South African President Jacob Zuma antagonized Afrikaners when he sang a song referencing revenge against whites in a public sing-along. “You are a Boer (white man), we are going to hit them….” Zuma sang, with a group.

Muller, a leader of the Suidlanders movement, has helped establish a countrywide operation with more than a hundred safe areas.

When the alert is given, people across the country will be notified by SMS, and they will go to a pre-arranged meeting point from where they will travel by convoy to the safe areas.

“The death of Nelson Mandela is a risk scenario,” Muller said. “He is a political icon and his passing could see violence flaring up again.”

Some 800,000 white, mostly Afrikaans- speaking South Africans are supporting the pre-planning. Many are collecting goods and emergency provisions for the day they get the word.

Apartheid (Afrikaans pronunciation: [ɐˈpɑːrtɦɛit]; an Afrikaans[1] word meaning 'the state of being apart', literally 'apart-hood'[2][3]) was a system of racial segregation in South Africa enforced through legislation by the National Party (NP) governments, the ruling party from 1948 to 1994, under which the rights of the majority black inhabitants were curtailed and Afrikaner minority rule was maintained. Apartheid was developed after World War II by the Afrikaner-dominated National Party and Broederbond organisations and was practised also in South West Africa, which was administered by South Africa under a League of Nations mandate (revoked in 1966 via United Nations Resolution 2145),[4] until it gained independence as Namibia in 1990.[5]

Racial segregation in South Africa began in colonial times under Dutch rule.[6] Apartheid as an official policy was introduced following the general election of 1948. Legislation classified inhabitants into four racial groups, "black", "white", "coloured", and "Indian", with Indian and coloured divided into several sub-classifications,[7] and residential areas were segregated, sometimes by forced removals. Non-white political representation was abolished in 1970, and starting in that year black people were deprived of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten tribally based self-governing homelands called bantustans, four of which became nominally independent states. The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, and provided black people with services inferior to those of white people.[8]

Apartheid sparked significant internal resistance and violence, and a long arms and trade embargo against South Africa.[9] Since the 1950s, a series of popular uprisings and protests was met with the banning of opposition and imprisoning of anti-apartheid leaders. As unrest spread and became more effective and militarised, state organisations responded with repression and violence. Along with the sanctions placed on South Africa by the West, this made it increasingly difficult for the government to maintain the regime.

The Union of South Africa is the historic predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into being on 31 May 1910 with the unification of four previously separate British colonies: Cape Colony, Natal Colony, Transvaal Colony and Orange River Colony. FollowingWorld War I, the Union of South Africa was granted the administration of the German South-West Africa colony as a League of Nationsmandate and it became treated in most respects as if it were another province of the Union.

The Union of South Africa was founded as a dominion of the British Empire. It was governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, with the British monarch represented by a governor-general. The Union came to an end when the 1961 constitution was enacted. On 31 May 1961 the nation became a republic, under the name of the 'Republic of South Africa'.

In the 1870s, the London Colonial Office, under Secretary for the Colonies Lord Carnarvon, decided to apply a system of Confederation onto southern Africa. On this occasion however, it was largely rejected by southern Africans, primarily due to its very bad timing. The various component states ofsouthern Africa were still simmering after the last bout of British expansion, and inter-state tensions were high. The Orange Free State this time refused to even discuss the idea, and Prime Minister John Molteno of the Cape Colony called the idea badly informed and irresponsible. In addition, many local leaders resented the way it was imposed from outside without understanding of local issues.[5] The Confederation model was also correctly seen as unsuitable for the disparate entities of southern Africa, with their wildly different sizes, economies and political systems.[6]

The Molteno Unification Plan (1877), put forward by the Cape government as a more feasible unitary alternative to confederation, largely anticipated the final act of Union in 1909. A crucial difference was that the Cape’s liberal constitution and multiracial franchise were to be extended to the other states of the union. These smaller states would gradually accede to the much larger Cape Colony through a system of treaties, whilst simultaneously gaining elected seats in the Cape parliament. The entire process would be locally driven, with Britain’s role restricted to policing any set-backs. While subsequently acknowledged to be more viable, this model was rejected at the time by London.[7] At the other extreme, another powerful Cape politician at the time, Saul Solomon, proposed an extremely loose system of federation, with the component states preserving their very different constitutions and systems of franchise.[8]

Lord Carnarvon rejected the (more informed) local plans for unification, as he wished to have the process brought to a conclusion before the end of his tenure and, having little experience of southern Africa, he preferred to enforce the more familiar model of confederation used in Canada. He pushed ahead with his Confederation plan, which unraveled as predicted, leaving a string of destructive wars across southern Africa. These conflicts eventually fed into the first and second Anglo-Boer Wars, with far-reaching consequences for the subcontinent.[9]

In 1922 the colony of Southern Rhodesia had a chance (ultimately rejected) to join the Union through a referendum. The referendum resulted from the fact that by 1920 British South Africa Company rule in Southern Rhodesia was no longer practical with many favouring some form of 'responsible government'. Some favoured responsible government within Southern Rhodesia while others (especially in Matabeleland) favoured membership in the Union of South Africa.

Stellaland, officially known as the Republic of Stellaland (Dutch: Republiek Stellaland) from 1882–1883 and, after unification with the neighbouring State of Goshen, as the United States of Stellaland (Dutch: Verenigde Staten van Stellaland) from 1883–1885, was a Boer republic located in an area of Bechuanaland, west of the Transvaal.

During its short history, Stellaland, though small in size, became a focal point of conflict between the British Empire and the South African Republic, the two major players vying over the territory. After a series of claims and annexations, British fears of Boer expansionism ultimately led to its demise and, among other factors, set the stage for the Second Boer War.

Before the proclamation of the republic, the area was under the control of competing Griqua and Tswana groups, while the United Kingdom laid claim to it as part of the emerging protectorate of British Bechuanaland. Two of the indigenous groups were under the leadership of chiefsMankoroane and Montsioa, whom the British regarded as "friendly,"[2] and another two under the leadership of chiefs Moshette and Massouw. When a feud erupted between Mankoroane and another chief, each side resorted to recruiting volunteers, promising them land in return for their assistance. After a settlement was negotiated with mediation from the Transvaal Republic,[3] large portions of Mankoroane's land with 416 farms of 3,000 morgen (2,563 ha) each were given to Boer mercenaries who had fought on his adversary's side, and the new inhabitants decided to declare independence.[4]

The Republic of Stellaland was formally created on 26 July 1882, under the leadership of its elected president Gerrit Jacobus van Niekerk, a farmer from Transvaal,[3] and was given the name Stellaland (Star Land) in reference to a comet that was visible in the skies at the time.[3][4] The town of Vryburgwas founded and declared its capital. At its founding, the new country covered an area of 15,500 km2 (5,985 sq mi) and was home to an estimated population of 20,500 individuals, 3,000 of whom were of European ancestry.[1] The State of Goshen, named after the biblical Land of Goshen, was founded by Nicolaas Claudius Gey van Pittius in October 1882 in the neighbouring area called Rooigrond[4] with the approval of chief Moshette.[5] Goshen had an estimated population of 17,000, of whom approximately 2,000 were of European origin, and covered an area of 10,400 km2 (4,015 sq mi).[1] On 6 August 1883, Stellaland and Goshen united to form the United States of Stellaland.[6]

Whether or not the formal independence of any of these states was ever officially recognised is not entirely clear. In Stellaland's favour, one can point out that the Montevideo convention which formalised the definition of sovereignty in the modern sense would not be signed until 1933, and that the local chiefs approved its existence.[5] On the other hand, several British sources refer to van Niekerk and his followers as "freebooters"[7][8] and "marauders,"[9] but de iure recognition from the United Kingdom can be implied from a telegram that was erroneously sent by Sir Charles Warren, military commander for British Bechuanaland, to van Niekerk in which he endorsed Cecil Rhodes' settlement in Stellaland. Only later did Warren realise that his wording could be interpreted as an acknowledgment of Stellaland's legality,[8] and he tried to deny the message's implications. In February 1884, Great Britain unilaterally declared the area a British protectorate.[10]

Stellaland's laws and constitution were practically identical to those of the South African Republic.[11] It never issued an independent currency, but instead—like all the surrounding states—used the South African pound; it did, however, print its own postage stamps beginning in February 1884[12] which are still traded among collectors to the present day.

Due to the fact that van Niekerk's government had announced to levy taxes on all trade going through its territory, both Cecil Rhodes, founder of the De Beers diamond company, and the British administration feared a setback for their endeavours in the mining-business,[13] since Stellaland lay on one of the main trade routes. It was also presumed that the small country could eventually be incorporated into the neighbouring South African Republic in an effort to circumvent the Pretoria Convention of 1881 which called for an end to Boer expansionism.[9]

Goshen, officially known as the State of Goshen (Dutch: Het Land Goosen) was a short-lived Boer Republic in southern Africa founded byAfrikaners opposing British rule in the region.

Located in an area of Bechuanaland, west of the Transvaal, Goshen existed as an independent nation for a short period; from 1882-1883 as the State of Goshen and, after unification with neighbouring Stellaland, as the United States of Stellaland (Dutch: Verenigde Staten van Stellaland) from 1883–1885.

During its history, Goshen, though small in size, became a focal point of conflict between the British Empire and the South African Republic, the two major players vying over the territory. After a series of claims and annexations, British fears of Boer expansionism ultimately led to its demise and, among other factors, set the stage for the Second Boer War.

Before the proclamation of Goshen, the land was under the control of competing Griqua and Tswana groups, while the United Kingdom laid claim to it as part of the emerging protectorate of British Bechuanaland. Two of the indigenous groups were under the leadership of chiefs Mankoroane and Montsioa, whom the British regarded as "friendly,"[1] and another two under the leadership of chiefs Moshette and Massouw.

In the mid-nineteenth century, voortrekkers (Boer settlers) established themselves in the region and in the early 1880s they supported Moshette in his battles against Mankoroane and Montsioa, helping to besiege Montsioa's stronghold Mahikeng. Mahikeng fell on 24 October 1882 and, in gratitude, Moshette ceded large portions of Mankoroane's land (416 farms of 3,000 morgen (2,563 hectares) each) to the Boermercenaries who had supported him.[2]

The mercenaries, led by Nicolaas Claudius Gey van Pittius, immediately declared independence[3] (followed by an official proclamation on 21 November 1882),[4] naming the new nation after the Book of Genesis's Land of Goshen, "the best of the land of Egypt given to Joseph",[5] with its capital at Rooigrond ("Red Ground").[3]

Less than a year after declaring independence, on 6 August 1883, Goshen and neighbouring Republic of Stellaland united to form the United States of Stellaland.[9]

While the British government was at first unconcerned about the declaration of independence of Goshen and Stellaland, and felt it could not prevent such proclamations of independence, Cecil Rhodes recognised the economic implications of an independent Boer republic blocking the transit of goods between the Cape Colony and British Central Africa[10] and began to agitate the Cape Colony Government to forcibly take control of the area.[6]

As part of his plan to bring the United States of Stellaland under British rule, Rhodes and colleague Frank Thompson travelled to Stellaland in September 1884 to convince the locals of the advantages of Cape rule.[11] While the Stellaland residents were receptive to Rhodes, Goshenites proved to be far more hostile; while Rhodes stayed at the Goshen border, Thompson visited Rooigrond to speak to the President Gey van Pittus, who was living in a tent. van Pittus immediately arrested Thompson before eventually releasing him to tell Rhodes that Goshen remained independent and demanded British recognition of that independence.[12]

In response to Rhodes' actions, on 16 September 1884, Transvaal's President Paul Kruger proclaimed Transvaal's annexation of Goshen and Stellaland[13] in "the interests of humanity" and on 3 October, Transvaal's Director of Education, Reverend Stephanus du Toit, arrived in RooiGrand, made a fiery speech, renamed the town "Heliopolis" and raised the Transvaal flag.[12]

As a result, the British told Kruger that annexation was unacceptable and December 1884, 4000 troops of the Bechuanaland Expeditionary Force, led by General Charles Warren,[14] were sent from England to quell the Boers and force Goshen and Stellaland to capitulate.[15] Warren met with no resistance[16] and Goshen was subsequently incorporated into British Bechuanaland.[13]

The Natalia Republic was a short-lived Boer republic, established in 1839 by local Afrikaans-speaking Voortrekkers shortly after the Battle of Blood River. The republic was located on the coast of the Indian Ocean beyond the Eastern Cape, and was previously named Natália byPortuguese sailors. The republic was conquered and annexed by Britain in 1843. After the British annexation of the Natalia Republic, most local Voortrekker Boers trekked north into Transorangia, later known as the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal.

Long inhabited by varying cultures of indigenous Africans[citation needed], the region was colonized and renamed in their language by the Portuguese. The first Europeans to settle the country were emigrant Boers from the Cape Colony, led by Piet Retief (c. 1780-1838). He was of Huguenot descent. Passing through the almost deserted upper regions, Retief arrived at the bay[clarification needed] in October 1837. During this journey, he chose a site for the capital of the future state which he envisioned. He went to the capital or kraal of the Zulu king, Dingane, to obtain a cession of territory for the Dutch farmers. Dingane consented on condition that the Boers recover cattle stolen by the Tlokwa chief. Retief managed that and, with the help of the Rev. F. Owen, a missionary living at Dingane's kraal, he drew up a deed of cession in English. Dingane and Retief signed it on 4 February 1838.[citation needed]

Two days later, Dingane ordered the execution of Retief and all of his party, 66 whites and 34 Khoikhoi servants. The Zulu king commanded his impis to kill all the Boers who had entered Natal. The Zulu forces crossed the Tugela the same day, and the most advanced parties of the Boers were massacred, many at a spot near where the town of Weenen now stands, its name (meaning wailing or weeping) commemorating the event. Other of the farmers hastily laagered and were able to repulse the Zulu attacks; the assailants suffering serious loss at a fight near Bushman River. In one week after the murder of Retief, the Zulus killed 600 Boers - men, women and children.[citation needed]

Hearing of the attack on the Boers, the British settlers at the bay sent a force to help them. Robert Biggar commanded 20 British and a following of 700 friendly Zulus and crossed the Tugela near its mouth. In a desperate fight (17 April), the British were overwhelmed and only four Europeans escaped to the bay. Pursued by the Zulus, the surviving inhabitants of Durban took refuge on a ship then in harbour. After the Zulus retired, fewer than a dozen Englishmen returned to live at the port; the missionaries, hunters and other traders returned to the Cape.

The Boers had repelled the Zulu attacks on their laagers; joined by others from the Drakensberg, about 400 men under Hendrik Potgieter and Piet Uys advanced to attack Dingane. On 11 April, they were attacked and with difficulty cut their way out. Among those slain were Piet Uys and his son Dirk, aged 15.

Toward the end of the year, the Boers received reinforcements. In December 460 men set out under Boer General Andries Pretorius to take on the Zulus. On Sunday 16 December, while laagered near the Umslatos River, they were attacked by over 10,000 Zulus. Outnumbered more than 20 to 1, the Boers, led by Sarel Cilliers, made a covenant with God. With the power of their firearms, and with their ox wagons in a laager formation and some excellent tactics, the Boers fought off the Zulu. After three hours, the Boers had killed an estimated 3,000 Zulus and had only three of their men wounded. The Zulus withdrew in defeat, many crossing the river, and the water turned red with their blood which is why it is called the Battle of Blood River. The Boers celebrated theDay of the Covenant every year on 16 December and most of them attributed the victory to God.

Returning south, Pretorius and his commandos found that the British had annexed Port Natal (now Durban) on 4 December with a detachment of the 72nd Highlanders from Cape Colony. While the governor of the Cape, Major-General Sir George Napier, had invited the emigrants to return to the colony, he had stated his intention to take military possession of the port. He wanted to prevent the Boers from establishing an independent republic on the coast with a harbor through which access to the interior could be gained as part of British plan to undermine the Boers' independence. Napier withdrew the Highlanders on Christmas Eve 1839.

The British government was still undecided as to its policy towards Natal. In April 1842 Lord Stanley (afterwards 14th earl of Derby), then secretary for the colonies in the second Peel Administration, wrote to Sir George Napier that the establishment of a colony in Natal would be attended with little prospect of advantage, but at the same time stated that the pretensions of the emigrants to be regarded as an independent community could not be admitted. Various measures were proposed which would but have aggravated the situation.

Napier took the initiative however, and dispatched Captain J. Charlton Smith with a garrison to occupy Port Natal. They arrived on 4 May 1842, much to the vehement demands from the Boers that the British should leave. Captain Smith (according to his Dispatch of 25 May 1842), who had hitherto been at pains to avoid hostilities and in favour of conciliation, on receiving an "insolent" letter demanding that the force he commanded should immediately quit Natal, followed up the removal by armed men of a quantity of cattle belonging to the troops deemed it absolutely necessary that some steps should be taken in order to prevent a repetition of such outrages. He therefore determined, after mature consideration, to march and attack their camp at the Congella. A Royal Artillery boat was fitted with a howitzer and the sergeant in charge of the boat was given instructions to drop down the channel to within 500 yards of Congella and await the troops in order that they might form under the cover of its fire, aided by that of two six-pounders which accompanied Captain Smith's force. To Smith's mortification, the boat failed to arrive until it was too late to be of any use and, besides, took up a position too distant for her fire to be of much effect. Though Smith was informed the Boers (the Emigrant Farmers) suffered severe losses in the action, the result for Smith's force was a disaster and the loss of life very severe. Smith retreated to his camp, where he was besieged until 26 June 1842, when Lieutenant-colonel A. J. Cloete's relief force arrived in the war ship Southampton.

Finally, in deference to the strongly urged views of Sir George Napier, Lord Stanley, in a despatch of 13 December, received in Cape Town on 23 April 1843, consented to Natal becoming a British colony. The institutions adopted were to be as far as possible in accordance with the wishes of the people, but it was a fundamental condition "that there should not be in the eye of the law any distinction or disqualification whatever, founded on mere difference of colour, origin, language or creed."

Sir George then appointed Mr Henry Cloete (a brother of Colonel Josias Cloete) a special commissioner to explain to the Natal volksraad the decision of the government. There was a considerable party of Natal Boers still strongly opposed to the British, and they were reinforced by numerous bands of Boers who came over the Drakensberg from Winburg and Potchefstroom. Commandant Jan Mocke of Winburg (who had helped to besiege Captain Smith at Durban) and others of the "war party" attempted to induce the volksraad not to submit, and a plan was formed to murderPretorius, Boshoff and other leaders, who were now convinced that the only chance of ending the state of complete anarchy into which the country had fallen was by accepting British sovereignty.

In these circumstances the task of Mr Henry Cloete was one of great difficulty and delicacy. He behaved with the utmost tact and got rid of the Winburg and Potchefstroom burghers by declaring that he should recommend the Drakensberg as the northern limit of Natal. On 8 August 1843 the Natal volksraad unanimously agreed to the terms proposed by Lord Stanley. Many of the Boers who would not acknowledge British rule trekked once more over the mountains into what became the Orange Free State and Transvaal provinces to seek their freedom and independence. At the end of 1843 there were not more than 500 Dutch families left in Natal.

Cloete, before returning to the Cape, visited Mpande and obtained from him a valuable concession. Hitherto the Tugela River from source to mouth had been the recognized frontier between Natal and Zululand. Mpande gave up to Natal all the territory between the Buffalo and Tugela rivers, now forming Klip River county.

The Orange Free State (Dutch: Oranje-Vrijstaat Afrikaans: Oranje-Vrystaat) was an independent Boer sovereign republic in southern Africaduring the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province. Extending between the Orange and Vaal rivers, its borders were determined by the United Kingdom in 1848 when the region was proclaimed as the Orange River Sovereignty, with a seat of a British Resident in Bloemfontein.

In the northern part of the territory a Voortrekker Republic was established at Winburg in 1837. This state merged with the Republic ofPotchefstroom which later formed part of the South African Republic (Transvaal).

Following the granting of sovereignty to the Transvaal Republic, the British recognized the independence of the Orange River Sovereignty on 17 February 1854 and the country officially became independent as the Orange Free State on 23 February 1854, with the signing of the Orange River Convention. The new republic incorporated both the Orange River Sovereignty and the traditions of the Winburg-Potchefstroom Republic. The U.S.A. and the Orange Free State mutually recognized each other in 1871.[3]

Although the Orange Free State developed into a politically and economically successful republic, it experienced chronic conflict with the British (see Boer Wars) until it was finally annexed as the Orange River Colony in 1900. It ceased to exist as an independent Boer republic on 31 May 1902 with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging at the conclusion of the Second Anglo-Boer War. It joined the Union of South Africain 1910 (which became the Republic of South Africa in 1961) as a province under its former name, along with the Cape Province, Natal, and theTransvaal.

The republic's name derives partly from the Orange River, which in turn was named in honour of the Dutch ruling royal family, the House of Orange, by the Dutch settlers under Robert Jacob Gordon. The official language in the Orange Free State was Dutch.

The country north of the Orange river was first visited by Europeans towards the close of the 18th century. At that time, the population was sparse. The majority of the inhabitants appear to have been members of the Tswana people (also spelled Bechuana), but in the valleys of the Orange and Vaal were Koranbas and other Khoikhois, and in the Drakensberg and on the western border lived numbers of Bushmen. Early in the 19th century Griquas established themselves north of the Orange. Between 1817 and 1831, the country was devastated by the chiefMzilikazi and his Matabelein the genocide known as the Mfekhane, and large areas were depopulated. Up to this time the few Europeans who had crossed the Orange had been mainly hunters or missionaries.

In 1824 farmers of Dutch, French Huguenot and German descent called Voortrekkers (later named Boers by the English) from the Cape Colony who were seeking both pasture for their flocks and to escape British governmental oversight settled in the country. They were followed in 1836 by the first parties of the Great Trek. These emigrants left Cape Colony from various motives, but all were animated by the desire to escape from British sovereignty. The leader of the first large party of emigrants was A. H. Potgieter, who concluded an agreement withMakwana, the chief of the Bataung tribe of Batswana, ceding to the farmers the country between the Vet and Vaal rivers. When Boer families first reached the area they discovered that it had been devastated by a section of the Zulu tribe under a brilliant, but ruthless and cruel leader named Mzilikazi (sometimes spelled Moselekatse) and his people afterward called the Matebele. The Matebele had swept the country, destroying the fields, carrying off the cattle, and slaying all the people - saving only the young boys and girls whom they would bring up as members of the Matebele.[4] The Boers could not escape these bloodthirsty warriors and soon came into collision with Mzilikazi's raiding parties who attacked Boer hunters who crossed the Vaalriver. Reprisals followed, and in November 1837 Mzilikazi was decisively defeated by the Boers and there upon fled northward and established himself in a place nowadays called Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.

In the meantime another party of emigrants had settled at Thaba'nchu, where the Wesleyans had a mission station for the Barolong. The emigrants were treated with great kindness by Moroka, the chief of that tribe, and with the Barolong the Boers maintained uniformly friendly relations after they defeated Mzilikazi. In December 1836 the emigrants beyond the Orange drew up in general assembly an elementary republican form of government. After the defeat of Mzilikazi the town of Winburg (so named by the Boers in commemoration of their victory) was founded, a Volksraadelected, and Piet Retief, one of the ablest of the Voortrekkers, chosen "governor and commandant-general." The emigrants already numbered some 500 men, besides women and children and many servants. Dissensions speedily arose among the emigrants, whose numbers were constantly added to, and Retief, Potgieter and other leaders crossed the Drakensberg and entered Natal. Those that remained were divided into several parties.

Meanwhile, a new power had arisen along the upper Orange and in the valley of the Caledon. Moshoeshoe, a Basotho chief, had welded together a number of scattered and broken clans which had sought refuge in that mountainous region after fleeing from Mzilikazi, and had formed the Basotho nation. In 1833 he had welcomed as workers among his people a band of French Protestant missionaries, and as the Boer immigrants began to settle in his neighborhood he decided to seek support from the British at the Cape. At that time the British government was not prepared to exercise effective control over the imigrants. Acting upon the advice of Dr John Philip, the superintendent of the London Missionary Society's stations in South Africa, a treaty was concluded in 1843 with Moshoeshoe, placing him under British protection. A similar treaty was made with the Griqua chief, Adam Kok III. By these treaties, which recognized native sovereignty over large areas on which Boer farmers were settled, it was sought to keep a check on the Boers and to protect both the natives and Cape Colony. Their effect was to precipitate collisions between all three parties.

The year in which the treaty with Moshesh was made several large parties of Boers recrossed the Drakensberg into the country north of the Orange, refusing to remain in Natal when the annexed the newly formed Boer Republic of Natalia . During their stay there they had inflicted a severe defeat on the Zulus under Dingaan (December 1838), which, following on the flight of Mzilikazi, greatly strengthened the position of Moshoeshoe, whose power became a menace to that of the Boer farmers. Trouble first arose, however, between the Boers and the Griquas in the Philippolis district. Some of the Boer farmers in this district, unlike their fellows dwelling farther north, were willing to accept British rule, and this fact induced Mr Justice Menzies, one of the judges of Cape Colony then on circuit at Colesberg, to cross the Orange and proclaim (October 1842) the country British territory, a proclamation disallowed by the governor, Sir George Napier, who, nevertheless, maintained that the Boer farmers were still British subjects. It was after this episode that the treaties with Adam Kok and Moshesh were negotiated.

The treaties gave great offense to the Boers, who refused to acknowledge the sovereignty of the native chiefs. The majority of the Boer farmers in Kok's territory sent a deputation to the British commissioner in Natal, Henry Cloete, asking for equal treatment with the Griquas, and expressing the desire to come under British protection under such terms. Shortly afterwards hostilities between the farmers and the Griquas broke out. British troops were moved up to support the Griquas, and after a skirmish at Zwartkopjes (2 May 1845) a new arrangement was made between Kok and Sir Peregrine Maitland, then governor of Cape Colony, virtually placing the administration of his territory in the hands of a British resident, a post filled in 1846 by Captain H. D. Warden. The place chosen by Captain (afterwards Major) Warden as the seat of his court was known as Bloemfontein, and it subsequently became the capital of the whole country.

The Volksraad at Winburg during this period continued to claim jurisdiction over the Boers living between the Orange and the Vaal and was in federation with the Volksraad at Potchefstroom, which made a similar claim upon the Great Boers living north of the Vaal. In 1846 Major Warden occupied Winburg for a short time, and the relations between the Boers and the British were in a continual state of tension. Many of the farmers deserted Winburg for the Transvaal. Sir Harry Smith became governor of the Cape at the end of 1847. He recognized the failure of the attempt to govern on the lines of the treaties with the Griquas and Basutos, and on 3 February 1848 he issued a proclamation declaring British sovereignty over the country between the Orange and the Vaal eastward to the Drakensberg. The justness of Sir Harry Smith's measures and his popularity among the Boers gained for his policy considerable support, but the republican party, at whose head was Andries Pretorius, did not submit without a struggle. They were, however, defeated by Sir Harry Smith in an engagement at Boomplaats (29 August 1848). Thereupon Pretorius, with those most bitterly opposed to British rule, retreated across the Vaal.

In March 1849 Major Warden was succeeded at Bloemfontein as civil commissioner by Mr C. U. Stuart, but he remained British resident until July 1852. A nominated legislative council was created, a high court established and other steps taken for the orderly government of the country, which was officially styled the Orange River Sovereignty. In October 1849 Moshoeshoe was induced to sign a new arrangement considerably curtailing the boundaries of the Basuto reserve. The frontier towards the Sovereignty was thereafter known as the Warden line. A little later the reserves of other chieftains were precisely defined. The British Resident had, however, no force sufficient to maintain his authority, and Moshoeshoe and all the neighboring clans became involved in hostilities with one another and with the Europeans. In 1851 Moshoeshoe joined the republican party in the Sovereignty in an invitation to Pretorius to recross the Vaal. The intervention of Pretorius resulted in the Sand River Convention of 1852, which acknowledged the independence of the Transvaal but left the status of the Sovereignty untouched. The British government (the first Russell administration), which had reluctantly agreed to the annexation of the country, had, however, already repented its decision and had resolved to abandon the Sovereignty. Lord Grey, Colonial Secretary, in a dispatch to Sir Harry Smith dated 21 October 1851, declared, "The ultimate abandonment of the Orange Sovereignty should be a settled point in our policy." A meeting of representatives of all European inhabitants of the Sovereignty, elected on manhood suffrage, held at Bloemfontein in June 1852, nevertheless declared in favour of the retention of British rule. At the close of that year a settlement was at length concluded with Moshoeshoe, which left, perhaps, that chief in a stronger position than he had hitherto been. There had been ministerial changes in England and the ministry then in power — that of Lord Aberdeen — adhered to the determination to withdraw from the Sovereignty. Sir George Russell Clerk was sent out in 1853 as special commissioner "for the settling and adjusting of the affairs" of the Sovereignty, and in August of that year he summoned a meeting of delegates to determine upon a form of self-government. At that time there were some 15,000 Europeans in the country, many of them recent immigrants from Cape Colony. There were among them numbers of farmers and tradesmen of British blood. The majority of the whites still wished for the continuance of British rule provided that it was effective and the country guarded against its enemies. The representations of their delegates, who drew up a proposed constitution retaining British control, were unavailing. Sir George Clerk announced that, as the elected delegates were unwilling to take steps to form an independent government, he would enter into negotiations with other persons. " And then," writes Dr Theal, "was seen forced the strange spectacle of an English commissioner addressing men who wished to be free of British control as the friendly and well-disposed inhabitants, while for those who desired to remain British subjects and who claimed that protection to which they believed themselves entitled he had no sympathising word." While the elected delegates sent two members to England to try and induce the government to alter their decision Sir George Clerk speedily came to terms with a committee formed by the republican party and presided over by Mr J. H. Hoffman. Even before this committee met a royal proclamation had been signed (30 January 1854) "abandoning and renouncing all dominion" in the Sovereignty.

A convention recognizing the independence of the country was signed at Bloemfontein on 23 February by Sir George Clerk and the republican committee, and in March the Boer government assumed office and the republican flag was hoisted. Five days later the representatives of the elected delegates had an interview in London with the colonial secretary, the Duke of Newcastle, who informed them that it was now too late to discuss the question of the retention of British rule. The colonial secretary added that it was impossible for England to supply troops to constantly advancing outposts, "especially as Cape Town and the port of Table Bay were all she really required in South Africa." In withdrawing from the Sovereignty the British government declared that it had "no alliance with any native chief or tribes to the northward of the Orange River with the exception of the Griqua chief Captain Adam Kok" III. Kok was not formidable in a military sense, nor could he prevent individual Griquas from alienating their lands. Eventually, in 1861, he sold his sovereign rights to the Free State for 4 000[clarification needed] and moved with his followers to the district now known asGriqualand East. (F. R. C.)

On the abandonment of British rule representatives of the people were elected and met at Bloemfontein on 28 March 1854, and between then and 18 April were engaged in framing a constitution. The country was declared a republic and named the Orange Free State. All persons of European blood possessing a six months' residential qualification were to be granted full burgher rights. The sole legislative authority was vested in a single popularly elected chamber of the Volksraad. Executive authority was entrusted to a president elected by the burghers from a list submitted by the Volksraad. The president was to be assisted by an executive council, was to hold office for five years and was eligible for re-election. The constitution was subsequently modified but remained of a liberal character. A residence of five years in the country was required before aliens could become naturalised. The first president was Josias Philip Hoffman, but he was accused of being too complaisant towards Moshesh and resigned, being succeeded in 1855 by Jacobus Nicolaas Boshoff, one of the voortrekkers, who had previously taken an active part in the affairs of Natal.

Distracted among themselves, with the formidable Basotho power on their southern and eastern flank, the troubles of the infant state were speedily added to by the action of the Transvaal Boers.Marthinus Pretorius, who had succeeded to his father's position as commandant general of Potchefstroom, wished to bring about a confederation between the two Boer states. Peaceful overtures from Pretorius were declined, and some of his partisans in the Free State were accused of treason (February 1857). Thereupon Pretorius, aided by Paul Kruger, conducted a raid into the Free State territory. On learning of the invasion President Boshof proclaimed martial law throughout the country. The majority of the burghers rallied to his support, and on 25 May the two opposing forces faced one another on the banks of the Rhenoster. President Boshof not only got together some 800 men within the Free State, but he received offers of support from Commandant Schoeman, the Transvaal leader in the Zoutpansberg district and from Commandant Joubert of Lydenburg. Pretorius and Kruger, realising that they would have to sustain attack from both north and south, abandoned their enterprise. Their force, too, only amounted to some three hundred. Kruger came to Boshof's camp with a flag of truce, the "army" of Pretorius returned north and on 2 June a treaty of peace was signed, each state acknowledging the absolute independence of the other.

The conduct of Pretorius was stigmatised as "blameworthy." Several of the malcontents in the Free State who had joined Pretorius permanently settled in the Transvaal, and other Free Staters who had been guilty of high treason were arrested and punished. This experience did not, however, heal the party strife within the Free State. In consequence of the dissensions among the burghers President Boshof tendered his resignation in February 1858, but was for a time induced to remain in office. The difficulties of the state were at that time (1858) so great that the Volksraad in December of that year passed a resolution in favor of confederation with the Cape Colony. This proposition received the strong support of Sir George Grey, then governor of Cape Colony, but his view did not commend itself to the British government, and was not adopted.

In the same year, the disputes between the Basotho and the Boers culminated in open war. Both parties laid claims to land beyond the Warden line, and each party had taken possession of what it could, the Basotho being also expert cattle-lifters. In the war the advantage rested with the Basotho; thereupon the Free State appealed to Sir George Grey, who induced Moshoeshoe to come to terms. On 15 October 1858, a treaty was signed defining the new boundary. The peace was nominal only, while the burghers were also involved in disputes with other tribes. Mr. Boshof again tendered his resignation (February 1859) and retired to Natal. Many of the burghers would have at this time welcomed union with the Transvaal, but learning from Sir George Grey that such a union would nullify the conventions of 1852 and 1854 and necessitate the reconsideration of Great Britain's policy towards the native tribes north of the Orange and Vaal rivers, the project dropped. Commandant Pretorius was, however, elected president in place of Mr Boshof. Though unable to effect a durable peace with the Basotho, or to realise his ambition for the creation of one powerful Boer republic, Pretorius saw the Free State begin to grow in strength. The fertile district of Bethulie as well as Adam Kok's territory was acquired, and there was a considerable increase in the Boer population. The burghers generally, however, had not learned the need of discipline, of confidence in their elected rulers, or that to carry on a government taxes must be levied. Wearied like Mr Boshof of a thankless task, and more interested in affairs in the Transvaal than in those of the Free State, Pretorius resigned the presidency in 1863, and after an interval of seven months Mr (afterwards Sir) Jan Hendrik (sometimes: John Henry) Brand, an advocate at the Cape bar, was elected president. He assumed office in February 1864. His election proved a turning-point in the history of the country, which, under his beneficent and tactful guidance, became peaceful and prosperous and, in some respects, a model state. But before peace could be established an end had to be made of the difficulties with the Basutos. Moshoeshoe continued to menace the Free State border. Attempts at accommodation made by the governor of Cape Colony (Sir Philip Wodehouse) failed, and war between the Free State and Moshoeshoe was renewed in 1865. The Boers gained considerable successes, and this induced Moshoeshoe to sue for peace. The terms exacted were, however, too harsh for a nation yet unbroken to accept permanently. A treaty was signed at Thaba Busiu in April 1866, but war again broke out in 1867, and the Free State attracted to its side a large number of adventurers from all parts of South Africa. The burghers thus reinforced gained at length a decisive victory over their great antagonist, every stronghold in Basutoland save Thaba Busiu being stormed. Moshoeshoe now turned in earnest to Sir Philip Wodehouse for preservation. His prayer was heeded, and in 1868 he and his country were taken under British protection. Thus the thirty years' strife between the Basutos and the Boers came to an end. The intervention of the governor of Cape Colony led to the conclusion of the treaty of Aliwal North (12 February 1869), which defined the borders between the Orange Free State and Basutoland. A year after the addition of the Conquered Territory to the state another boundary dispute was settled by the arbitration of Mr Keate, lieutenant-governor of Natal. By the Sand River Convention, independence had been granted to the Boers living "north of the Vaal", and the dispute turned on the question as to what stream constituted the true upper course of that river. Mr Keate decided (19 February 1870) against the Free State view and fixed the Klip River as the dividing line, the Transvaal thus securing the Wakkerstroom and adjacent districts.

The Basutoland difficulties were no sooner arranged than the Free Staters found themselves confronted with a serious difficulty on their western border. In the years 1870–1871 a large number of foreign diggers had settled on the diamond fields near the junction of the Vaal and Orange rivers, which were situated in part on land claimed by the Fi Griqua chief Nicholas Waterboer and by the Free State.

The Free State established a temporary government over the diamond fields, but the administration of this body was satisfactory neither to the Free State nor to the diggers. At this juncture Waterboer offered to place the territory under the administration of Queen Victoria. The offer was accepted, and on 27 October 1871 the district, together with some adjacent territory to which the Transvaal had laid claim, was proclaimed, under the name of Griqualand West, British territory. Waterboer's claims were based on the treaty concluded by his father with the British in 1834, and on various arrangements with the Kok chiefs; the Free State based its claim on its purchase of Adam Kok's sovereign rights and on long occupation. The difference between proprietorship and sovereignty was confused or ignored. That Waterboer exercised no authority in the disputed district was admitted. When the British annexation took place a party in the Volksraad wished to go to war with Britain, but the wiser counsels of President Brand prevailed. The Free State, however, did not abandon its claims. The matter involved no little irritation between the parties concerned until July 1876. It was then disposed of by the 4th earl of Carnarvon, at that time secretary of state for the colonies, who granted to the Free State payment "in full satisfaction of all claims which it considers it may possess to Griqualand West."

Lord Carnarvon declined to entertain the proposal made by Mr Brand that the territory should be given up by Great Britain. One thing at least is certain with regard to the diamond fields — they were the means of restoring the credit and prosperity of the Free State.

In the opinion, moreover, of Dr Theal, who has written the history of the Boer Republics, the annexation of Griqualand West was probably in the best interests of the Free State. "There was," he states, "no alternative from British sovereignty other than an independent diamond field republic." At this time, largely owing to the exhausting struggle with the Basutos, the Free State Boers, like their Transvaal neighbors, had drifted into financial straits. A paper currency had been instituted, and the notes, known as "bluebacks", soon dropped to less than half their nominal value. Commerce was largely carried on by barter, and many cases of bankruptcy occurred in the state. But as British annexation in 1877 saved the Transvaal from bankruptcy, so did the influx of British and other immigrants to the diamond fields, in the early 1870s, restore public credit and individual prosperity to the Boers of the Free State. The diamond fields offered a ready market for stock and other agricultural produce. Money flowed into the pockets of the farmers. Public credit was restored. " Bluebacks " recovered par value, and were called in and redeemed by the government. Valuable diamond mines were also discovered within the Free State, of which the one at Jagersfontein is the richest. Capital from Kimberley and London was soon provided with which to work them.

The relations between the British and the Free State, after the question of the boundary was once settled, remained perfectly amicable down to the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899. From 1870 onward the history of the state was one of quiet, steady progress. At the time of the first annexation of the Transvaal the Free State declined Lord Carnarvon's invitation to federate with the other South African communities. In 1880, when a rising of the Boers in the Transvaal was threatening, President Brand showed every desire to avert the conflict. He suggested that Sir Henry de Villiers, Chief Justice of Cape Colony, should be sent into the Transvaal to endeavour to gauge the true state of affairs in that country. This suggestion was not acted upon, but when war broke out in the Transvaal, Brand declined to take any part in the struggle. In spite of the neutral attitude taken by their government a number of the Free State Boers, living in the northern part of the country, went to the Transvaal and joined their brethren then in arms against the British. This fact was not allowed to influence the friendly relations between the Free State and Great Britain. In 1888 Sir John Brand died. In him the Boers, not only in the Free State but in the whole of South Africa, lost one of the most enlightened and most upright rulers and leaders they have ever had. He realised the disinterested aims pursued by the British government, without always approving its methods. Though he had thrown the weight of his influence against Lord Carnarvon's federation scheme Brand disapproved racial rivalries.

During the period of Brand's presidency a great change, both political and economic, had come over South Africa. The renewal of the policy of British expansion had been answered by the formation of the Afrikander Bond, which represented the freedom aspirations of the Dutch-speaking people, and had active branches in the Free State. This alteration in the political outlook was accompanied, and in part occasioned, by economic changes of great significance. The development of the diamond mines and of the gold and coal industries — of which Brand saw the beginning — had far-reaching consequences, bringing the Boer republics into vital contact with the new industrial era. The Free Staters, under Brand's rule, had shown considerable ability to adapt their policy to meet the altered situation. In 1889 an agreement made between the Free State and the Cape Colony government, whereby the latter was empowered to extend, at its own cost, its railway system to Bloemfontein. The Free State retained the right to purchase this extension at cost, a right it exercised after the Jameson Raid.

Having accepted the assistance of the Cape government in constructing its railway, the state also in 1889 entered into a Customs Union Convention with them. The convention was the outcome of a conference held at Cape Town in 1888, at which delegates from Natal, the Free State and the Colony attended. Natal at this time had not seen its way to entering the Customs Union, but did so at a later date.

In January 1889 F. W. Reitz was elected president of the Free State. His accession to the presidency marked the beginning of what turned out to be a renewed dirve for freedom and independence from British rule. Reitz had no sooner got into office than a meeting was arranged with Paul Kruger, president of the South African Republic, at which various terms were discussed and decided upon regarding an agreement dealing with the railways, terms of a treaty of amity and commerce, and what was called a political treaty. The political treaty referred in general terms to a federal union between the South African Republic and the Orange Free State, and bound each of them to help the other, whenever the independence of either should be assailed or threatened from without, unless the state so called upon for assistance should be able to show the injustice of the cause of quarrel in which the other state had engaged. While thus committed to an alliance with its northern neighbour no change was made in internal administration. The Free State, in fact, from its geographical position reaped the benefits without incurring the anxieties consequent on the settlement of a large Uitlander population on the Rand. The state, however, became increasingly identified with the reactionary party in the South African Republic. In 1895 the Volksraad passed a resolution, in which they declared their readiness to entertain a proposition from the South African Republic in favour of some form of federal union. In the same year Reitz retired from the presidency of the Orange Free State, due to ill-health. He was succeeded in February 1896 by M. T. Steyn (q.v.), a judge of the High Court. In 1896 President Steyn visited Pretoria, where he received an ovation as the probable future president of the two Republics. A further offensive and defensive alliance between the two Republics was then entered into, under which the Orange Free State took up arms on the outbreak of hostilities between the British and the South African Republic in October 1899.

In 1897 President Kruger, bent on still further cementing the union with the Orange Free State, had visited Bloemfontein. It was on this occasion that Kruger, referring to the London Convention, spoke of Queen Victoria as a kwaaje Vrouw (angry woman), an expression which caused a good deal of offence in England at the time, but which, to any one familiar with the homely phraseology of the Boers, obviously was not meant by President Kruger as insulting.

The South African Republic (Dutch: Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, or ZAR), often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African province of Transvaal. The ZAR was established in 1852, and was independent from 1856 to 1877, then again from the end of the First Boer War in 1881, in which the Boers regained their independence from the British Empire, until 1900.

In 1900 the ZAR was annexed by the United Kingdom during the Second Boer War although the official surrender of the territory only took place at the end of the war, on 31 May 1902. In 1910 it became the Transvaal Province of the Union of South Africa.

The first president of the South African Republic was Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, elected in 1857, son of Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, who commanded the Boers to victory at the Battle of Blood River.

The capital was established at Pretoria (founded 1855), though for a brief period Potchefstroom served as the seat of government. The parliament, the Volksraad, had 24 members.

The Transvaal region was inhabited by the Khoisan for thousands of years, and by iron-age ancestors of modern Bantu-language speaking South Africans, such as the Sotho, Swati, Tswana, Pedi, Venda and Transvaal-Ndebele peoples since the mid 4th century AD.[citation needed]By the beginning of the 19th century, the area that would eventually become the South African Republic was home to thousands of human settlements, including chiefdoms, villages and substantial towns such as Dithakong, whose population was comparable in size to that of contemporary early 19th century Cape Town. The residents of these villages, towns and cities engaged in farming, cattle keeping, iron, copper and tin mining, metal tool making, and long distance direct and indirect trade. In 1817, the region was invaded by Mzilikazi, originally a lieutenant of Zulu King Shaka who was pushed from his own territories to the west by the Zulu armies.[1] After a brief alliance with the Transvaal Ndebele, Mzilikazi became leader of the Ndebele people. (The people of this political and ethnic entity called themselves Ndebele or amaNdebele, but because of linguistic differences, they were called Matebele by the local Sotho-Tswana.) Mzilikazi's invasion of the Transvaal was one part of a vast series of inter-related wars, forced migrations and famines that indigenous people and later historians came to call theDifaqane or mfecane. In the Transvaal, the Difaqane severely weakened and disrupted the towns and villages of the Sotho-Tswana chiefdoms, their political systems and economies, making them very weak, and easy to colonise by the European settlers who would shortly arrive from the south.

As Ndebele moved into Transvaal, the remnants of the Venda retreated north to the Waterberg and Zoutpansberg, while Mzilikazi made his chief kraal north of the Magaliesberg mountains near present day Pretoria, with an important military outpost to guard trade routes to the north at Mosega, not far from the site of the modern town of Zeerust. As the Ndebele conquered the Transvaal they absorbed many members of the conquered Sotho-Tswana and other tribes and established a military despotism. From about 1827 until about 1836, Mzilikazi dominated the southwestern Transvaal. Before that time the region between the Vaal and Limpopo was scarcely known to Europeans, but in 1829, Mzilikazi was visited at Mosega by Robert Moffat, and between that date and 1836 a few British traders and explorers visited the country and made known its principal features.

In the 1830s and the 1840s, descendants of Dutch and other settlers, collectively known as Boers (farmers) or Voortrekkers (pioneers), left the British Cape Colony, in what was to be called the Great Trek. With their military technology, they overcame the local forces with relative ease, and formed several small Boer republics in areas beyond British control, without a central government.

From 1835 until 1838, Boer settlers started to cross the Vaal and they had several skirmishes with the Ndebele. On 16 October 1836, a Boer laager (or fortified circle of wagons) led by Andries Hendrik Potgieter, was attacked by an Ndebele force of about 5,000, who looted all of Potgieter's livestock, but were unable to defeat the laager in what became known as the Battle of Vegkop. One of the Sotho-Tswana chiefs, Chief Moroka of the Barolong people, who had earlier fled the Difaqane to the south to create the settlement of Thaba Nchu, sent fresh livestock to Potgieter to draw his party's wagons back to the safety of the Barolong stronghold of Thaba Nchu, where the Sotho-Tswana chief offered the Boers food and protection. By January 1837, an alliance of 107 Boers, sixty Rolong, and forty Coloured men, organised as a commando under the leadership of Potgieter and Gert Maritz, attacked Mzilikazi's settlement at Mosega, which suffered heavy losses, and early in 1838 Mzilikazi fled north beyond the Limpopo (to current day Zimbabwe), never to return to the Transvaal. Andries Hendrik Potgieter, after the flight of the Ndebele, issued a proclamation in which he declared the country which Mzilikazi had abandoned and forfeited to the emigrant farmers, but also denying land rights to the Sotho-Tswana who had saved him and assisted in the defeat of Mzilikazi and the Ndebele. After the retreat of Mzilikazi's Ndebele, many Boer farmers trekked across the Vaal and occupied parts of the Transvaal, bringing with them the laws of their Dutch forebears. These laws placed the native population under obligation to serve the farmers for a reasonable wage, prohibited them from possession of guns and ammunition and restricted their movements around the country.[2] Into these areas, still partly populated by remnants of the Ndebele and Sotho-Tswana, there was also a considerable immigration of members of the various Sotho-Tswana chiefdoms who had fled during the Difaqane.

The first permanent European settlement north of the Vaal was made by a party under Potgieter's leadership. That commandant had in March 1838 gone to Natal, and had endeavoured to avenge the massacre of Piet Retief and his comrades by the Zulus. Jealous, however, of the preference shown by the Voortrekkers in Natal to another commandant, Gert Maritz, Potgieter soon recrossed the Drakensberg, and in November 1838 he and his followers settled by the banks of the Mooi River, founding a town named Potchefstroom in honour of Potgieter. This party instituted an elementary form of government, and in 1840 entered into a loose confederation with the Natalia Republic Boer, and also with the Voortrekkers south of the Vaal, whose headquarters were atWinburg. In 1842, however, Potgieter's party declined to go to the help of the Natal Boers, then involved in conflict with the British. Up to 1845 Potgieter continued to exercise authority over the Boer communities on both sides of the Vaal. A determination to keep clear of the British and to obtain access to the outer world through an independent channel led Potgieter and a considerable number of the Potchefstroom and Winburg burghers in 1845 to migrate towards Delagoa Bay. Potgieter settled in the Zoutpansberg, while other farmers chose as headquarters a place on the inner slopes of the Drakensberg, where they founded a village called Andries Ohrigstad. It proved fever-ridden and was abandoned, a new village being laid out on higher ground and namedLydenburg in memory of their sufferings at the abandoned settlement. Meanwhile, the southern districts abandoned by Potgieter and his comrades were occupied by other Boers. These were joined in 1848 by Andries W. J. Pretorius, who became commandant of the Potchefstroom settlers.

On 17 January 1852, the United Kingdom signed the Sand River Convention treaty with 5,000 or so of the Boer families (about 40,000 white people), recognising their independence in the region to the north of the Vaal River, or the Transvaal. The Orange Free State, a sister Boer republic, was granted independence around the same time. But while they had obtained independence, they were far from being a united people. When Pretorius conducted the negotiations which led to the signing of the Sand River Convention he did so without consulting the volksraad, and Potgieter's party accused him of usurping power and aiming at domination over the whole country. However, the volksraad, at a meeting held at Rustenburg on 16 March 1852, ratified the convention, Potgieter and Pretorius having been publicly reconciled on the morning of the same day. Both leaders were near the end of their careers; Potgieter died in March and Pretorius in July 1853.

On the death of Andries Pretorius his son Marthinus W. Pretorius (q.v.) had been appointed his successor, and to the younger Pretorius was due the first efforts to end the discord and confusion which prevailed among the burghers – a discord heightened by ecclesiastical strife, the points at issue being questions not of faith but of church government. In 1856 a series of public meetings, summoned by Pretorius, was held at different districts in the Transvaal for the purpose of discussing and deciding whether the time had not arrived for substituting a strong central government in place of the petty district governments which had hitherto existed. The result was that a representative assembly of delegates was elected, empowered to draft a constitution.

In December 1856, the Transvaal assembly met at Potchefstroom, and for three weeks was engaged in modelling the constitution 1856 of the country. The name Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic) was adopted as the title of the state, and the new constitution made provision for a volksraad to which members were to be elected by the people for a period of two years, and in which the legislative function was vested. The administrative authority was to be vested in a president, aided by an executive council. It was stipulated that members both of the volksraad and council should be members of the Dutch Reformed Church, and of European blood. No equality of coloured people with the white inhabitants would be tolerated either in church or state. In reviewing an incident so important in the history of the Transvaal as the appointment of the Potchefstroom assembly it is of interest to note the gist of the complaint among the Boers which led to this revolution in the government of the country as it had previously existed. In his History of South Africa, Theal says: "The community of Lydenburg was accused of attempting to domineer over the whole country, without any other right to pre-eminence than that of being composed of the earliest inhabitants, a right which it had forfeited by its opposition to the general weal." In later years this complaint was precisely that of the Uitlanders at Johannesburg. To conciliate the Boers of Zoutpansberg the new-born assembly at Potchefstroom appointed Stephanus Schoeman, the commandantgeneral of the Zoutpansberg district, commandant-general of the whole country. This offer was, however, declined by Schoeman, and both Zoutpansberg and Lydenburg indignantly repudiated the new assembly and its constitution. The executive council, which had been appointed by the Potchefstroom assembly, with Pretorius as president, now took up a bolder attitude: they deposed Schoeman from all authority, declared Zoutpansberg in a state of blockade, and denounced the Boers of the two northern districts as rebels.

Further to strengthen their position, Pretorius and his party unsuccessfully endeavoured to bring about a union with the Orange Free State. Peaceful overtures having failed, Pretorius and Paul Kruger placed themselves at the head of a commando which crossed the Vaal with the object of enforcing union, but the Free State compelled their withdrawal. Within the Transvaal the forces making for union gained strength notwithstanding these events, and by 1860 Zoutpansberg and Lydenburg had become incorporated with the republic. Pretoria, newly founded, and named in honour of the elder Pretorius, was made the seat of government and capital of the country. The ecclesiastical efforts at unity had not been equally successful. The Separatist Reformed Church of the Netherlands had sent out a young expositor of its doctrines named Postma, who, in November 1858, became minister of Rustenburg. In the following year a general church assembly endeavoured to unite all the congregations in a common government, but Postma's consistory rejected these overtures, and from that date the Separatist (or Dopper) Church has had an independent existence. Paul Kruger, who lived near Rustenburg, became a strong adherent of the new church.

Pretorius, while still president of the Transvaal, had been elected, through the efforts of his partisans, president of the Orange Free State. He thereupon (in February 1860) obtained six months' leave of absence and repaired to Bloemfontein, in the hope of peacefully bringing about a union between the two republics. He had no sooner left the Transvaal than the -old Lydenburg party, headed by Cornelis Potgieter, landdrost of Lydenburg, protested that the union would be much more beneficial to the Free State than to the people of Lydenburg, and followed this up with the contention that it was illegal for any one to be president of the South African Republic and the Free State at the same time. At the end of the six months Pretorius, after a stormy meeting of the volksraad, apparently in disgust at the whole situation, resigned the presidency of the Transvaal. J. H. Grobelaar, who had been appointed president during the temporary absence of Pretorius, was requested to remain in office. The immediate followers of Pretorius now became extremely incensed at the action of the Lydenburg party, and a mass meeting was held at Potchefstroom (October 1860), where it was resolved that: (a) the volksraad no longer enjoyed its confidence; (b) that Pretorius should remain president of the South African Republic, and have a year's leave of absence to bring about union with the Free State; (c) that Schoeman should act as president during the absence of Pretorius; (d) that before the return of Pretorius to resume his duties a new volksraad should be elected.

In 1865 an empty exchequer called for drastic measures, and the volksraad determined to endeavour to meet their liabilities and provide for further contingencies by the issue of notes. Paper money was thus introduced, and in a very short time fell to a considerable discount. In this same year the farmers of the Zoutpansberg district were driven into laagers by a native rising which they were unable to suppress. Schoemansdal, a village at the foot of the Zoutpansberg, was the most important settlement of the district, and the most advanced outpost in European occupation at that time in South Africa. It was just within the tropics, and was situated in a well-watered and beautiful country. It was used as a base by hunters and traders with the interior, and in its vicinity there gathered a number of settlers of European origin, many of them outcasts from Europe or Cape Colony. They earned the reputation of being the most lawless white inhabitants in the whole of South Africa. When called upon to go to the aid of this settlement, which in 1865–1866 was sore pressed by one of the mountain Bantu tribes known as the Baramapulana, the burghers of the southern Transvaal objected that the white inhabitants of that region were too lawless and reckless a body to merit their assistance. In 1867 Schoemansdal and a considerable portion of the district were abandoned on the advice of Commandant-general Paul Kruger, and Schoemansdal finally was burnt to ashes by a party of natives. It was not until 1869 that peace was patched up, and the settlement arrived at left the mountain tribes in practical independence. Meanwhile the public credit and finances of the Transvaal went from bad to worse. The paper notes already issued had been constituted by law legal tender for all debts, but in 1868 their power of actual purchase was only 30% compared with that of gold, and by 1870 it had fallen as low as 25%. Civil servants, who were paid in this depreciated scrip, suffered considerable distress. The revenue for 1869 was stated as £31,511; the expenditure at £30,836.

The discovery of gold on the Tati River led President Pretorius in April 1868 to issue a proclamation extending his territories on the west and north so as to embrace the goldfield and portion ofBechuanaland. The same proclamation extended Transvaal territory on the east so as to include part of Delagoa Bay. The eastern extension claimed by Pretorius was the sequel to endeavours made shortly before, on the initiative of a Scotsman, to develop trade along the rivers leading to Delagoa Bay. It was also in accord with the desire of the Transvaal Boers to obtain a seaport, a desire which had led them as early as 1860 to negotiate with the Zulus for the possession of St Lucia Bay. That effort had, however, failed. And now the proclamation of Pretorius was followed by protests on the part of the British high commissioner, Sir Philip Edmond Wodehouse, as well as on the part of the consul-general for Portugal in South Africa. The boundary on the east was settled by a treaty with Portugal in 1869, the Boers abandoning their claim to Delagoa Bay; that on the west was dealt with in 1871.

In 1877, before the 1886 Witwatersrand Gold Rush, Britain annexed the Transvaal. The Boers viewed this as an act of aggression, and protested. In 16 December 1880 the independence of the republic was proclaimed again, leading to the First Boer War. The Pretoria Convention of 1881 gave the Boers self-rule in the Transvaal, under British oversight. Kruger was elected president in 1883 and the republic was restored with full independence in 1884 with the London Convention, but not for long. The Gold rush also brought an influx of non-Boer European settlers (called uitlanders, outlanders, by the Boers), leading to a destabilisation of the republic. Kruger was re-elected president in 1888 and 1893, each time defeating Piet Joubert.

In 1895, Cape Premier Cecil Rhodes planned to support an uitlander coup d'état against the Transvaal government. Leander Starr Jameson carried out this plan, without publicly acknowledged British authorisation, in December of that year – in the ill-fated Jameson Raid. After the failed raid, there were rumours that Germany offered protection to the Boer republic, something which alarmed the British. Kruger won another presidential election in 1898, but the following year British forces were gathering on the borders of the Boer Republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State and fearing Britain's imminent annexation, the Boers launched a preemptive strike against the nearby British colonies in 1899, a strike which became the Second Boer War.

The Second Boer War was a watershed for the British Army in particular and for the British Empire as a whole. It was here that the British first usedconcentration camps in a war setting (the first general use being by the Spanish during the Cuban insurrections of the 1890s).